A Cupboard Full of Coats

Those with allergies to facial tissue should be warned that Jinx Jackson's experiences as both a daughter and a mother would wrench tears from statues. Adjoa Andoh delivers spot-on British and Caribbean accents and shoots the listener's blood pressure to dangerous heights with her fast-paced and emotion-driven narration. Jinx's career as a beautician to the deceased doesn't allow her to move beyond her mother's tragic demise. Her burdens similarly degrade her relationship with her young son and his father. Listeners won't soon forget Jinx's dramatic encounter with a visitor from the past who forces her to confront her past, present, and future. J.J.B. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Starred review from May 23, 2011
Edwards elegantly braids together the lives of three people whose entangled love for the same woman turns sour in this gut-wrenching and gorgeously lyrical debut novel. Fourteen years after Jinx Jackson's mother was killed, "Lemon," a man mysteriously involved in the events of the murder, shows up at her doorstep with crippling news: the murderer is out of prison. Jinx's first instinct is to run. Full well knowing it's "too late for regret," Lemon wants to "put the record straight." And over a period of three days, Edwards sweeps the reader along a stream of memories revolving around Jinx's mother, who chose an abusive relationship over loneliness. "To know her was to love her," and love her these characters did (and do), each in their own way, but some of that love contributed to her murder "in hot blood." Edwards has drawn complicated characters whose voices are as distinct as the choices they have made. Jinx propels the narrative forward with her raw honesty as she unpacks the "private disgrace" that is her life. Engrossing and human to the core, Edwards's novel wrings the heart in the most tender of ways.