“If you are looking for a true, gritty story about life in its rawest form, then Black Child to Black Woman...will fit the bill.” — Readers Favorite
When twenty-four-year-old Tara Walker goes home for her brother’s funeral, she discovers the secret journal she started when she was eight. As she reads, she is pulled back into her complicated, raw, and often frightening childhood, where drug addiction, alcoholism and predators brought chaos into her privileged, middle-class home.
Through the love and guidance of her hard-working parents, Tara navigates these threats and matures into a smart, strong, young woman. Yet, even as she celebrates small personal victories, she spirals into a dark depression from disturbing family secrets and rejection. Through it all, she journals her changing perspective on the world around her and continues to smile in the face of adversity.
When it’s time for Tara to become a mother herself, she must once again conquer her traumatic past to discover the true meaning of life, happiness, family and unconditional love. Tara’s gripping, raw and illuminating coming-of-age journey will captivate readers as they watch this intelligent black child grow into an extraordinary black woman.
Cheryl Powell, (writing under pen name Cheryl Denise Bannerman), is a multi-genre author of five successful works of fiction, a motivational speaker, and CEO. She resides in Orlando, Florida, where she runs a virtual Training and Development company, GC Learning Services LLC dba Learn2Engage, which she founded in 1996.
Within each of my first three works of fiction, Black Child to Black Woman, Words Never Spoken, and A Killer's Reflection, a topic of social concern is addressed, such as alcohol and drug addictions, domestic abuse and violence, depression, suicide, and childhood molestation.
A piece of my own heart and experiences are weaved into the words on the page in some way, shape, or form, which is how I ensure the characters and dialogue are powerful and real.
My goal in life is to keep writing and continue helping victims of Domestic Abuse/Violence, Grief and ANON family groups, and Corporate Health and Wellness groups, to heal through words, as well as encouraging everyone to ‘write the pain’ through journaling, and expressing themselves in short stories, songs, and poetry.
In this excerpt, Tara, as a little girl, was manipulated by an older male cousin into doing the unthinkable.
Book Excerpt
Black Child to Black Woman
Anyway, after dessert we were all playing and went across the street to Michael's house and played some more. Michael has a crush on me and it kinda makes me blush when he talks to me. Sometimes though he says things about my body I don't like, him and my cousin Lorenzo. Lorenzo is my favorite boy cousin. He is the son of my Aunt Terri. We play a lot outside pretending we're camping through the woods and stuff at his house in Deptford. I kinda look up to him because he's bigger and tells me exciting things sometimes. He has the neatest electronic games. There's just one thing that bothers me. I am not sure if it's wrong or not, but it happened last Saturday. Me and Lorenzo were upstairs at my grandmom's in Philly 'til our parents came to pick us up and he said he wanted to try something and to lay down on the bed. I don't know why I agreed so easily, maybe because I trusted my big cousin. Then he asked me to pull down my pants, so I pulled them down a little to my knees. He then pulled his down and tried to put his thing on my middle part. All of the sudden grandmom yelled for us!! We jumped up, pulled up our pants and ran downstairs. We haven't talked about it since then. I feel really weird about it and I will never tell a soul. That means nobody.
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