Black Cherokee    by Antonio Michael Downing Order:  USA  Can Simon & Schuster, 2025 (2025) Hardcover, e-Book     Reviewed by Barbara Lingens A complicated story within a complicated story, Black Cherokee satisfies in so many ways. The characters are beautifully portrayed, all very unique and wonderful individuals. The awful tension between Blacks and Native Americans forms the background of the inner story. A family separated because of these tensions reaches a point of crisis when a young teenager becomes pregnant. This plays out in a battle for land rights. A Native American tribe was encouraged to disband by whites who wished to develop their land. The whites purchased the land and subsequently caused the river running through it to be contaminated. The legal battle for restitution causes long-held animosities between the two ethnic groups to spin out of control. This is a fine story by a talented writer. My only quibbles are that I had difficulty in several places with understanding who was speaking when there were too many 'he saids' in one paragraph and my feeling that the ending to the land-right battle came a bit abruptly. Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Contemporary books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews