Hulu orders Oprah Winfrey-produced murder-mystery family drama Black Cake

Deadline

Based on Charmaine Wilkerson's upcoming 2022 novel, Black Cake is a family drama wrapped in a murder mystery with a diverse cast of characters and a global setting, taking place in Jamaica, Rome, Scotland, England and Southern California. Women of the Movement creator Marissa Jo Cerar will adapt the book, with Winfrey aboard as executive producer. According to Deadline, "in the late 1960s, a runaway bride named Covey disappears into the surf off the coast of Jamaica and is feared drowned or a fugitive on the run for her husband’s murder. Fifty years later in California, Eleanor Bennett, a widow in her 60s, loses her battle with cancer, leaving her two estranged children a flash-drive that holds previously untold stories of her journey from the Caribbean to America. These stories, narrated by Eleanor, shock her children and challenge everything they thought they knew about their family’s origin. The book — and its series adaptation — are named after a dish that signifies the marriage of cultures at the heart of the story. Black cake evolved from the British plum pudding that colonizers brought to the West Indies. Islanders then modified the recipe, incorporating their local ingredients."