Regina Harris has been through it all, orphaned at 13 and forced to use street wits to survive. Now living in Harlem with her four-year-old daughter, she thinks her life has finally stabilized--but where there's Regina, there's always drama. She runs into a former boyfriend and, against her better judgment and the advice of friends, she resumes their steamy affair. Sparks fly when her U.S. Congressman ex-hubby decides he wants her back and her boyfriend decides he won't let her go. Life is no less dramatic for her three best friends--Yvonne can't tear herself from a lawyer turned violent junkie, Tamika and her family are being targeted by street thugs bent on revenge, and Puddin' still can't resist using any man in her sights to support bad habits.
An Essence(r) BestsellerA Black Expressions Book Club SelectionIda B. Wells-Barnett Tower. The place held such promise when it was built in the late 1970s. It was Harlem's hope for a new beginning - affordable, safe housing. Then the devastating crack scourge hit. Still, the Ida B. community looks out for each other, and when a young mother kills herself and two of her children, the neighbors vow to care for her surviving child. But that's just the beginning of the tragedies facing them . . .
This sassy, shocking autobiographical novel from the author of Uptown Dreams captures the racial tensions, the hardships, and the bonds that formed between families and neighbors growing up poor in Harlem. You’d be angry, too, if you grew up poorer than poor in Harlem in the 1960s and ’70s, a place of unrelenting violence, racism, crime, rape, scamming, drinking, and drugging. Living with a dad permanently checked out in Bellevue and a mom at the end of her rope raising you, your twin sister, and your two brothers, moving every time the money runs out—and doing what it takes to survive. But there’s more to her story. Ke-Ke Quinones was whip smart and sassy, a voracious reader of everything from poetry to the classics. No matter what, 117th Street—where you could always count on someone to stand up for you—would always be home. And with every hard-knock lesson learned, Ke-Ke grew fiercer, unleashing her inner angry-ass black woman to get through it all. Decades later, comatose in a hospital bed after a medical crisis, she reflects on her life—her success as a journalist and renowned author, her tragicomic memories of Harlem, her turbulent marriage, the birth of her daughter, future possibilities—all the while surrounded by her splintered family in all of their sound and fury. Will she rise above once more?
From Essence bestselling author Karen E. Quinones Miller comes this story following the hectic, intersecting lives of three friends and neighbours. 25 years ago the Ida Barrett Wells Tower offered Harlem residents safe, affordable housing. Then a crack scourge hit. But the residents of the tower block remain resilient and fiercely loyal. Uptown Dreams is an unforgettable, unflinchingly honest rendition of the Harlem experience and an inspiring glimpse at the universal struggle to survive and overcome from one of today's most assured writers.
Satin Doll is a witty, insightful, heartbreaking and honest tale about romantic relationships, friendships, and class distinctions. Bang! Being shot in the middle of the night and left for dead is what it took to open her eyes. Until that fateful moment, Regina Harris lived la vida loca with pimps and hustlers, a gangster lifestyle that supplied the money she needed to get high and forget the poverty of Harlem. Now she has turned her life around, is a college graduate and freelance journalist, and makes enough money to live on the Upper West Side and hob- nob with the city's movers and shakers. She's become the classy Satin Doll of the Duke Ellington song. But she can't forget where she came from: her three best friends are from the old neighborhood. The Harlem homegirls. Regina tries to give emotional support to each of her friends as they deal with their own personal issues: Yvonne is a single mother looking for the right man. Tamika must raise two children alone while their father does time in jail for robbery. Puddin' lives her life by picking up men and smoking weed. Living in two worlds; comfortable in neither. On a night out partying with her homegirls in Harlem, Regina meets aspiring lawyer Charles Whitfield, son of a pro-minent, upper-class black family in Philadelphia. He loves her but not her rough-around-the-edges friends. She loves him but doesn't think she can live up to his family's expectations. Regina tries desperately to hide her former life, but when her past is revealed, it threatens to destroy her relationship with Charles and the life she has worked hard to create. From its dramatic beginning to the fateful ending, Satin Doll is a witty and truthful take on relationships, friendships, and class distinctions.
Shanika Ann Jenkins is the pride of her African-American family; smart, beautiful, and born with blue eyes and blonde hair. Though her grandmother and father are happy because she represents years of passing down light skin and marrying well, Shanika's mother insists on her name reflecting her African-American heritage so that she will always be proud of who she is. When Shanika gets the opportunity to work for a PR firm in New York, she finds that everyone assumes she is white; she also notices that being white has it advantages, from getting respect at work to getting picked up by a cab when other African-Americans are passed by. When she starts dating a successful white colleague, she continues with the lie, despite the guilt she feels at disappointing her mother and her heritage. When she falls for a handsome African-American business man, she must finally face who she is and what she's done, even if it means losing everything and everyone she loves.
Secrets abound in this scintillating, drama-fueled novel about a love triangle between a multi-millionaire baseball star, his wife, and the groupie who’s trying to ruin their marriage—if a long-held secret doesn’t destroy it first. Cheryl Blanton is married to a superstar baseball player who has won three Gold Gloves and recently signed a $120 million, five-year contract with the New York Yankees. He’s wealthy and handsome, and all the groupies are after him. But Cheryl is gorgeous, and her sex game has her man on lock. Though she didn’t initially find her husband attractive, she loves him for who he is and there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to keep her happy. There’s just one little secret she’s been keeping from him: her husband doesn’t realize that she’s nine years his senior. And so far, Cheryl’s had no problem hiding her age—her husband only has eyes for her. That is, until twenty-one-year-old Sexy Sanchez comes on the scene. Sexy blatantly goes after Cheryl’s man, and a series of catfights ensue between them. Sexy reveals the world behind the baseball players, where many have side chicks alongside their wives. Cheryl realizes she’s in the battle of her life to keep her man and plots to get rid of her nemesis. But when she hires a private investigator to dig up some dirt on Sexy, she discovers that getting rid of her rival might not be easy and could also reveal some devastating secrets she’d rather keep to herself.
This sassy, shocking autobiographical novel from the author of Uptown Dreams captures the racial tensions, the hardships, and the bonds that formed between families and neighbors growing up poor in Harlem. You’d be angry, too, if you grew up poorer than poor in Harlem in the 1960s and ’70s, a place of unrelenting violence, racism, crime, rape, scamming, drinking, and drugging. Living with a dad permanently checked out in Bellevue and a mom at the end of her rope raising you, your twin sister, and your two brothers, moving every time the money runs out—and doing what it takes to survive. But there’s more to her story. Ke-Ke Quinones was whip smart and sassy, a voracious reader of everything from poetry to the classics. No matter what, 117th Street—where you could always count on someone to stand up for you—would always be home. And with every hard-knock lesson learned, Ke-Ke grew fiercer, unleashing her inner angry-ass black woman to get through it all. Decades later, comatose in a hospital bed after a medical crisis, she reflects on her life—her success as a journalist and renowned author, her tragicomic memories of Harlem, her turbulent marriage, the birth of her daughter, future possibilities—all the while surrounded by her splintered family in all of their sound and fury. Will she rise above once more?
Satin Doll is a witty, insightful, heartbreaking and honest tale about romantic relationships, friendships, and class distinctions. Bang! Being shot in the middle of the night and left for dead is what it took to open her eyes. Until that fateful moment, Regina Harris lived la vida loca with pimps and hustlers, a gangster lifestyle that supplied the money she needed to get high and forget the poverty of Harlem. Now she has turned her life around, is a college graduate and freelance journalist, and makes enough money to live on the Upper West Side and hob- nob with the city's movers and shakers. She's become the classy Satin Doll of the Duke Ellington song. But she can't forget where she came from: her three best friends are from the old neighborhood. The Harlem homegirls. Regina tries to give emotional support to each of her friends as they deal with their own personal issues: Yvonne is a single mother looking for the right man. Tamika must raise two children alone while their father does time in jail for robbery. Puddin' lives her life by picking up men and smoking weed. Living in two worlds; comfortable in neither. On a night out partying with her homegirls in Harlem, Regina meets aspiring lawyer Charles Whitfield, son of a pro-minent, upper-class black family in Philadelphia. He loves her but not her rough-around-the-edges friends. She loves him but doesn't think she can live up to his family's expectations. Regina tries desperately to hide her former life, but when her past is revealed, it threatens to destroy her relationship with Charles and the life she has worked hard to create. From its dramatic beginning to the fateful ending, Satin Doll is a witty and truthful take on relationships, friendships, and class distinctions.
Shanika Ann Jenkins is the pride of her African-American family; smart, beautiful, and born with blue eyes and blonde hair. Though her grandmother and father are happy because she represents years of passing down light skin and marrying well, Shanika's mother insists on her name reflecting her African-American heritage so that she will always be proud of who she is. When Shanika gets the opportunity to work for a PR firm in New York, she finds that everyone assumes she is white; she also notices that being white has it advantages, from getting respect at work to getting picked up by a cab when other African-Americans are passed by. When she starts dating a successful white colleague, she continues with the lie, despite the guilt she feels at disappointing her mother and her heritage. When she falls for a handsome African-American business man, she must finally face who she is and what she's done, even if it means losing everything and everyone she loves.
From Essence bestselling author Karen E. Quinones Miller comes this story following the hectic, intersecting lives of three friends and neighbours. 25 years ago the Ida Barrett Wells Tower offered Harlem residents safe, affordable housing. Then a crack scourge hit. But the residents of the tower block remain resilient and fiercely loyal. Uptown Dreams is an unforgettable, unflinchingly honest rendition of the Harlem experience and an inspiring glimpse at the universal struggle to survive and overcome from one of today's most assured writers.
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