Welcome!

The Senior Book Club meets the 3rd Monday of every month at the Joe C. Montoya Community and Senior Center, located at 245 N Thorpe Rd, Flagstaff, AZ 86001.

All books provided are large print books for easier reading.

If you need to check out the current book, call 928-213-2380 or email libraryprograms@flagstaffpubliclibrary.org. You can also stop by the library and get your book there.

Next meeting books will be available at the Joe C. Montoya Community Center to check out after the meeting. You can also return the previous book then.

This month we are reading:

Black Cake

by Charmaine Wilkerson

Nominee for Best Historical Fiction (2022), Nominee for Best Debut Novel (2022)

We can’t choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become?

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.

Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor’s true history, and fulfill her final request to “share the black cake when the time is right”? Will their mother’s revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?

Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.