Got this from a friend as a birthday present and it confirmed once again that people underestimate Zane. You'll hear plenty of folks say she's the best writer of straight black women's erotica, or black erotica, or women's erotica. Thing is, she's just the best writer of erotica period.
Her literary style inaugurates an entirely new genre. Her craft is such that she truly develops her characters and turns up the heat at the same time.
I think it is important to state that I write this from the perspective of one white, straight, male
Another unique things about Zane is that she writes about black women who are able to enjoy great sex but they are never portrayed in a stereotypical, racist, sexist manner. In her writing, you just don't find a "ho" or "b****" or any other degrading representation of black women's complex sexualities. I maybe highly presumptuous in saying this, but Zane's rich imagination wants to find that space where black women can explore sex, explore their own erotic feelings, sensations, and fantasies, especially in relation to how Audre Lorde defines eros, and without guilt, condemnation, and without being called abusive, degrading names by all manner of people, and called ugly things by the media.
There is something very liberating about her books in that way. And really, in how many parts of American culture, whether movies, television, etc., can you find her kind of depiction of black women, one that suggests a (measure) of freedom from the tangle of racism and sexism.
I can only find one fault with this book and some of Zane's other stories and novels and that is that they are unbendingly straight. And I don't believe that's a failure of imagination on Zane's part. She's no homophobe, but it would be great to see LGBTQ folks populate her writing from time to time.