Fiction - Front Row

Fantasy continues to swirl in works by notable writers.

KINDRED (Beacon Press, $14.00) by Octavia Butler is the story of Dana Franklin, a 20th century Black woman who is drawn from her Los Angeles home and transported back to the Maryland plantation of her White slave-owning ancestor. This is the 25th anniversary edition of the acclaimed story of Franklin's trips back in time, where she is forced to witness the humiliation and cruelty of slavery in order to save her ancestor's life and her own family line.

THE AWAKENING (St. Martin's Press/Griffin Paperback Original, $12.95) by L.A. Banks is the second book in this vampire huntress series that was launched with Minion. Damali Richards is a spoken word artist for Warriors of Light Records. After dark, she hunts vampires who threaten the souls of the innocent. Now a civil war among the vampires is about to spill over in the streets and Damali must place her trust in an ex-lover-turned-vampire to prevail.

Fantasies of a different sort are featured in three collections of erotica. CHOCOLATE FLAVA: THE EROTICANOIR.COM ANTHOLOGY (Atria Books, $15.00, trade paperback) edited by Zane, is the first in a series of collections of erotica by the best-selling author of such titles as Addicted and The Sex Chronicles. This one is a "his and hers" collection of stories by leading Black writers of erotica. BROWN SUGAR 3 WHEN OPPOSITES ATTRACT: A COLLECTION OF EROTIC BLACK FICTION (Washington Square Press, $15.00 trade paperback), edited by Carol Taylor, is the third installment in this best-selling, award-winning series, delving into "liaisons that are impulsive, forbidden or simply unexpected." INTIMACY: EROTIC STORIES OF LOVE, LUST, AND MARRIAGE BY BLACK MEN (Plume, $14.00 trade paperback), edited by Robert Fleming, is the follow-up to Fleming's award-winning collection After Hours, featuring such writers as John Edgar Wideman, Trey Ellis, Stephen Barnes and Christopher Chambers.

Big city and dynamic professional Sisters are featured in several offerings. A MEETING IN THE LADIES ROOM (Dafina Books/Kensington Publishing, $24.00) by Anita Doreen Diggs gives an insider's view of the rarefied world of the New York book publishing business by a woman who spent 12 years as an editor.

This story is about a top Black editor who wants to move even higher, juggling work, care for her aging mother and the frustration of an unresponsive love interest. When her boss turns up murdered, she realizes she was the last person to see her boss alive and her fingerprints are all over the place. COSMOPOLITAN GIRLS (Harlem Moon/Broadway Books, $11.95) by Charlotte Burley and Lyah Beth LeFlore is the story of two single, sassy, small-town Sisters--one a successful TV producer, the other a fledgling screenwriter--who must deal with the twists and turns of their careers and love lives in New York City. CRAVE (St. Martin's Press, Griffin paperback original $13.95) by Darnella Ford is the story of a 29-year-old Sister who's racing the clock to find the perfect mate. For "Poetry Month," a volume worth noting is INNER-COURSE: A PLEA FOR REAL LOVE (Villard, $16.95) by Toni Blackman, the literary debut of the rapper/poet/artist and "Hip-Hop Ambassador to Senegal, Ghana and South Africa," that weaves together rap and poetry in an inspired collection.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group