Description:
Setting: Contemporary New York
Sensuality: 8 Gayla Patton and David "Dak" Kinney share an uneasy past. David grew up on the dangerous streets of St. Nicholas Place in Harlem, while only blocks away Gayla lived with her brother and mother, Sylvia, in a brownstone on stately Convent Avenue. After David's mother was murdered by his stepfather, Sylvia took the troubled teen into her home--an act Gayla and her brother deeply resented. Now in her thirties, Gayla manages an art gallery in New York, has a steady man in her life, and is the proud single mother of a beautiful, precocious daughter named Allison. Her life is going according to plan until fate intervenes and David reappears. A promising artist whose work catches the attention of Gayla's boss, David Kinney's presence makes Gayla consider her past--and her future--in a new light. But before they can fully explore a romantic relationship, both Gayla's and David's past indiscretions return to haunt them, threatening the very fabric of their lives and those they love. Filled with beautiful, spare prose, this contemporary tale delicately deals with biracial relationships with an honesty and insight that pulls no punches. The complicated tangle of family relationships defined by ties of the heart rather than heredity is thought provoking and a wonderful read. --Lois Faye Dyer
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