"An intriguing family drama"

Public relations expert Tiffany Johnson decides to go for her dream to become the "Philly queen of the night"; she quits her successful career at Platinum Images and forms a partnership with her sister Kamille, her fiancé Malik Skinner, and her best friend Essence to open up in a few months a club, Teaz Entertainment. She also obtains backing from suburbia's Greg "D-Dog" and his father.

As the club becomes the in-spot, Tiffany learns that her fiancé and her sister shared a one night stand in college that they hid from her; her nephew Kareem could be a result of that fling. The cops begin investigating the money trail of the club as drugs and mob ties surface with the link seemingly being D-Dog and dad. Tiffany's dream has taken a nightmarish spin with no one for her to depend on or trust except herself.

This intriguing family drama smoothly switches from first person accounts to third person so that the audience obtains a deep character study. The ensemble cast is easy to delineate one from another, but Tiffany receives the most empathy though she is far from an innocent babe. The story line feels like an African-American 2005 Peyton Place as it seems everyone is doing in everyone else; thus readers will feel no empathy to any character. Still Brenda L. Thomas provides a strong look at the downside of hanging with the in-crowd, which proves to be more glitter than gold.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted December 23, 2004

Summary

Life is a party. When Tiffany Johnson, a street-smart publicist at Platinum Images, decides to launch Teaz Entertainment and open a club, she's setting out to be the queen of Philly nightlife. Keeping it in the family, she partners up with her fiancé, Malik, and her sister, Kamille, and counts on her friend DJ Essence to bring the noise. Investors seem to be lining up and the buzz is gettin' loud. Be careful who you invite. When Tiffany finds out that Malik and Kamille had an affair -- and that it might not be the only secret they share -- she spirals downward and gets swept up in two unexpectedly erotic affairs of her own. Awakening to a new kind of sexual freedom and reeling from betrayal, Tiffany is raw and vulnerable. So vulnerable that she doesn't realize that her new lovers are involved in more than kinky sex, and that they might take her new club down with them...unless she takes them down first.