Tribes of Time, a book that won an honorable mention award at the 2012 Beach Book Festival, is the debut novel for Jaymes E. Terry. It is a chilling story of racial prejudice in modern-day America.
Unfortunately, prejudice against those who are not white still exists in some parts of this nation. This book shows just how much harm such prejudice can cause, just as it reveals how deeply rooted in the culture of some towns it can be.
So let’s pretend you are a well-to-do black man (or woman). You are a successful physicist and are traveling through rural Tennessee on your way to bring to fruition a project you have been working on for a while. Mechanical problems with your car cause you to stop on the side of the road and you get out to see just what the problem is. It is then you hear horrendous screams coming from the woods. Would you go and investigate? Or would you turn and get out of there as fast as you can? This is what happens to Dr. Haines Johnson. He runs to investigate, and is drawn into a series of events that was not planned or wished for.
He saves the life of another black man who is about to be killed by six men, all members of the KKK. Now both black men know they are in some serious trouble. Racial tension is extremely high where they are, and the penalty for a black man killing a white man, even if it is done in self-defense, is certain death. Haines Johnson is a very educated man with some powerful connections. Reading what this prejudiced community puts these two black men through while trying to convict them of the murders of those who were going to murder them will keep you on the edge of your seat.
I have a feeling that there is a sequel to this book in the future, at least I hope there is. I would like to know more about the Sankofa Project that Haines Johnson was working on. I would like to know if he succeeds in what he set out to do.
The story itself is awesome and it kept my interest to the point that I had trouble putting the book down, and when I did succeed in putting it down, I was trying to figure out what would happen next. For the storyline, I would give the book five stars. As a writer and an editor, I know how easy it is to not see the mistakes you have made when you edit your own writing. I won’t go into the types of mistakes that jumped out at me while I was reading the story, but there were more than a few of them. So for editing, I would only give it three stars. The story was so interesting that even with the editorial mistakes, I couldn’t wait to pick the book back up and finish the story.
The author sent me a copy of Tribes of Time free of charge in exchange for an honest review. If you would like a copy of this book for your own reading pleasure, I have provided an Amazon link below.
