CAROL TAYLOR

Welcome to the website for fiction and nonfiction by Carol Taylor, including the bestselling Brown Sugar series, Wanderlust, The Ex Chronicles: A Novel,  and Insignificant Others: Novella series.

Here you will find information about all four Brown Sugar books: Brown Sugar, Brown Sugar 2: Great One Night Stands, Brown Sugar 3: When Opposites Attract and Brown Sugar 4: Secret Desires, Wanderlust, The Ex Chronicles or Insignificant Others. Click on each title to find out information about the book and the contributing authors. Or go to the Selected Works column on the right to read excerpts from the books, my published short stories and essays and to get early looks at upcoming work. Enjoy!

"Audaciously refreshing." — Essence
"A stylish anthology." — Publisher's Weekly
"As smart as it is sexy." — Honey

Silk sheets, jazz playing softly in the background. The many moods of Eros are explored in this rich and diverse collection of black erotica. Sexy and stimulating, playful and romantic, Brown Sugar is a must-have for every lover, as well as every lover of first-rate fiction.

Brown Sugar brings together 18 original stories by America's premier black authors. Their stories cover the full spectrum of black experience and identity as they reveal sexuality and sensuality in all their myriad forms. From the raunchy to the right-on, Brown Sugar embraces the ardor and passion of black love and desire. Whether you are male or female, gay or straight, this joyous celebration of erotica will transport you to a realm beyond the limits of your sensual imagination.

THE EX CHRONICLES 

The Ex Chronicles, written by Carol Taylor, is a character-driven novel that succeeds in emotionally involving the reader in the lives of each of its main characters – Precious, Bella, Zenobia, Hope, and later on, Portia. Each of these ladies has a life full of emotional ups and downs. As friends should do, they help each other handle what life has dealt them.

Of course, most of these ladies are involved with a man that is no good for her, a former beau that is presenting her with all kinds of problems, but that doesn't stop these women from continuing to see their bad ex-boyfriends. They are settling for the one they can get right now instead of searching for the one that will treat them with love, honor, and respect.

Precious is a struggling writer of literotica. When she catches her boyfriend, Darius, in bed with another woman, she kicks him out. That doesn't stop her from seeing him time and time again, though.

Bella is a drug addict and alcoholic who doesn't think that her rich mom and dad care much for her at all. Her musician boyfriend, Julius, takes advantage of the money that mommy and daddy provide Bella with and he keeps her supplied with drugs.

Zenobia, now co-owner of a modeling agency, once had a successful modeling career, She gave it up for Malcolm, an unfaithful and emotionally abusive Dutch-African artist. Their relationship is unpredictable; one moment they are together, the next they are apart. When he is with Zenobia, he contributes nothing to help pay the bills and argues about her working.

Hope is the creative director at Shades, a magazine for black women. Her situation is different from those of the other women. Her father has died and she is trying to care for her mother who has Alzheimer's. Between her job and her mom, she is pretty stressed out. When her regular driver is replaced with Derrick, an attractive single father from Harlem, she is upset at first. But Derrick seems to be so compassionate and so caring that she slowly falls for him.

Portia is beautiful, so beautiful that Zenobia chases her down and asks her to model for her agency. Portia's dad died when she was 10 and she is living with her mother, little sister, and her mom's live-in boyfriend. There is no bad boyfriend that Portia is stil linvolved with, her problem is Rey, her mom's live-in boyfriend. He does absolutely nothing except lay around on the couch and make a mess. Until one day Portia walks in and catches him doing something so much worse. . .

I found this book to be extremely well-written. The story didn't pull me in at first, but the more I read, the more I began to care about what was going on with each of these women. Despite the fact that my life is completely different from any of the main characters in the book, Ms. Taylor succeeded in causing this reader to become emotionally involved with their lives. My favorite characters were Portia and Hope. All of these ladies showed incredible strength and determination, but the traumas that were in the lives of Portia and Hope touched me the most. The friendship they all show to each other is amazing. The way they help each other out through all of their different crises show what true friendship is all about.

For those of you who like drama, this book is a must. Issues such as depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, and self-worth are what these women face and help each other through. This is an erotic fiction book, so it does contain sexual situations, as well as a good amount of language. Reviewed for BellaOnline by Lisa Binion.

In the next installment of THE EX CHRONICLES: Everything Changes for Hope, Precious, Bella, Zenobia and Portia and the men who love them. But it's not what you expect...

IF YOU'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THE FOLLOW UP TO THE EX CHRONICLES: PLAN B THE WAIT IS OVER. THE CREATOR OF THE BESTSELLING BROWN SUGAR SERIES RETURNS WITH THE EX CHRONICLES: EVERYTHING CHANGES, THE NEXT INSTALLMENT IN HER SEXY NOVELLA SERIES.

In a New York City rife with emotional land mines, four best friends search for Mr. Right but too often settle for Mr. Right Now.

When we last left the girls, they'd all made changes for the better. Precious, no longer a struggling writer is an editor at Shades magazine. She'd left her no-good cheating ex Darius, again after finding out that he'd been cheating on her the entire two years they'd been together. Editor in Chief of Shades, Hope, newly engaged to Derrick, is rethinking their engagement after a night of passion with Max, rival magazine editor Honey Lamont's ex. Now Hope is not sure if what she feels for Derrick is real or what she feels for Max real enough to leave Derrick. Wisecracking, over-indulged Bella is freshly on the wagon from a twenty-year addiction to drugs and alcohol. For once she's the one who has it "all together". She wants to help her girlfriends but knows she can't do it and stay sober. Zenobia said goodbye to Malcolm, her unfaithful boyfriend and even stayed away for a whole four months only to end up back in bed with him. Now she has to face her faithful and loving boyfriend David, who is about to "pop the question". Eighteen-year-old aspiring model Portia, fell in love with Guy Bernard, the photographer shooting her ad campaign. The are blissfully happy until her mother Luz finds out that Guy is twenty years older than Portia, and two years older than she is.

They thought they had it all figured out. Well so much for a Plan B because now everything changes; and it's not all for the best.

PRAISE FOR THE EX CHRONICLES

"The Ex Chronicles: Plan B is an enjoyable and satisfying read that will appeal to readers for whom steamy sex is not enough. Grab this book if you need it Triple X." — AALBC.com

"The Ex Chronicles is a character-driven novel that succeeds in emotionally involving the reader in the lives of each of its main characters. For those of you who like drama, this book is a must. Issues such as depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, and self-worth are what these women face and help each other through." — BellaOnline

THE EX CHRONICLES: Everything Changes is available now on Amazon and InsatiablePress.com.

In book 2 THE EX CHRONICLES: Plan B: Bourgie Hope, the editorial director of Shades magazine, fell in love with Derrick, a single dad from the projects, while at her wits end caring for her sick mother and handling her own high-powered career. Derrick proposed to Hope and she was ecstatic. But she’s now wondering if it's too much too soon, especially when she meets the sexy and seductive Max. Precious, a Shades editor, left her fiancé Darius after finding him in bed with another woman. She’s now back with him; hoping that this time he really will change. Bella, the overindulged wild child of rich parents, burned out, not only drugs and alcohol but also on her enabling ex Julius, and went into rehab. Now her parents are threatening to cut her off if she doesn’t get a job, something she’s never had to do. Half-Jamaican, half-British Zenobia sacrificed a successful modeling career for her ex Malcolm, but his constant cheating made it impossible for her to stay with him. Now she’s with David, but Malcolm wants her back. As we follow these best friends from New York, to London, and Amsterdam, they must cope with not only their careers and their past, but also their cheating exes and the love they still have for them. They each need a Plan B.

INSIGNIFICANT OTHERS NEW 4-BOOK NOVELLA SERIES
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE “WORLD RIGHTS TO BESTSELLING AUTHORS CAROL TAYLOR AND PYNK'S FOUR-BOOK NOVELLA SERIES INSIGNIFICANT OTHERS, SOLD TO ROBERT PODRASKY AT INSATIABLE PRESS LIMITED, INC., BY ANDREW STUART AT THE STUART AGENCY”— Publisher’s Weekly Audio, ebook, and print-on-demand rights to Carol Taylor and Pynk's four-book erotic novella series Insignificant Others, will debut spring 2013, with a new book published every six months. In Insignificant Others, Carol Taylor's The Ex Chronicles 2: Plan B and Pynk’s Erotic City II: Miami, pick up where their bestselling novels The Ex Chronicles, and Erotic City ended. Lust is a central character in these steamy novellas, which feature the ongoing plights of real women seeking love and sex in the city, sometimes in all the wrong places and with all the wrong men. Focusing on the sadly universal theme of infidelity, Insignificant Others will continue to draw urban fiction and erotica readers, as well as fans of both Pynk’s and Taylor’s books. Taylor's bestselling and critically acclaimed Brown Sugar anthology launched a hugely successful multi-book series and created a new genre in erotica. Pynk's wildly popular novels garnered scores of fans for her sexy, colorful, yet relatable characters in sexually-charged situations. These veteran authors now combine their fan base and bestseller status. With dozens of books between them and thousands of fans, these two prolific authors and industry insiders have defined and refined the erotica market over the last decade. Taylor, a former Random House editor, has been in book publishing for over 18 years. A bestselling author of seven books and an award-winning book editor, she is the editor of the four-book bestselling Brown Sugar series, Wanderlust: Erotic Travel Tales, and the novel The Ex Chronicles.

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