Brown Sugar 3: When Opposites Attract

I loved this book and the other 2 Brown Sugar installments. I plan on purchasing the 4th installment. If you like erotica, go for the Brown Sugar series. I enjoyed these more than anything Zane has written.

What makes this collection great is that each writer understands where real heat comes from: seduction. There is enough development in each so that we care about these characters. I would love to see these writers writing novels. I think I saw in one of the other reviews that Zane was in this one. She must be talking about Brown Sugar 2. Zane is not in this one. Good book, though, if you like romance.Nelly Fisher.

"I've been waiting for Brown Sugar 3 ever since I finished Brown Sugar 2 andI wasn't disappointed. Love and the Game made me hot while Scenes from aMarriage made me think. Brown Sugar 3 is an "erotic" anthology that manages to beequal parts storytelling. I read the whole book in onenight."

It is in short story collections such as these that we find the hint of A.A.'s greatest literary potential. The shelves are glutted these days with black writers doing their very best Danielle Steele and John Grisham impersonations. More power to them. In the popular A.A. romance and mystery/thriller genres, black writers have found a niche that makes money, their writing is generally pretty decent mainstream scribbling, and their fans (the hundreds of thousands of college-educated, career-minded black women) seem happy enough with the product to make stars of the authors. The problem is that these genres, though popular and therefore financially lucrative to black folk, are not examples of our "great" art. These Dickeys, McMillans, and Tyrees of today will not be passed down to our children as examples of great books; they will simply be replaced in the next decade by the new Dickeys, McMillans, and Tyrees writing about the "popular" A.A. romance culture of that new day. In fact, writers of the popular genres (in any American ethnic group) risk financial disenfranchisement if they dare to elevate their art to the level of literature, if they dare to take artistic risks in their work. Not so with erotica. I have been following the Brown Sugar series from the beginning, and I must tell you that the editor has consistently chosen stories that are not just erotic, but "interesting." Brown Sugar 3 is no different. Yes, many of the stories do follow the predicatble patterns of today's urban romance scene, but the writing is a hundred times more polished, due I suppose to the editing skills of Carol Taylor. For example, I have long been a fan of Zane's, though critical of her somewhat pedestrian style. She sparkles in this book. To see Zane as good as Zane can be, alone is worth the price of the book. Finally, there are many excellent scenes in the book that will arouse. After all, it is erotica and opposites do attract. The images that are most lasting in my mind are 1) the beautiful older librarian bouncing up and down on the lap of the freshman football playing hunky brother as her white husband suddenly shows up and 2)the church boy praying for forgiveness while losing his virginity to the hoochie. There are many such great scenes like that in this book.

Sexy and insightful. Whether it's a story to make you think, like Wanda Coleman's Harold and Popcorn or a story to turn you on like Shariff Simmons' Love and the Game, Brown Sugar 3 has something for everyone. Keep up the good work. I'm ready for Brown Sugar 4!