Starlight Passage: 0a Novel

Each of Bunkley's novels has dealt with the historical legacy of African Americans-Black Gold with black landowners in Texas in the early 1900s, and Wild Embers with African Americans in WWII. Here, taking up the issue of reparations for exploited black folk artists, she limns a contemporary black woman's search for her roots. Kiana Sheridan's faltering dissertation research leaps forward when she uncovers her deceased mother's family narrative. Convinced that an ancestor was Soddy Russell, an artisan whose work has begun to command record prices, she joins a Smithsonian tour she hopes will prove her case-only to learn, in D.C., that the trip has been canceled. Intrigued by Kiana's project, however, tour guide Rex Tandy agrees to lead her on a solo tour. Before departing for Tennessee, Kiana visits her stepsister Ida, who is deeply envious of Kiana despite a powerful job and her engagement to a rising black congressman. As Kiana grows suspicious of the sudden infusion of ""Soddy Glass"" into the art market, Ida-who commissions fakes that inflate prices-pursues desperate measures to prevent her carefully constructed world from collapsing. Meanwhile, a parallel subplot, set mostly during the Civil War, details the perseverance and courage of Kiana's ancestors, slave couple Adi and Price; while back in the present, Rex finds his growing romantic interest in Kiana distracting him from the troubles of his delinquent brother. Bunkley's lively characters, as well as her research into the question of reparation, elevate this tale above a standard romantic melodrama-but there's plenty of desire and danger here, too. (May)