CAROL TAYLOR

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

DIFFERENT STROKES,
FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS

"Brown Sugar 3 explores what happens when opposites attract because being involved with our opposite allows us to see ourselves more clearly than when we are with someone with whom we share many similarities.

Forget everything you think you know about attraction. Forget about your type about what you are looking for or what you think you want or don't want. The rules are changing. These days the definition of a "type" are expanding and growing as our world becomes smaller and more global. It's time to forget what you think you know about types of people and character based on looks, status, socio-economics, religion, color, class, education and background. These days that's all changed. We no longer wear ourselves on our sleeves. Character is as deeply imbedded in our psyche as our culture, our origins and our backgrounds. There are as many different types of black people as there are shades among us.

Our clothes don't make us who we are; neither does our jobs our family history, our friends, our salary, our neighborhood, our color or class. The only thing that makes us, who we are, is who we are. There really is no such thing as a type. We are as complex as the world we are raised in among the many different types of people who made us who we are. So to think you have a type and are attracted only to that type is not only shortsighted it's also self-defeating.

Everyday there is a new type of black man or woman maturing and coming into their own, whom is completely different from what you think you know and like. And although this new guy looks just like the old guy, get ready, he is absolutely nothing like him and you should be glad. Our world is bigger than where we live, the town, city, country or the part of the world we live in. If we learn to be accepting and not discriminate, to choose rather than to merely accept what we are used to, then all the different types of black people around us can be remarkable and fascinating. At best eye opening, astounding, life changing, at least simply extraordinary."

Read more in Brown Sugar 3!

"It's a familiar premise—four 30-ish, New York City friends... navigating the perils of single life. Thankfully, Taylor makes it fresh again in her delicious debut novel by punching up the ante with some intriguing Terry McMillanesque twists."
— Publisher's Weekly