"Emotionally rich, fresh and disturbingly relevant in today’s world."

• ASIN: ‎ B0B2TZD9H7
• Publisher: ‎ Excel Book Writing (May 30, 2022)
• Publication date: ‎ May 30, 2022
• Language: ‎ English
• Print length: ‎ 172 pages
• Page numbers source ISBN: ‎ 1957837144
• Genre:  U.S. Short Stories

The BookViral Review:

In a beautifully written debut collection of short stories Lauren Wilson gives us a reflective meditation on ordinary people’s expectations and assumptions with stories that are emotionally rich whilst feeling fresh and disturbingly relevant in today’s world.

In a short story, nothing is superfluous and that’s certainly true in Afro-Bougie Blues where the focus of Wilson’s sentences is sharp and vivid but splendidly elliptical too.

Particularly skilled at compression Wilson is not afraid to take risks, with form, content, style, and structure as is clearly evident in “Transformations” where she writes a story that doesn’t look how short stories are meant to look by presenting it as email exchanges. It’s close to faultless, ingenious, singular and full of the echoes of real life.

The best short stories should explore ideas as well as emotions centering around an instant where intense change becomes possible or, at least, imaginable for the character and this is true in all of Wilson’s stories but perhaps no more so than in “Mourning Angela” where every sentence is as full and alive as a sentence can be while managing to stay ordinary and wholly relatable to her readers. And it’s this kind of attention to detail and richness of texture that lifts her characters from the page into some more lasting place in a reader’s mind.

With twelve stories for readers to immerse themselves in and characters that feel vulnerable and real Afro-Bougie Blues is a must-read for fans of short fiction and is an unreservedly recommended 5-star read!