Soul Kiss: A Novel

The "intelligent and erotic" debut novel (Washington Post) by the author of the new hardcover, Black Girl in Paris

"Hauntingly beautiful...vibrantly alive...calls to mind Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."-Boston Herald

Soul Kiss, an eloquent first novel from well-known African-American playwright Shay Youngblood, opens as seven-year-old Mariah Kim Santos is unceremoniously and suddenly deposited by her mother to live with two maiden aunts in rural Georgia. The only parting words from Mama are "Mama loves you." Mariah is then directed to wait for her mother's return. Years pass and Mariah's mother doesn't come back. Mariah forms a unique and loving relationship with her surrogate parents. As she passes into womanhood, Mariah feels emotionally complete only with other women; when she learns for the first time about the existence of her father, the central questions of her familial and sexual identities rise, and she seeks out that father, a painter living in Los Angeles. There she makes the disorienting simultaneous discovery of new areas of explosive erotic passion and family love.