In Descendants of the Big House, author C. Vonzale Lewis begins with a dedication to strong women who continue to fight injustice, followed by an inspiring quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and then a warning that the book will deal with the cruelty her ancestors had to endure. She writes that she intends to present a sliver of hope. Following that encouragement comes four lines of poetry from Georgia Douglas Johnson, followed by a complex family tree diagram. What all this preface material says is that this novel will be dealing with difficult historical matters of race and family. We find ourselves in a police precinct office where Detective Beatrice Monroe tells us she is deeply into a feverish journal written by someone in her family, and which refers to the balance of good versus evil. She goes on to tell us that during Mardi Gras, she met the embodiment of evil, Papa Sin, who told her she is a Champion for Good and Evil. The premise of the story to follow is that rather than one defeating the other, a balance must be maintained between the two. From there, our narrator, Detective Beatrice Monroe, tells the story of a family in which this battle has gone on for generations. Now, in Silverwood, Georgia, a woman shows up at the precinct, wanting an investigation into the recent murder of her aunt.

With this intriguing premise, I looked forward to the story told to us by Detective Monroe. C. Vonzale Lewis’s storytelling skill in her first-person narrator kept me turning the pages. The tale is a clash between fact-finding and supernatural forces in which female-twin members of the family tree have been systematically murdered to keep this mythical Balance, and it falls on Detective Monroe to figure out what is going on. Bea’s voice is frank, ironic, searching, humorous, and professional as she pursues the case along with her department cohorts. She carries the drama, which, without this dynamic narrator, might fall into the depths of supernatural and historical enigma. Put simply, C. Vonzale Lewis’s Descendants of the Big House is a pure delight and not to be missed.

During Mardi Gras, Beatrice Monroe once met the embodiment of evil, who told her she was a Champion of Good and Evil. Time passed since that encounter, and she still had no idea what that could mean, unsure of what effect it would have on her life as a member of law enforcement. Still, she tried to piece together fragments of what she knew and spent most of her days reading through old family diaries in search of answers. In the series of journals written by her grandma, Lucille, she could see the signs of her mind breaking as time passed, and she worried that she would eventually follow the same path. All the unanswered questions frustrated her, but Beatrice couldn’t shake the feeling that something crucial was just out of reach. Little does she know that the answers she was seeking may be more than she could handle. Read Descendants of the Big House (A Horde of Dead Poets) by C. Vonzale Lewis to find out more!

Descendants of the Big House is a first-person point-of-view novel that brought me directly into the storyteller’s mind. C. Vonzale Lewis conveyed the expressions of the characters with striking clarity. She captured the narrator’s inner thoughts and feelings so well that every chapter pulled me deeper into the story. I was hooked. It almost felt like I was standing right there, experiencing everything firsthand. The story was so immersive. Beatrice's moments of sorrow and uncertainty resonated with me. Lewis was fearless in her craft. Reading her work made me feel like something in her demanded to be expressed, to be revealed in a story only she could tell. The words provoked thought and deep feelings within me. It led me through a maze of intrigue and speculation. This was a world of hidden truths and startling revelations. Exceptional work!