cover image Candy Licker

Candy Licker

Noire, . . Ballantine/One World, $13.95 (291pp) ISBN 978-0-345-48647-9

If there was ever any doubt that pulp was alive and thriving, Noire's highly sexy, highly vivid G-Spot dispelled it. This follow-up delivers everything that lovers of this emerging micro genre—black urban erotic chick lit—are coming to expect: cribs full of music, sex, drugs and criminality; many dollars flying by; and an honest, often abused girl just trying to make it through. When Candy Raye Montana hooks up with Harlem rap don Junius "Hurricane" Jackson, she's expecting little more than a respite from serving as bait for stickups for her well-meaning but desperate mother and her mother's junkie boyfriend—and maybe a little luxury. But 'Cane turns out to be a major sociopath (with violent perversions that may be compensations for a small dick). Candy, unhappy and horny, turns to Internet cam mutual masturbation, but when Percy "Knowledge" Graham, Cane's lawyer, comes into her life, the love is real—and deeply satisfying. But Cane knows something's up, and Candy's life is more and more in the balance as Knowledge schemes to find a way for them to make a life together. Candy's first person and Knowledge's third begin to alternate chapters: both are completely absorbing and rarely miss. The cast of bling and trash extras are well-done and well-named. The most direct means to Candy's heart provides the novel's title. (Dec. 27)