The third novel in the HALLELUJAH LOVE series is on its way!
...A PREACHER'S PASSION
Official Release Date: January, 2009
Amazon Sales Begin: December, 2008
Amazon Pre-Orders Begin: October, 2008
SYNOPSIS:
Lutishia Lovely is back with another smoldering journey into the scandalous and occasionally sanctified lives of people who go to church but aren’t always 100% Christian...
Passion Perkins is hot to trot. After being celibate for five long years, she’s ready, willing, and able to end her drought. But she’s also determined to hold out for Mr. Right...a man her friends say doesn’t exist—until Lavon Chapman walks into her life: a powerful and handsome man who has come to the community to film an inspirational DVD about Passion’s minister, Reverend Stanley Lee, and his fiery wife, Carla Lee. But Lavon is only in town for eight weeks...
Passion is now on a mission to make Lavon her husband and to end her celibacy...and not necessarily in that order. But she’s not the only one. It seems Reverend Lee, though a master in the pulpit is a dud between the sheets, so Carla Lee has Lavon in her sights—and is determined to end up on top. Before long, other members of the church community are entangled in scandals of their own, and while some are getting busy in service to the Lord, others are just simply getting busy...
EXCERPT:
People say Passion was fast from the womb. That when she heard men talking, she’d make a motion in her mother’s belly that felt like a tickle. When she heard women, her mother got gas. Even before Passion was born she decided that men were to be loved; women, tolerated.
She had one real girlfriend growing up, Robin Cook. They got along like two peas in a pod from the moment they met at Martin Luther King’s Elementary School in Atlanta, GA. For one, they were big tom boys, bigger than most kids their age. For another, they both hated their female classmates and constantly baked up evil schemes to right some imagined wrong done to them. Whether it was putting cayenne pepper in a girl’s food, glue on their seat, or beating somebody up at recess, they were always getting into trouble, and usually together. But Passion and her family moved from Georgia to California when she was fifteen years old. She hadn’t seen Robin since.
Passion sat in her living room, flipping through an Essence magazine and watching the MLM channel, a new, progressive, Black-owned network that was finally giving BET some competition. A minister, Derrick Montgomery, was speaking at a convention hosted by a group called Total Truth. Passion decided he looked as good on TV as he did in person. That man is fine forever, she thought, as she turned up the volume.
Passion wasn’t a member of the Montgomery’s church, Kingdom Citizen’s Christian Center, but the church she belonged to, Logos Word Non-Denominational, fellowshipped with KCCC often. Passion loved Pastor Montgomery’s fiery style, not to mention the way his body blessed a designer suit. She could always expect a good word plus some men worth watching when she visited Kingdom Citizen’s, and was one of many who’d visualized Pastor Montgomery sans suit or wife. Either him or Darius Crenshaw, KCCC’s hot minister of music whose latest hit, Possible, had spent months at the top of both gospel and secular charts. Pastor Montgomery was fine, but Darius could sing, play several instruments and looked like “thank you Jesus.” Add the fact that he was single, and as far as she knew available, and he was the obvious choice.
For all her salacious wonderings, Passion couldn’t see herself actually sleeping with Pastor Derrick, or anybody else’s husband for that matter. She admired Pastor Montgomery’s wife, Vivian, who was good friends with her first lady, Carla Lee. Even after news broke that Pastor Montgomery had an older son from a previous relationship, a son he supposedly knew nothing about until two years ago, his and Vivian’s marriage remained strong. Word had it that the boy was even living with them now, and playing basketball at UCLA. No, Passion would never act out inappropriately with Pastor Derrick, well, other than the lusting in her heart for which she was already guilty. She’d probably not send love notes or nude pics to Darius Crenshaw either. But he was definitely daydream material.
An hour after the television program went off, Passion pulled into her favorite strip mall…. She stepped inside the store. As she’d expected for the middle of the day, it was quiet. Lin, the Korean owner, was behind the counter, helping his one, lone customer.
“Hey, Lin,” Passion said cheerfully.
“Hey, Passion,” Lin said. “What you buy today? I got tennis bracelet you like, just came yesterday.”
“How much you want for it?” Passion asked. “I might be interested if you give me a good deal.”
“I give you very good deal,” Lin said. He unlocked the showcase and pulled out a bracelet set with tiny diamonds, effectively shown off in a black, faux-velvet case.
“This is nice,” Passion said. She put it on her arm, turned it this way and that.
The other shopper, a woman, looked at the bracelet as well.
“It’s pretty, huh?” Passion said to her, being friendly. “You think it’s worth two hundred dollars?” That’s the deal Lin said he’d give to Passion, because “she good customer”.
The woman didn’t answer, just stared. Passion looked up, and stared back. The face was familiar. Then it dawned on her.
“Robin? Robin Cook? Girl, is that you?”
Robin was shocked, her response, subdued. “Passion Perkins?”
Both women were incredulous. It had been twenty years.
“What on earth are you doing in L.A.?” Passion exclaimed, stepping forward to grab her former best friend in a bear hug. As she did so, she felt something cold, hard, pressing against her stomach. She pulled back, looked down. “And why are you buying a gun?”
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