Do You Take This Woman?
A Novel
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
RM Johnson, the Essence bestselling author of Dating Games and The Million Dollar Divorce, once again creates a riveting and enthralling new novel that explores the testing of a bond between two childhood friends when they both fall in love with the same woman.
Pete and Wayne grew up side by side. After Pete's mother abandoned him, Wayne's family took him in and treated him as their own son. Through adolescence, college, medical school, and in their shared orthopedics practice, Pete and Wayne have lived their entire lives as best friends -- as brothers. And as brothers, they have always been rivals when it came to women.
The fateful night when Carla walks into the bar where Pete and Wayne are having drinks brings Wayne his customary, more fortunate, luck with the ladies. Even though Pete spotted her first, it is Wayne who seals the deal, and soon enough, Wayne and Carla are engaged. But Wayne's need for one last conquest tempts him into bed with another woman, and the ensuing guilt leads him to confide in his best friend -- a mistake that will haunt the three of them forever.
Jealous of his friend's relationship, Pete tells Carla of Wayne's infidelity and provides more than just a friendly shoulder to cry on. As a result, Carla leaves Wayne and further breaks his heart by accepting Pete's marriage proposal only one year later.
Just when old friends seem to be finally settling down with their choices, old feelings surreptitiously sneak to the surface, and a rift between husband and wife leads Pete astray and drives Carla into the most familiar arms she can find. In the ensuing days, tensions erupt, and relationships, already tenuous, begin to break down. Finally, guilt, lust, and redemption come together in a heartbreaking and tragic love triangle, and Pete, Wayne, and Carla are forced to face the consequences of decisions that may end up being their last.
Do You Take This Woman? is a sexy blend of friendship and romance that will take you on a startlingly real and emotional roller-coaster ride of betrayal, sex, lies, and, ultimately, love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Love or as one of the characters in Johnson's latest soap opera calls it, "plain, stupid, make-you-disrespect-the-hell-out-of-yourself love" makes people do silly things. But even that fails to explain the absurd lengths to which three African-American Chicagoans go in Johnson's disappointing seventh novel (after The Million Dollar Divorce). Magazine editor Carla is neglecting her meek husband, Pete, by meeting Pete's best friend and business partner (and her ex-fianc ), Wayne, on the sly. Nothing steamy happens (she just wants to see if she still "has feelings" for Wayne). When Pete cheats and confesses his transgression Carla wants to even the score by stepping out (for real). Pete agrees, but only if he can pick the man. Pete chooses, of course, Wayne. Carla, afraid of falling deeper in love with Wayne, decides she and Wayne will only pretend to do the deed. But once Wayne and Carla are in the hotel room, things heat up. Pete, unable to contain his jealousy, has Wayne arrested for adultery and soon discovers that Carla's pregnant (and, no, she doesn't know by whom), a revelation that sends Pete on a violent tear. A hokey denouement rounds out this flaccid offering.
