**SPOILER ALERT**
Noni Aminah Jones may have given up on her television career, but not life in the spotlight. A romance novelist and aspiring socialite, Noni is consumed by twin passions for literature and love. At the top of story she has recently moved in with her new paramour, a dark and dashing older man named Carter Jackson. Mr. Jackson is a well-known jazz pianist and music producer.
Carter and Noni live in an upscale Morningside Heights condo where she is free to create and act on her most erotic fantasies. Her life could be a love story of her own creation. Carter is the man of her dreams, but things are never as perfect as they seem.
In “A Woman Possessed” she reveals that her parents and close friends question her impulsive decision to live with Carter. Prior to the move, they’d only dated long-distance for a few months and he is not without attachments. Carter is newly divorced with a younger daughter. He’s never introduced her to either. And when she meets his homegirl, Noni suspects she wants more than just Carter’s friendship. But above all this, Noni is content to love with her heart, not with her head.
That is until a pregnancy scare in “Babies Engagements and Sleeping Arrangements” prompts her to face the reality that Carter may have different plans for the relationship than she. Would a sexy, wealthy older man, who’s already been married, ever pledge his heart again? She admittedly has reservations, but amidst soirees, love making, and gifts that shine– those concerns have yet to be shared with Carter. For now, she is spell bound. But how long will the magic last?
Caroline has an old soul and a taste for the exotic. A marketing exec with degrees from Yale and Harvard, her career is on the fast track. She planned it that way. The most sensible of the group, this corporate diva accomplishes her goal with focus and planning.
But don’t be fooled by her success. She works hard and she plays hard. You might describe her as a feminist in a pencil skirt and red Louboutins. Armed with unabashed sexuality, she refuses to lay and wait. She decides what, and who, she wants and takes it all the while refusing to succumb to emotions.
Except when it comes to Lance, an old flame who relocates to the City from London at the beginning of the story. During her undergraduate year at Oxford, Caroline and Lance had a passionate affair, filled with all of the arousal and intrigue that a tryst between an older man and younger woman should.
As she mentions in “I’m In Control”, Lance is the one man that can make her lose all self-control. He can turn her on with just the sound of his voice and after their first night together, in “The Reunion”, she finds herself quickly under his spell. But as tensions rise at her work, she’ll finally have to decide to either fully commit to him or risk losing him to the single women of the city.
Geneva is a bohemian free spirit motivated by the need to be loved and understood. After Yale, Geneva took the road less traveled and pursued a stage career. After a few mildly successful stage appearances, she landed a job directing a small Black theater where she wears every hat in production, from direction to lights. Geneva marries every project and theater is her world.
The most honest and vulnerable of the women, she readily admits to her insecurities, having a shaky relationship with her mother, and not being afraid to be humbled by love.
At the top of the story she is on the outs with her boyfriend Paul, an eccentric PhD student who she’s admired since undergrad. Paul is her first love but there red flags. He’s emotionally distant, hard to reach, and in “Two’s A Situation, Three’s A Crowd” she gets random phone call from an older woman claiming to be his girlfriend.
The reality of her disintegrating romance sends Geneva into a deep depression, a dark place she’s been before.
Her ability to vent her frustrations is lodged somewhere between her volatile emotions and his ability to slay her with his love making, as she describes in “Pleasure and Pain”.
Then in “Flat On My Ass” Geneva has an unfortunate encounter with the random older woman. She strikes a hard blow and Geneva ends up in the emergency room with a fractured tail bone. The injury forces her to reflect on the emotional and physical pain she’s suffered being tied up with Paul. She finally decides he’s not worth it.
Healing her wounds and feeling like a new woman, Geneva longs for something new. Will it be a career change, or a new man, possible the handsome doctor she met in the ER? Time will tell.
