Tempest Rising

Set in west Philadelphia in the early sixties, Tempest Rising tells the story of three sisters, Bliss, Victoria, and Shern, budding adolescents raised in a world of financial privilege among the upper-black-class. But their lives quickly unravel as their father's lucrative catering business collapses. He disappears and is presumed dead, and their mother suffers an apparent breakdown. The girls are wrenched from their mother, and as the novel opens they are living in foster care in a working-class neighborhood in the home of Mae, a politically connected card shark. Though Mae is filled with syrupy names like "pudding" and "doll face" for the foster girls, she is abusive to her own child, Ramona, a twenty-something stunning beauty. As Ramona struggles with Mae's abuse and her own hatred for the foster children, she also tries to keep at bay a powerful attraction she has for her boyfriend's father.

A renowned artist's model, Shay Morrison has posed nude to inspire great works of art. But hidden inside her, where no one can see, is the pain of a failed marriage. Then she accidentally walks in on Ian Douglas - as he steps from the shower. His embarrassment and disapproval of Shay are immediately apparent. What isn't so obvious is his profession: Ian is a minister in a very staid community. Challenged and hurt, Shay decides to try to make him fall in love with her. Yet as she plans to capture Ian, her best-laid plans take her into emotional territory where she's never been… Now a woman with a troubled past tries to understand a man different from anyone she has known before, and the new feelings rising from her heart.