The best-kept secret /

Curtis Black is back! After failed marriages to Tanya ( Casting the First Stone,0 2000) and Mariah ( Too Much of a Good Thing,0 2004), two unsuccessful ministries in Chicago, and two children, Curtis has finally settled down with Carmen and their son, Matthew. He is committed to ensuring that Matthew has a happy childhood and relocates his family to a small town in Illinois. Curtis starts a new church there called Deliverance Outreach, writes a monthly column for the local paper, and is working on his first book. Although his family is not living extravagantly, they are comfortable. Yet Carmen is very dissatisfied that he is unable to provide the lifestyle she believes they deserve. She soothes her disappointment with overspending and having an affair with his best friend, Aaron Malone. Her manipulation is causing Curtis the same doubt and pain that he inflicted on his ex-wives. It isn't until Curtis receives a book deal that Carmen decides to break up with Aaron and all their secrets are revealed, and the reader is treated to a well-written narrative. --Lillian Lewis Copyright 2005 Booklist

Rev. Curtis Black has finally changed his ways: no more close encounters with temptation, either of the flesh or of the wallet, just a simple existence running his new church and loving his young wife of two years, Charlotte, and their son, Matthew. But readers who relished Black's down-and-dirties in Roby's Casting the First Stone and Too Much of a Good Thing need not worry that the series will shy away from its deliciously trashy concerns. For Curtis has more than met his match in Charlotte, a babe 15 years his junior who didn't bargain on a solid middle-class existence when she married him-after all, he was a holy high-roller who knocked her up before she was 18. Charlotte fills the void she feels with spending sprees and wild sex with Curtis's best friend, Aaron. Of course, Curtis finds out, and Charlotte vows to be better. But Aaron, who has a history of mental illness, will stop at nothing to win Charlotte back-including sharing her entire sinful past (and Matthew's questionable paternity) with Curtis. Self-pitying, self-justifying Curtis figures that "nothing he'd ever done could compare to the sins Charlotte had committed," and so he promptly goes back on the prowl himself. The novel's utterly sleazy conclusion will leave readers shaking off the cooties-and eagerly awaiting the next scandalous installment. Agent, Elaine Koster. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Making his third appearance in a spiritual novel (after Too Much of a Good Thing), Rev. Curtis Black tries to redeem himself with his third wife after so many years of infidelity. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.