You know better : a novel /

Three generations of Pines women finally come to terms with their own frailties. Lily Pines, mother and grandmother, is a natural nurturer, educator, and community leader who has always provided security for her family. Her daughter, Sandra, well bred and pampered, has become self-centered and preoccupied with her own wishes and needs. Her daughter, LaShawndra, is an 18-year-old hoochie-mama struggling to reconcile her dream of becoming a dancer in a music video with the mundane daily responsibility of surviving. It is another one of her miscalculated mishaps that jump-starts this weekend epiphany. The spirits of three renowned Mulberry, Georgia, women visit and assist Lily, Sandra, and LaShawndra in reevaluating their perceptions of themselves and their relationships with one another. After such emotionally charged encounters, these women are finally able to interact with one another in a healthier way by loving each other's attributes as well as accepting each other's shortcomings. Ansa has done a superb job of weaving the supernatural and natural into an engrossing tale about women and relationships. --Lillian Lewis

African-American favorite Ansa (The Hand I Fan With) focuses in her fourth novel on three generations of troubled women in a small Georgia town, employing the Dickensian device of ghostly guides to lead them to enlightenment. The Peach Blossom Festival is upon tiny Mulberry, but the Pines women have little reason for rejoicing. LaShawndra, an 18-year-old "coochie" who engages in indiscriminate sex and whose greatest aspiration is to dance in a music video, has disappeared. Her mother, Sandra, is too busy with her real estate career, her new romance with a pastor and youth-enhancing beauty treatments to look for LaShawndra. So it falls to the girl's grandmother, Lily, a respected pillar of the community, to perform the search. The book is a first-person triptych, the three Pines women taking turns from oldest to youngest in detailing how they arrived at this latest crisis point and each has a different spirit guide to help her out. Ansa has a clear prose style, and she does a fine job of getting inside the women's heads; the chief problem is that, with the exception of Lily, her protagonists are unsympathetic. Lily herself overplays the religion card, while Sandra and LaShawndra are too selfish to rouse much sympathy. One thing they have in common: all three take the scenic route in their extended confessions, resulting in a book that is almost all past history with very little plot. Agent, Owen Laster. Harper Audio. (Apr. 2) Forecast: Ansa, a Blackboard bestselling writer with a bit of literary flair, improves on the lightweight Hand I Fan With here, but probably won't boost her readership much, though a strong marketing campaign and a 10-city author tour could help. More likely to enhance long-term sales if it is picked up by a major distributor is a forthcoming film adaptation of Ansa's award-winning first novel, Baby of the Family, featuring Alfre Woodard, Pam Grier and Vanessa Williams, among others. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

A runaway teenager, an oblivious mother, and a worried grandmother take center stage in this new work from Ansa, whose Ugly Ways was the 1994 African American Blackboard Novel of the Year. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Three generations of small-town black women, aided by lovable ghosts. Lily Paine Pines drives around Mulberry, Georgia, looking for LaShawndra, her wayward granddaughter, when the wispy, wrinkled apparition of a much-loved local teacher, Miss Grace Moses, appears in the seat beside her, offering sage counsel and companionship during the long night. Miss Moses listens patiently as Lily reminisces about her own childhood and teaching career-and about her failed marriage to Charles, a compulsive gambler who doted on their only daughter, Sandra. Did he spoil her? As a teenager, Sandra got pregnant but never paid much attention to her daughter, much to Lily's dismay. Now, Sandra, who sells real estate, is involved in a romantic relationship with a preacher and is generally obsessed with respectability and material things. Luckily, she's showing houses to another wise ghost, Nurse Joanna Bloom, once a midwife at the local colored hospital. Joanna is a stalwart spirit in starched white who teaches cynical Sandra a thing or two about hope. Sandra finds out that Joanna aborted her own illegitimate baby decades ago-and made up for it by bringing generations of babies into the world. Shift to LaShawndra, a hootchie-mama of 19 who favors microskirts and tube tops. She's got a reputation as a ho (she isn't) and is always ready to hook up with any good-for-nothing who struts by; now, she's hitching to Freaknik, a wild spring-break party for black college students, when a phat phantom in a shiny black Jag pulls over. Why, it's Liza Jane, the glamorous, tough-talking former owner of a juke joint. LaShawndra can't tell if Liza Jane is real or not, but her car sure is. The two head down the road, and LaShawndra finds out that the good times can kill her if she's not careful. And so on. Can-I-get-a-witness enthusiasm can't compensate for a nearly nonexistent story. From the author of similar tales (The Hand I Fan With, 1996, etc.). Author tour