Nicole Moore, co-founder of Words of Colour, explains why she is stepping down as Creative Arts Director and outlines her future creative plans.
Time Out feature writer and reviewer Tamara Gausi offers some pointers to budding critics including how to cope with adverse reactions to your reviews.
The loss of one of her twin boys inspired holistic complementary therapist, artist and writer Hyacinth Myers to offer other parents a creative outlet. She highlights why.
Susan Yearwood has launched a new literacy agency. As one of a handful of UK-based black book agents she is on the look out for talented new voices.
Read the second and final part in our series - a week in the life of a budding writer - with our short story competition winners. This time it’s runner up Mahsuda Shah.
July 2007
Chasing Destiny
Author: Eric Jerome Dickey
Publisher: Dutton Adult/Thorndike Press
RRP: £15.99 (hardback); £7.99 (paperback)
Review by: Andrea Enisuoh
He’s the award-winning African-American writer who is famed for writing about women and relationships. From bestsellers like ‘Genevieve’ and ‘Drive me Crazy’ to earlier work like ‘Naughty or Nice’, Dickey has carved out his own niche in the heavily populated field of romance writing. Extremely prolific with over a dozen novels under his belt, his latest offering to be published in Britain is ‘Chasing Destiny’.
As with most of his work this is a book with an almost totally African-American cast. Sexy, feisty women form the backbone of the novel – though it could be argued that sometimes Dickey borders on caricature with his portrayal of women.
Here the main female character is Billie (aka Ducati), stunning to look at and an expert biker. She rides a hot yellow Ducati motorcycle and is renowned for her skills on the road. Billie’s life begins to unravel when she gets pregnant by her unemployed lover, Keith. When she breaks the news he reveals that he is returning to his wife, Carmen, for the sake of their wayward daughter – and his finances.
Fifteen-year-old Destiny has her own issues, not least dealing with an overbearing and often vindictive mother. She rebels by hanging out with the wrong crowd and taking risks she knows will terrify her parents. But when she is drugged, raped and robbed, things take a sinister turn. Destiny decides to run away from home rather than face her parents and resolves to get revenge on those who violated and stole from her.
Then begin some slightly surreal scenes with vigilante Destiny wreaking revenge in the most violent of ways. Meanwhile her twisted mother and father do the predictable – they ‘Chase Destiny’ and are prepared to do anything to find her.
As with most of Dickey’s books there’s lots of sex in this novel. Graphic but not offensive, it is clear Dickey knows how to write sensually. More surprising was the almost equal amount of violence. And more than any of the other novels that I have read by him, his portrayal of women here is quite unsympathetic. Sexually frustrated harridans don’t usually make up the majority of his female characters.
This is a multi-layered story and - as ever - Dickey educates as he writes. You will always find a little bit of history or a position on a current debate in a Dickey novel. Here he also raises questions about the worth of loveless marriages when children are involved.
What Dickey does best is dialogue. His opening lines are always well crafted too. The start of this novel utilises both these talents to draw you in immediately. With so many twists and turns you are almost bound to stick with it to the end. But it’s only afterwards that you may start questioning if all those sub plots were really necessary. It’s a question I asked myself. My conclusion? The action kept me turning the page. Many times I gasped out loud. With or without his sexy scenes and sexy female characters, Dickey knows the craft of telling a story.
Madhvi Ramani praises Random, the latest play from debbie tucker green that taps into a growing crisis – random violence.
Joy Francis explains why BBC1’s new adult drama Mistresses feels as illicit as a late night raid on the fridge.
If you would like to submit a review of a play, film, book, gig, poetry event or art exhibition then check in with us. To keep the section topical any event needs to run for more than a week. For more information, contact us.