Jun 23

WHY I WROTE: WHAT YOU SEE AIN’T WHAT YOU GET, a story of abandonment, loyalty and love.

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I wrote this novel in 2010. I knew it contained a story of child abuse worth telling. I just wasn’t sure when the time was ripe to tell it. That was because the abusers were members of a well-connected religious community. While their victims were essentially orphans of color who had no support systems in place to protect them. I worried that the acts of abuse and molestation might be too lewd to tell. Or worse when I described the acts, my book would be placed in the X-rated category. This story would never get to the people I wanted to reach. I also thought it was a story worth telling because I met several women and at least one man who went through something like this when they were kids. Their adult abusers were respected members in their communities and were believed. The child victims were blamed for what happened, if they were believed. If they weren’t believed, the children were left to suffer in silence. Either way the children were shunned by their communities. They had no caring adults help them through a difficult time. They had nobody to lean on and so they were forced to help […]
Jun 16

COMING OUT AT 47

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I read this article from a worried parent years ago. I found the question interesting enough to write about. The mother says, “My sixteen-year-old son told me that he is gay. What should I do about it?” Today, I’d add my own experience of coming out as a lesbian. I wasn’t as young as that mother’s son was when he said, “Guess what, Mom? I’m gay.” Nope, that wasn’t me. I was forty-seven years old before I finally admitted to me that I was gay and then I admitted it to my family. Question: Isn’t 47 a little old to discover one’s orientation? Shouldn’t a person know before they reach 30 who or what they like? At 47, a person has lived over half her life in the shadows and maybe with the wrong gender as well. How is a major life change possible at that age? Permit me to explain my particular situation. I’m a Baby Boomer. When I grew up, young women were just beginning to flex their muscles. They were thinking about working in non-traditional jobs and considered living non-traditional lives. Most of the women I knew when I was a kid wore traditional clothes to represent […]
Jun 09

SUCCESS MEANS LEARNING TO FAIL

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
The picture above is a view of the Riverside Drive’s Park between West 144th Street and West 142nd Street. The strip park run along Riverside Drive and follows the Hudson River. Parts of the drive mingle with the West Side Highway and so the park overlooks the highway or 12th Avenue. Other parts of the park disappear and reappear further uptown and end somewhere in Inwood. The park still has uniquely antique elements. Note the water fountain, the cobblestone made of bricks, and the old-fashioned street lamps that work. What’s most interesting to me is the way one main road separates into two paths. It reminds me of Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken. For the past six months, my niece and I have grown particularly close. One reason is that my sister, who was also her mother, died six months ago. I’ve always considered my niece like a daughter and so this was a natural progression of things. Another reason we’ve grown close, I’ve been giving her some advice about jobs. Lately, my suggestions have been geared towards her new promotion. A little more than a year ago, she took a job as an entry level employee with a […]
Jun 01

WHAT YOU SEE AIN’T WHAT YOU GET, a story of abandonment, loyalty and love.

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
The murder of an athlete’s long-time agent and good friend, Preston Walters, brings two former best friends, Charlotte Harris and Melanie Tailor, who haven’t spoken to each other in years, together. While life has been extremely good to Charlotte, the millionaire athlete, Melanie, the journalist is trying to make a name in her chosen profession. Melanie is still looking for that one big break that will change her career forever. She finds it when the local police charge her estranged best friend Charlotte Harris, with a sports agent’s murder. The dead agent is the same man the journalist slept with back in college but her best friend the athlete always refused his entreaties. It seems both women have been keeping secrets but the only way to solve the murder is to unlock those secrets. Who really killed Preston Walters, famous agent for star athlete Charlotte Harris and Melanie Tailor’s ex-lover? Will Melanie or Charlotte reveal the secrets they’ve been keeping for years? Will sheriff ex-deputy and now private investigator Delaney Carter uncover their secrets? Can the two women overcome their pasts and move into their futures? I hope you enjoy my novel. What You See Ain’t What You Get, a […]
May 26

WHY I WROTE: Dutch Chocolate8: It must be love. Nothing else feels this good.

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Years ago, long before the girl power, Black Girl Magic and the Me-Too movements, I watched Angela Jolie in the movie Laura Croft Tomb Raider. I was in love with movies again. I thought. Wow! Finally, an attractive woman in a lead role where she carries everything. She played the role of an adventurer, normally inhabited by a man. Think Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones series or Nicholas Cage in the National Treasure series, both men played adventurer roles. Their movies were quite popular with moviegoers. I decided I’d write a series of books about a Black lesbian with code name Dutch Chocolate. She has a background in NYPD as a sergeant in East Harlem, before joining the army and going to the Middle East to work in Intel. She returns to work in one of NYPD’s specialized street crime units. Dutch eventually decides to become a PI working for her people in Harlem. Over the years, she attracts a group of law enforcement misfits who have become her loyal crew and family. Dutch Chocolate stories include them as well. In the 8th novel of the Dutch Chocolate action series, it’s been years since FBI Agent Zita Fernandez was […]
May 19

WHY ARE APOLOGIES SO DIFFICULT TO MAKE?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Years ago, I had friend I was always trying to impress. She was in school earning her masters when I first met her. After twenty years of dancing around the edges of higher education, I returned to school for my BA first and then my masters, inspired by her quest for higher education. We grew close. We shared our hopes and dreams of the future. She wanted to be a lawyer, then a civil court judge. I wanted to be school psychologist until I learned how long my journey would be. I calculated I’d be a year or so from retirement before I met my career goal. In a particularly revealing moment, she told me how guilty she felt when her kid sister died in a fire and she couldn’t rescue her. I told her about suffering spousal abuse literally at the hands of my former husband. My tale of woe would come back to haunt me. My friend began to tease me about my domestic abuse. She made offhand, mean jokes about getting hit. The first time she did it, I ignored it, which was my mistake. The next time she said something offhand about spousal abuse, I stopped […]
May 12

Should you stick with the devil you know?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
  Years ago, when my father was still alive, I remember my mother complaining about his activities. She’d discovered he was buying international lottery tickets and sweepstakes tickets. She kept finding stubs from money orders where he’d purchased sweepstakes or lottery tickets. My parents lived across the street from a shopping mall, so while my father no longer drove, it wasn’t impossible for him to walk across the street and find a place to buy money orders. At the time, my mother was venting about wasting money on a foolish expense. “Nobody ever wins these,” she ranted. “How much money was he wasting?” she fussed. “He could use that money for something else. He could put it in the bank and let it draw interest. Or just give it to me and I’ll find a use for it,” my mother promised. As daughters sometimes do, I listened without too much comment. My mother needed to vent. And I let her. While she was complaining, I was busy congratulating myself on my goodness. Although I hung out with folks who did, I never played numbers. I didn’t place bets on the horses or sports teams. I never bought lottery tickets or […]
May 01

Dutch Chocolate 8: It must be love. Nothing else feels this good

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
In the 8th novel of the Dutch Chocolate action series, Dr. Torres and Nurse Walton first met two years ago because of an FBI Agent’s serious injuries. To Dr. Ada Torres, one of the staff shrinks at the FBI, her patients (FBI field agents) are so important, she has no love life. She devotes all her time to her patients. Whatever tiny bits of personal time are leftover, she spends advising her younger twin sisters about life. Nurse Gayle Walton has a similar problem. She was former army nurse who did her tour overseas and returned to the states to continue her nursing duties. Overseas she was devoted to her soldier patients, trying to care for their medical as well as their psychological needs. When she returned to the states it was the same thing. She has been so devoted to her patients that she has no love life either. After meeting the psychiatrist, Gayle realizes she wants more much more from her life. Now what? How will both women decide what to do with each other? Find out when you read Dutch Chocolate8: It must be love. Nothing else feels this good!   Available for pre-order 2/17/24. The release […]
Apr 21

WHY I WROTE: Dutch Chocolate8: It must be love. Nothing else feels this good.

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Years ago, long before the girl power, Black Girl Magic and the Me-Too movements, I watched Angela Jolie in the movie Laura Croft Tomb Raider. I was in love with movies again. I thought. Wow! Finally, an attractive woman in a lead role where she carries everything. She played the role of an adventurer, normally inhabited by a man. Think Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones series or Nicholas Cage in the National Treasure series, both men played adventurer roles. Their movies were quite popular with moviegoers. I decided I’d write a series of books about a Black lesbian with code name Dutch Chocolate. She has a background in NYPD as a sergeant in East Harlem, before joining the army and going to the Middle East to work in Intel. She returns to work in one of NYPD’s specialized street crime units. Dutch eventually decides to become a PI working for her people in Harlem. Over the years, she attracts a group of law enforcement misfits who have become her loyal crew and family. Dutch Chocolate stories include them as well. In the 8th novel of the Dutch Chocolate action series, it’s been years since FBI Agent Zita Fernandez was […]
Apr 14

WADE IN THE WATERS

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I’m not one for religious symbolism but the more I hear about foreign involvement in our democratic election system, I keep thinking of a song I used to hear in church Sunday mornings. I was a kid back then. Everybody knows Baby boomer children couldn’t say. “Mom, Dad I’m not going to church. It’s Sunday morning. I think I just sit this visit out. I don’t like how that old guy wearing that long robe talks to us. He’s always screaming about devils and doing bad stuff from that platform he stands on. You and Dad might like him; but he scares the mess out of me. Today, I’ll just sit home and do something that makes me happy. Watching Sunday morning cartoons makes me happy and so I’ll be doing that today, okay? I’ll see you both when you get back from church if I’m not napping, right?” No way was that going to fly with my parents back then. In the only thing flying, would be my butt into next week. That would be after I was released from the children’s ward of the hospital, my father’s opened can of whup my backside sent me. But I digress. […]
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