From Publishers Weekly
Curtis Black, the charismatic pastor with a taste for life's finer things (slick clothes, hot cars and even hotter women) who previously wreaked havoc in 2001's Casting the First Stone, returns to the pulpit in Roby's sixth outing. Divorced and working at a teen center, Curtis longs for the good ol' days-the parishioners who worshipped him and the cash "love gifts," especially. So he marries meek, God-fearing Mariah and accepts a position at a new church. Mariah's thrilled-she never thought she'd be so happy-but why does Curtis always work so late? And why is he so into oral sex? Curtis is quickly up to his old tricks: grafting for money, pursuing Adrienne, an old flame from his previous congregation, browbeating Mariah and disappointing his 14-year-old daughter, who looks for love on the Internet. Inexplicably, Adrienne still loves Curtis, and so does poor Mariah, even when Curtis reveals that he married her only because it was a condition of employment at Truth Missionary Baptist. Curtis's manipulations, sexual excesses, and spousal and parental neglect just keep getting worse, and he can't believe it when people call him out: "God had forgiven him for every sin he'd committed, so couldn't everyone else?" When Curtis is shot by a jilted woman, some readers may wonder what took her so long. His deathbed conversion shouldn't count for anything, but apparently it does. The book's Christian message gets buried under all Curtis's wrongdoings, and the spineless women grow tiresome, but Roby's book about being bad but making good should, like its predecessors, see good sales.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
In the sequel to Casting the First Stone (2000), Curtis and Tanya Black have divorced and moved on to new relationships. Curtis continues to struggle with the pull between his commitment to serve and his desire for wealth. Four years after he was ousted from Faith Missionary Baptist Church, his old members ask him to pastor their new church. He marries the perfect pastor's wife, Mariah Johnson, who has no knowledge of his previous misfortunes. Then slowly but surely, Curtis begins to revert to the behavior that got him in trouble. To squelch his dissatisfaction with his wife, he seeks out his former lover Adrienne. Even that affair does not satiate him, and he convinces Carmen, the mother of his son, to sneak around with him. Curtis' relationships with his wife, daughter, lover, and congregation begin to collapse, and he also becomes the victim of an assault. Roby leaves her fans eager to know more about the next chapter in Curtis Black's ministry. Lillian Lewis
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
The bestselling, Blackboard Award–winning author of the enormously successful A Taste of Reality spins a riveting tale about a philandering preacher that readers will love to hate.
Curtis Black might be a man of the cloth, but with his irresistible looks, seductive charm, and charismatic personality, he's particularly beloved by his female parishioners -- and almost every other woman he's ever met.
The trouble is, Curtis is married. At first he tries to resist temptation, but not for long. His insatiable appetite for women quickly gets the best of him. Overwhelmed by his sizzling love affairs and busy trying to convince the deacon board of the need for an ATM in the back of the church, Curtis has his hands full. Meanwhile Mariah, his second wife, is slowly discovering that beneath the tranquil and loving facade of their marriage a storm of lies and betrayal is about to rage.
Not to mention that Curtis's already shaky relationship with his teenaged daughter, Alicia, has reached the breaking point. Feeling neglected and unloved, Alicia searches for solace in the arms of a stranger, and before long she finds herself in a dangerous situation.
Eventually, the women in Curtis's life find that with a little careful planning -- sneaky and otherwise -- they can help Curtis reap the punishment that he so richly deserves. In this captivating and dramatic sequel to Casting the First Stone, Kimberla Lawson Roby, with her trademark wit and insight, sets sparks flying.
About the Author
Kimberla Lawson Roby is author of the nationally best-selling novels A TASTE OF REALITY, IT’S A THIN LINE, CASTING THE FIRST STONE, HERE AND NOW, and her debut title, BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, which was originally self-published through her own company, Lenox Press. Her novels have frequented numerous bestseller lists, including those listed in Essence Magazine, Upscale Magazine, Emerge Magazine, Barnes and Noble, The Dallas Morning News, and The Austin Chronicle and both BEHIND CLOSED DOORS and CASTING THE FIRST STONE were #1 Blackboard bestsellers for four consecutive months in 1997 and 2000 respectively. BEHIND CLOSED DOORS was the #1 Blackboard Best-selling book for paperback fiction in 1997. In addition, Ms. Roby’s first novel was nominated for Blackboard’s 1998 and 1999 Fiction Book of the Year Award, and she received the Blackboard Fiction Book of the Year Award for 2001 for CASTING THE FIRST STONE. Ms. Roby's first five novels each dealt with very real issues---social status, gambling addiction, and infidelity in BEHIND CLOSED DOORS; single motherhood, infertility, and sibling rivalry in HERE AND NOW; corruption within the church in CASTING THE FIRST STONE; domestic violence, sexual abuse, and care-giving of a parent in IT’S A THIN LINE; and racial and gender discrimination in the workplace with subplots exploring sexual harassment in A TASTE OF REALITY. Ms. Roby is the former co-host of the monthly radio book club, The Wordplayers Club for WKPO in Janesville, WI and resides in Illinois with her husband. She is currently writing her seventh novel.
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