From Library Journal
Best-selling author Briscoe (Big Girls Don't Cry) presents a comic satire on the African American upper crust of Prince George County, MD. The lives of five very different women are dramatically revealed in a complex story of love, lust, and dirty secrets. Barbara's gorgeous husband, Bradford, is ready for another affair after his mistress drives her car into his daughter's wedding reception. Jolene is ready to add him to her first string of lovers, while her husband, Patrick, has just met Pearl, a woman he can really love. Pearl is Barbara's hairdresser and Kenyatta's mother. Kenyatta is in love with a white girl named Ashley, whose mother, Candice, is horrified. Then there's the mysterious Lee, running from a bad life toward an unknown sugar daddy in Prince George County. The author demonstrates consummate skill as she reels the characters into a hilarious denouement. Unfortunately, the wooden dialog and mannered speech ("Puh-lease!" and "I am so not hearing this") detract from the reader's delight in watching the rich and ridiculous expose themselves. Still, this book is worth a laugh at the beach. Recommended where Briscoe's books are popular. Jennifer Baker, Seattle P.L.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
One of the country's most exclusive African American neighborhoods, in Prince George's County, Maryland, is home to Barbara and Bradford Bentley. She is the doyenne of the area, while he is a self-made millionaire running his own software company. Most women would love to be in Barbara's place, but what they don't know is that she spends way too much energy keeping an eye on her handsome, charming, roving husband. Neighbor Jolene would gladly trade places; she's stuck with a mild-mannered nice guy, but, with aspirations of something far grander, she spends her time test-driving other women's husbands. Candice, head of one of the only white families in the group, feels comfortable being in the minority, at least until she learns that her teenage daughter is dating the black, dreadlocked son of the local hairdresser. But this discovery pales in comparison to what she finds when she digs into her family ancestry. Thrown into the fray is a runaway teen working the streets as she searches for her father. Briscoe, among the many commercial fiction writers attempting to appeal to Terry McMillan fans, hasn't lost the knack for dishing she exhibited in Sisters and Lovers (1994) and Big Girls Don't Cry (1996). This is fluffy stuff, to be sure, with more than a few hints of soap opera, but it doesn't make you feel quite as guilty for enjoying it as, say, reading Danielle Steel does. Mary Frances Wilkens
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"Connie Briscoe is back with what she does best: a big, dishy page-turner that will intrigue, amuse, and captivate."
--E. Lynn Harris, author of A Love of My Own
"With P.G. County, Connie Briscoe has outdone herself. She has brought us lives that are too often ignored."
--Flo Anthony, Black Elegance Magazine and Jones Media Network
"Briscoe's latest book bubbles over with enough dirty dealings to fuel a season's worth of soap operas. The action in this black Melrose Place stars five women whose lives intersect wildly...Drama ensues for one and all."
--Honey Magazine (September)
"Bestselling author Briscoe (Big Girls Don't Cry) presents a comic satire on the African American upper crust of Prince George County. The author demonstrates consummate skill as she reels the characters into a hilarious denouement."
--Library Journal (8/1/02)
From the Hardcover edition.
From the Inside Flap
Connie Briscoe s previous novels have won the accolades of critics, positions on national bestseller lists, and the loyalty of millions of fans. Essence magazine called Sisters and Lovers a frank and funny tale, and Mademoiselle dubbed it riveting ...lively...hilarious. The San Francisco Chronicle had high praise for Big Girls Don t Cry, declaring [It] brims with warmth, energy, and a positive message. With P.G. County, Briscoe serves up a sexy, lush, and irresistible portrait of an elite African American community in Maryland.
Now meet the women of P. G. County:
Barbara Bentley is fifty, rich, fabulous, and the wife of the powerful Bradford Bentley. She has more than enough trouble keeping track of her handsome but all-hands husband while keeping her drinking problem in check
Pearl is a hairdresser who lives on the outskirts of the tony Silver Lake with her grown son, Kenyatta. As Pearl strives to grow her business and recover from a bad divorce, she also has to deal with Kenyatta s new girlfriend, Ashley, who is not at all the match Pearl imagined for her son.
The married Jolene, the black-sheep daughter of a prominent judge, beds down more than one promising candidate as she pursues a wealthy and powerful replacement for her earnest and hardworking husband.
Candice Johnson is remarried, white, and liberal, at least she always fancied herself as such until her daughter enters into a serious relationship with a young black man, and Candice s life as she knows it is suddenly called into question.
Lee is a teenager on the run from her mother s abusive boyfriend and in search of her own father whom she believes to be handsome, rich,and all-powerful.
In Connie Briscoe s big new splashy novel, five lives intersect in the swish and swanky, rich and raucous Prince George s County. With more than a nod to Peyton Place, Connie Briscoe has created a fabulously fun novel that will delight, excite, and entertain.
From the Back Cover
In the sprawling homes and upscale townhouses of the exclusive, largely African American Prince George's County, the lives of five women intersect-and the secrets, scandals, loves, and losses that ensue are par for the course where power, beauty, and wealth reside.
Barbara is the most influential woman in this swanky neighborhood, but she's got her hands full-one hand is busy dealing with her husband's wandering eye, while the other always needs a cocktail glass. Jolene is half of P.G. County's number-two couple-and she desperately wants what she doesn't have: namely Barbara's husband. Pearl owns a hair salon and lives on the outskirts of the posh community with her son, Kenyatta. She's not only juggling a growing business and a bad divorce, but now she's has to cope with Kenyatta's less-than-ideal girlfriend. Candice is white and liberal, but her daughter's new beau tests her beliefs-and opens a can of worms she never knew existed. Lee is a runaway teen, a girl whose only connection to her father is an old photo and the belief that he's well-off and waiting for her in . . .
P.G. COUNTY
About the Author
CONNIE BRISCOE
is the New York Times bestselling author of Big Girls Don’t Cry.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1
Barbara Bentley was sweating profusely and it wasn't the shakes this time. She hadn't had a drink in years. This time it was that philandering husband of hers, Bradford Bentley III, slipping out of bed at the crack of dawn to run to his mistress. Honestly. The man had no shame when it came to his uncontrollable sexual urges.
She listened to him moving around in the bathroom--the toilet flushing, water running--and fumed under the bedcovers. Only seconds ago, she'd been tucked contentedly between her Egyptian cotton sheets, dreaming of the exquisite preparations for her daughter's upcoming wedding--of Beluga caviar and smoked salmon, of starched white tablecloths and lilacs and lilies. Then came the familiar bed tremor as her husband jolted her awake.
But she didn't utter a word. She had long since learned not to question the man who slept next to her each night about these things, unless she wanted to be thoroughly dressed down. And lied to. He'd give her his 'how dare you question me' look and tell her to quit whining. He was only going to play golf, to hang out with his buddies for a few hours, and hadn't he given her everything a woman could possibly want? They had a big beautiful house, a condo at Wintergreen ski resort and another in Nassau, a Jaguar and two Benzes in the driveway, a forty foot boat sitting on the Potomac, and country club membership.
But at fifty years of age, she now knew better than to be deceived by his sly diversions. She wasn't some wide-eyed young bride anymore, and he wasn't running off to hit any balls into little holes in green grass. No indeed. He was off to put his little pecker into a certain brown hole down the block.
She threw the bedcovers off. She needed to cool down. Normally she would shrug it off, he'd done this for so long. But this was their daughter's wedding day. Didn't the man have even a shred of decency? Of propriety? Sympathy? Even for his daughter?
The bathroom door opened, and she lay there with her back turned away from him and fumed as she mentally ticked of the myriad tasks she had to complete--without benefit of her husband's help--before the guests arrived at their home that afternoon for the reception. She had a wedding planner to help out, of course, but Barbara trusted no one to completely handle this very important affair.
Only after she heard the bedroom door shut and her husband's footsteps on the stairs did she yank the silken mask from her eyes. Then she swung her feet over the edge of the bed and reached for the pack of Benson & Hedges sitting on her night stand.
"Men," she hissed under her breath as she lit up. Her husband was fifty-six years old. She wished he'd grow up and act it. She took a deep puff, then blew it out.
She went to the window, pulled the drapes open and looked out over the estate. It was a perfect June day with a beautiful blue sky. The edges of the white tent that had been erected on the lawn the previous day blew gently in the breeze. At least the weather was cooperating.
She glanced at the clock on the wall and decided to let Rebecca sleep a little longer. The wedding didn't start until two, and the future bride had probably been up late last night talking on the phone to her fiance. She needed her beauty rest for this special day.
Barbara had to admit to herself that she preferred it when Bradford wasn't around. As long as he handed over the green stuff whenever she needed it, she could get along just fine, thank you. Although lately he had started to nag her about how much the wedding was costing them. How much was this? And why do we need that?
Honestly, what did he expect? A proper wedding with three hundred guests took money, piles of it. As he often reminded her, they were the Bentleys of Silver Lake, one of the finest families in one of Prince George's County's grandest neighborhoods. He was founder and president of a multimillion dollar technology company, one of the most successful black-owned firms in the area, hell, in the United States of America. To quote him, they had worked long and hard to get all that they had. They had an image to uphold. Well, Mister Big Shot ought to know that they couldn't get away with a two-bit piddling wedding for their daughter.
The day Bradford struck it rich fifteen years ago when he landed that twenty-million-dollar software development contract, she'd promised herself that their two daughters would always have the finest of everything. Private schools, music lessons, beautiful dresses. And on their wedding days they would get a lot more than something like the little rinky-dink cafeteria-style reception in the church hall that she and Bradford had down in Smithfield, Virginia. That was all her aunt could afford for her, but now Barbara could afford the world for her daughters. And they would have it.
When she was twelve, her daddy took off for good--flat out disappeared. Her mother tried hard to raise her only child on her own. But it was tough for a single black woman in rural Virginia back in the 1960s. Her mother lost job after job, and pretty soon she took to drinking and welfare. Within a couple years after her daddy left, they lost the house, then the car, and Barbara became the poorest girl in school. 'Barbara the bag lady,' they called her, as her dresses became more tattered by the day.
You so po', yo' mama make you wish sandwiches for lunch, two slices of bread and wish you had some meat.
Ha, ha, ha.
Where your daddy, bastard child?
That was how she learned her parents were never married. And in the sixties it was still something to be ashamed of, especially in Smithfield, Virginia.
Barbara came home from school on her fifteenth birthday, walked into their tiny one-bedroom apartment, and found her mama dead on the couch. An empty bottle of Boone's Farm lay nearby on the floor.
Her mother's sister whisked her off, and her living standards jumped up a notch or two. But Aunt Gladys took every chance she got to trash Barbara's "no-good daddy." Aunt Gladys's favorite saying was "most men are dogs, the rest are boring as hell." Aunt Gladys's husband mostly sat in the living room watching t.v. when he came home from work. He was considered one of the boring ones.
Aunt Gladys thought Bradford was one of the dogs, and she was dead set against their marriage. She suspected that beneath all the Southern charm oozing from the pores of Bradford Bentley III was a cold and distant man. Barbara had long since come to realize that her aunt's sentiments about Bradford weren't entirely untrue. He was a dog at times.
But he could also be kind and generous with her and the girls. He rarely denied them anything. And she and Bradford had a lot more in common than many people realized. Everyone seemed to think that Bradford came from a prestigious Southern family, that he was born into money because he was so polished and charming. But he was from Smithfield, and his folks were pure country just like hers.
His parents had stayed together, and that made Bradford's life a little easier. And instead of fleeing as her daddy had, Bradford's dad stayed in Smithfield. But he worked in the factories all his life and died penniless and mad at the world. To this very day, Bradford's mother still lived in the same house with one of Bradford's sisters.
Bradford rarely visited them or talked about them. He seemed to have this need to run as far and fast as he could from his humble beginnings, and he had done a good job of leaving all signs of his past behind. They both had. Although she still visited her aunt regularly, she didn't keep in touch with anyone else from Smithfield.
If those snotty-nosed country kids down there could see her now, in her fine stone-and-stucco, Spanish-tile roof, seven-bedroom, eight-bathroom house, they'd be shocked. She had a housekeeper who came every damn day except Sunday. She got manicures and pedicures weekly. She was a long, long way from being 'Barbara, the bag lady.'
She stood up and put her cigarette out. That was enough daydreaming. She had a busy day ahead of her. The aroma of fresh Jamaican coffee drifted up the stairs, and that meant Phyllis, her housekeeper, had arrived. Thank goodness. A hit of caffeine was just what she needed to charge her fifty-year-old batteries for this long day.
Not that she looked her age. No way. She exercised and she gardened, in a climate-controlled green house, of course. She took care of herself. She was still a slim size eight, one size bigger than the day she got married. People often thought she was in her late thirties. No bag lady, this. Not Barbara Anne Bentley.
She looked down at the ashtray. If only she could get rid of that nasty habit. Her complexion was starting to dry out from the cigarettes. But dammit, considering all that Bradford had put her through over the years, she was entitled to a crutch.
She opened the night-stand drawer for a fresh pack to go with her morning coffee, then paused and stared at the bottle of Belvedere vodka in back of the drawer. It looked so tempting, she nearly smacked her lips. She normally opened this drawer several times a day without even noticing the bottle. It had been sitting there for two years now as a pointed reminder of the dark days behind her. She could hear Bradford's voice now, taunting her, ridiculing her whenever he smelled alcohol on her. Like mama, like daughter, he would hiss under his breath.
With the big day ahead and Bradford acting the usual horny, selfish fool, she couldn't be blamed for being tempted. But she was beyond that now. She slammed the drawer shut.
She slipped her feet into satin slippers, tossed her silk floor-length bathrobe across her shoulders, and lit up with her eighteen-carat gold cigarette lighter as she followed the scent of coffee down a long hallway to the stairs. Thank God for Jamaican Blue Mountain and housekeepers.
2
Oh, yeah . . . baby, that's it. Ooh. Oh, yes!"
Jolene had trouble believing that was her...
