The Stars and the Blackness Between Them

More about the book

Port of Spain, Trinidad. Sixteen-year-old Audre is heartbroken, having just found out she's going to live in America with her father because her mother caught her with her secret girlfriend, the pastor's granddaughter. Audre's grandmother (a dancer who drives a white convertible Mercedes and has a few secrets of her own) reassures Audre that she won't lose her roots, not even in some place called Minneapolis. "America have dey spirits too, believe me," she tells Audre. Minneapolis, USA. Sixteen-year-old Mabel is staring at a picture of Whitney Houston, trying figure out why she feels the way she feels - about her ex, Terrell, about her girl Jada and that moment they had in the woods, and about the vague feeling of illness that's plagued her all summer. Mabel's reverie is cut short when her dad announces that a friend and his just-arrived-from-Trinidad daughter are coming for dinner. Mabel falls hard and fast for Audre, and she's determined to help Audre find her way in America - never an easy thing for a Black girl, as she knows. But their romance takes a turn when test results reveal exactly why Mabel has been feeling low-key sick all summer. Suddenly it's Audre who must care for Mabel as she faces a deeply uncertain future. -- From dust jacket