“A skilled storyteller.”
Washington Post Book World
“Diane McKinney-Whetstone has a gift for secrets—personal secrets, family secrets, childhood secrets. She excels…allowing tensions to build to a breaking point before clearing the air with a dramatic revelation. Blues Dancing is no exception, with multiple secrets and drama to spare.”
Philadelphia Inquirer
“Novelist Diane McKinney-Whetstone makes readers settle in and get comfortable. Closing her latest book, Blues Dancing, is reminiscent of moving from a beloved neighborhood and leaving behind friends who are like family.”
Emerge
“She ought to be classified among the best of all contemporary fiction writers, period.”
Detroit Free Press
“[A] stirring novel.”
Baltimore Sun
“McKinney-Whetstone gives a rhapsodic performance in this story of self-discovery that moves seamlessly between the early 1970s and early ’90s…. Pitch-perfect dialogue and a keen eye capture the spirit and cadences of the early ’70s…. Flashbacks to the early days of the erstwhile lovers’ relationship shimmer with the intoxication of first love, while their later encounters powerfully reveal their vulnerability to old desires…. Readers [become] passionately involved in the fates of these winning characters.”
Publishers Weekly (*Starred Review*)
“A writer of obvious talent.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“An author who, like a good blues singer, is strong on style and interpretation…. A gifted prose writer with a tremendous sense of place.”
Kirkus Reviews
“In an era when most writers bank on hype and hook to grab a reader’s attention, McKinney-Whetstone has amassed an enthusiastic cadre of readers by writing engaging characters supported by enchanting language.”
BET Weekend
“Is McKinney-Whetstone the next Paule Marshall, Alice Walker, or Anne Tyler? In terms of critical success, perhaps she is or will be. But more important, her work offers just what readers are looking for—a fresh new voice, strong and clear, wise and warm.”
New Orleans Times-Picayune
“McKinney-Whetstone’s strength—apparent in all her work, including Blues Dancing—is plot development. Her novels have a page-turning quality, long the most overlooked skill in novel writing. Blues Dancing is McKinney-Whetstone’s most writerly novel to date.”
Philadelphia Weekly
“An author apart from the usual and ordinary…Her lyricism has been compared to Toni Morrison and her perception of family to Tina Ansa. Her characters are always unpredictable and multi-layered.”
Newport News Daily Press
“A fine tale…The author wraps the characters in emotions so acute that readers can virtually taste Johnson’s sadness, Verdi’s innocence, and Rowe’s manipulation.”
Black Issues Book Review
“McKinney-Whetstone’s gifts as a writer continue to fascinate.”
San Francisco Chronicle