Wild Women and the Blues: survival, life, love and forgiveness

Wild Women and the Blues by Denny S. Bryce is a story of survival, forgiveness, life and love with all its joys and sadness, its ups and downs. In 1925, Chicago was the jazz capital of the world and the Dreamland Cafe was the club to see and be seen. Nineteen year old Honoree Daclour was a sharecropper’s daughter, no stranger to hard work, and was willing to dance her way to the top. The Dreamland offered a path to the good life and socializing with the celebrities of the day. However, Chicago is also home to bootleg whiskey, gambling and gangsters. In 2015, Sawyer Hayes was a film student desperate to interview the 110-year old Honoree. All his hope is resting with the frail but formidable woman. She is the only living link to help fill in the gaps in his research. Little does he know that she’ll fill in a lot more blanks than he expects. 

With its gorgeous cover and interesting premise, I was eager to read Wild Women and the Blues. It is the debut novel for Ms. Bryce who wrote a stirring story of the vibrant Chicago during the Jazz Age. Both desperate to find a better life and at the same time, desperate to keep their secrets. As Honoree reveals her story and her secrets, Sawyer finds healing in confronting his past and revealing secrets can close wounds. The story was moving with twists and turns as well as a great history lesson into the Jazz Age. I knew of Louis Armstrong; however I had never heard of his wife, Lil Hardin Armstrong. Or the great Oscar Micheaux, the US’s first major Black filmmaker, whose work countered the negative on screen portrayals of blacks at the time. Wild Women and the Blues is a mix of fiction and history lesson. I highly recommend Wild Women and the Blues!

Wild Women and the Blues is available in paperback, eBook, and audiobook