Whos Loving You

One minute, you’re in love and the next, you’re screaming for him to get out of your life. Unless, of course, he screams first or unless you’re really in love. If that’s the case, then you take him back, or he comes crawling and it’s all so messy.
Love is messy.
In the new novel “Who’s Loving You” (c.2008, Kensington / Dafina, $24.00 / $29.45 Canada, 278 pages) by Mary B. Morrison, Honey Thomas is crazy about her man, Grant Hill, but Grant wants nothing to do with her.
Or does he?
When last we saw Honey Thomas (in last summer’s “Sweeter Than Honey”), she was winging her way to Atlanta and falling in love on the plane. Having given up her life as a madam, having escaped a murder rap, and with a cashier’s check for $50 million in her pocket, she was ready for a new life.
But she couldn’t escape Benito, her former pimp. Unbeknownst to Honey, Benito was the adopted brother of her new love, Grant. And Benito couldn’t wait to tell his brother all about the women Benito knew as “Lace”.
Grant was livid that Honey wasn’t honest with him, and he refused to return her calls or texts. He wanted rid of her, but he had to be honest: Honey was the finest woman he’d ever known and he loved her. He was soon back in her bed but he couldn’t give up the other two women he was sleeping with.
But all this back-and-forth was making Honey mad. She didn’t have time for that triflin’ Grant. Her new business had its first job: to find the baby daddy of Red Velvet, Atlanta’s hottest stripper. In the process of fulfilling that assignment, Honey is hired to find the runaway daughter of another woman who has coincidental ties to Velvet.
And then there’s the $50 million that Honey is holding, money that her old nemesis, Valentino, says is his. With Grant cheating on her with every woman around and Valentino out of prison, is anybody loving Honey?
Filled with bedroom scenes that are at pretty steamy at first but quickly become predictable and ho-hum, “Who’s Loving You” contains lots of great characters but the story bogs down with plot lines that are unbelievably convenient and extremely contrived.
Curiously, there are several “after chapters” in this book that have little to do with the novel itself and seem to be added for no apparent reason. In one of them, the author takes black men to task for the very thing with which she jam-packed her story: disrespecting women and the lack of family values in the Black community. This conflict of viewpoint within the same covers befuddled me. It seemed to me that Honey’s lifestyle was glorified in the novel, then reviled in a tacked-on rant.