Blues Dancing by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

Blues Dancing

A Novel

Diane McKinney-Whetstone

HarperCollins · Print & ebook · October 13, 2009

"McKinney-Whetstone uses her gift for language to weave a love story that spans more than twenty years and three lives. . . .

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Who it’s for
A Philadelphia love story weighs desire, faith, and accountability across two decades.
Themes
Love and passion, Betrayal and redemption, Reconciling passion with accountability
Genres
Black Romance, Black Women's Fiction, Contemporary Romance

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For younger readers: Muted, No Place to Fall, The Davenports: More Than This

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About this book

"McKinney-Whetstone uses her gift for language to weave a love story that spans more than twenty years and three lives. . . . Blues Dancing is a novel well worth curling up with a long winter’s night." —Essence From acclaimed writer Diane McKinney-Whetstone, a richly spun tale of love and passion, betrayal, redemption, and faith, set in contemporary Philadelphia. My aunt says if you smell butter on a foggy night you're getting ready to fall in love.

Continue reading

For the last twenty years, the beautiful Verdi Mae has led a comfortable life with Rowe, the conservative professor who rescued her from addiction when she was an undergrad. But her world is about to shift when the smell of butter lingers in the air and Johnson—the boy from the back streets of Philadelphia who pulled her into the fire of passion and all the shadows cast from it—returns to town. In "this story of self-discovery that moves seamlessly between the early 1970s and early 1990s" (Publishers Weekly, starred review), McKinney-Whetstone takes readers into a world of erotic love, drugs, and political activism, and beautifully illustrates the struggle to reconcile passion with accountability and the redemptive powers of love's rediscovery. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Love and Reckoning

A Philadelphia love story weighs desire, faith, and accountability across two decades.

Come here for

  • A decades-spanning romance shaped by passion and consequence
  • Philadelphia as the backdrop to love, faith, and hard choices

Expect

  • Intimate stakes alongside addiction and political activism
  • A shift between the early 1970s and early 1990s

Where it sits

Black Romance61%
Black Women's Fiction19%
Contemporary Romance18%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Plays by Women
  • Romance Erotica
  • Contemporary Romance
  • Short Stories (Single Author)
Show all 8 publisher categories
  • Political Fiction
  • Sea Stories
  • Black Women's Fiction
  • Black Romance
Authors
Diane McKinney-Whetstone
Publisher
HarperCollins
Published
October 13, 2009
Format
Print & ebook
Theme
Love and passion · Betrayal and redemption · Reconciling passion with accountability
Reading lane
Plays by Women