Chocolate Sangria

January 20, 2003
Price-Thompson's first novel, Black Sugar, was a frank contemporary romance about two soldiers who become illicit lovers. This follow-up is just as bawdy, but the situations are more prosaic. Juanita, a 20-year-old green-eyed, light-skinned black woman, has grown up in the Brooklyn projects, rejected by other girls because of her Caucasian appearance. Her best friend, Socrates "Scooter" Morrison, was an outcast himself because of "his falsetto voice and his wiggling hips." Riding the bus one day, the two have a life-changing encounter with a pair of young Puerto Rican men, best friends Conan and Jorge. Conan is grieving the death of his twin brother while trying to keep volatile Jorge—the victim of abusive parents—under control. Conan and Juanita swoon over each other, but Juanita's insecurities and Jorge's jealousy threaten their romance. Meanwhile, Scooter is carrying on a steamy after-hours affair with his boss, a middle-aged Jewish family man. Scooter also becomes smitten with Jorge, who seems to reciprocate but is much more calculating than Scooter imagines. The book is overly long, as Price-Thompson belabors the emotional legacies of her characters' troubled pasts. Her gaudy prose has its charms as well as its limitations ("Flames of unfulfilled passion leaped up and licked at his loins. Moral weakness coursed through his veins"). Soap opera plotting and candid sex scenes make this an easy, breezy read, but the sophomore effort lacks some of the freshness and zip of Price-Thompson's debut.