Greetings, all!! You know, I love March. Not just because it's my birth month or because I love to watch the March Madness College Basketball Tournament, but because I am releasing my next book on March 2nd!! Here's the cover, with artwork once again created by my daughter. Check it out!!
"Home is a home run!" — Author Barbara Joe Williams
About the book:
Home by Adrienne Thompson
Genre: African American Fiction/Edgy Inspirational Fiction
Release Date: 3/2/15
Blurb:
For the ladies’ man Ivan Spencer, there really is no place like HOME.
A family emergency brings former rapper and current real estate mogul, Ivan Spencer, back to his long-abandoned hometown. While there, he must deal with his confused mother, his elderly, philandering father, his flaky sister, an unreliable aunt, and a face from the past who makes him question some of his earlier decisions. All he wants to do is to get things squared away and return to his life, but as it turns out, he must deal with his own issues first.
Excerpt:
I had just sat down to drink my coffee when Daddy walked into the kitchen wearing a dingy white t-shirt and faded, striped boxers. One look at my daddy and anyone could see why he was so popular with the women. Even at seventy-something, he still had the same smooth, ruddy skin, gray eyes, wavy black hair, and bone structure that made most women swoon. The story had always been that my daddy’s daddy’s daddy was a full-blooded Quapaw Indian. My grandfather could never confirm this fact, because he never knew his father. But looking at my daddy and the features I’d inherited from him, I believed the story was pretty close to the truth.
Daddy sat down at the table with a grunt and a sigh.
“Where you been, Daddy?” I asked.
He looked at me for a second. “Here and there.”
“Mama’s sick. She’s in the hospital.”
“Yeah, I figured something like that was going on when I saw her bed empty. Plus, you here. You don’t come around no more lessin’ it’s something going on.”
I nodded.
I sat there and looked at him and waited for him to show an ounce of concern for the woman who’d borne him two children and been his wife for the past forty-some-odd years. I waited for him to ask about her or something. But he just sat there, grinding his teeth and scratching his head. “Any more hot water? I think I’ma make me some coffee,” he finally said.
He didn’t wait for me to answer. He stood from his chair with another grunt and checked the pot for himself. Then he pulled a coffee mug from the cabinet and started noisily making himself a cup of coffee, huffing and puffing and grunting the whole time. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. My face was heating up, but I was determined to keep my composure. Daddy wasn’t going to make me lose my cool. Not this time.
“She got a hold of a bottle of laxatives and took all of them,” I said.
“Umph,” he grunted. “She always gettin’ into something.”
I took another deep breath. “Yeah, um, the doctor’s talking about sending her home this afternoon.”
“Umph.”
He sat back down across from me and loudly slurped his coffee. So we sat there in silence except for his slurps.
Slurp…
Slurp…
Slurp…
Finally, I stood from the table. “I’ma go take a shower so I can head on up to the hospital to check on Mama. You wanna ride with me?”
Slurp. “Naw, you go ‘head on. I’ll see her when she come home.” Slurp…
I sighed. “All right, then, Daddy.”
