Roses Are Red

Serrani or Icilyn's (same author) book was very good. This was my second book by her and she really lived up to her work. If you liked this one you might want to read about Kendra's troubled little sister in "Violets are Blue." If you get confused like I did she did that novel along with another book called "Island Romace" by the name of Sonia Icilyn. Enjoy!!

How can someone get hung up on punctuation. How petty! This was a great story This beautiful story set among the upper middle-class blacks in contmporary London, England was a joy to read. Kendra Davenport, a young woman of Jamaican parentage, is the editor and publisher of her father's newspaper, the Nubian Chronicel, a weekly that caters to the West Indian population in England. She is living her girlhood dream as apublisher but it is all now being threatened. Her jet-setting sister's gambling debts play right into the hands of her father's rival, Benjamin Brentwood. Her father and Brentwood were friends as young men and started the paper together, but had a falling out and now Brentwood is back to claim what he feels is rightfully his. Brentwood has become a media giant in the States and his son, shay, an arrogant young brother newly arrived from New York, whose Jamaican father has revolutionized the black media in the U.S., as vice-president of Brentwood Communications Group feels it is his duty to help his father obtain the Nubian Chronicle. And because the Davenports are in desperate need to raise the $150,00 to pay off the gambling debt, he takes advantage of them. However, Shay did not take into account the attraction Miss Davenport holds for him. A woman with exquisite beauty as well as brains, Shay is attracted to the enemy. Kendra is in a relationship with the distinguished Prime Minister Selwyn Owens, the first black P.M. in Northern London, a somewhat stuffy but honorable man. But when she is undecided about his marriage proposal, the relationship turns hostile. Meanwhile a clause in her mother's will might possibly save th newspaper from being taken over completely by the Brentwoods. But then Shay comes up with anothe angle, Kendra thinks in order to gain control. The deal is Kendra must marry Shay in order to save the Davenports from total financial and personal ruin. Kendra, mistrustful of Shay, especially after experiencing an accident outside of his home after spending a passionate night with him, reluctantly enters into this marriage all the time denying she has fallen in love with the good-looking brother. He also must admit to himself that his reasons for a forced marriage are more than for a building of an empire between the two families as their fathers want. He wants Kendra with a passion. Soon after their marriage, tragedy strikes the Brentwood family, bringing the two closer. Meanwhile her ex-boyfriend, Selwyn, unable to accept her marriage is doing strange things and those around fear Kendra may be in danger. This stroy has suspense as well as descriptive scenry of the hustle and bustle of London and the rich culture the West Indians and African of the diaspora bring to it. It is delighful to see a side of black contemporary life in another setting other than the United States