Love Tornado

In this third book about Pastor Albertina Merci, the feisty African-American blues singer-cum-evangelist, Albertina takes in her teenage godson, J Love, a gospel rapper who’s just lost his mom. As J Love slowly works through his grief and learns some lessons in responsibility, he and Albertina encounter other characters: Bishop Henry Gold, the ambitious T.D. Jakes–styled megachurch pastor who tangled with Albertina in Stay Out of the Kitchen! ; his daughter Damitra, a sultry gospel singer who’s hot for J Love; and—in an underdeveloped subplot—Albertina’s nephew Patrick, whose non-Christian wife is finally plunging into the baptismal waters. The best part of this series remains its heroine, a font of spiritual wisdom who can still throw down the blues like nobody else. (June 10)