About the Author

E. Lynn Harris is the author of six previous novels, including Not a Day Goes By and If This World Were Mine, as well as Abide with Me, Invisible Life, Just as I Am, And This Too Shall Pass (all available from Turnaround). Just as I Am was named Blackboard Novel of the Year in 1996, and Abide with Me and If This World Were Mine both won the James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence. In 2000, E. Lynn Harris was named one of the 55 Most Intriguing African Americans by Ebony and was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.

Reviews

"The best-written and most wicked of Harris's novels, Any Way the Wind Blows will keep you up all night turning pages and being grateful for a quiet life." - Amazon.com "Packed with more drama than a hurricane at a Fourth of July picnic." - USA Today "More lying, cheating, bed-hopping and name-calling than a year's worth of Ricki Lake." - People

John Basil Henderson, retired NFL tight end and self-styled "playa," is one of Harris's favorite characters, having brought his dastardly charm to several of the author's novels. In last year's Not a Day Goes By, Basil finally found a lover as voracious as he, and as lacking in scruples: Broadway diva supreme Yancey Harrington Braxton. Their turbulent affair ended, spectacularly, when Basil left Yancey at the altar. This conflicted, not entirely lovable pair returns in Harris's latest urban romance. After Basil's very public jilting, Yancey set out for Los Angeles to pursue her dream of pop stardom. She returns to New York as Motown chanteuse Yancey B, ready to shoot the video for her first single. Still in Manhattan, Basil has turned football fame into a successful career as a sports agent. Far more principled in business than in love, Basil has little respect for the women he beds and even less for the men he sees "on the down low." As Yancey's provocative, autobiographical ballad climbs the charts, she and Basil are reluctantly reunited in a tangle of sex, suspense and scandalous secrets. The obsessive scheming of waiter/model/actor Bart Dunbar adds another layer of intrigue to this already outsized tale. By building his novel around three protagonists who are mostly lacking in moral sense, Harris takes the chance that readers will not be able to sympathize with them or appreciate their outrageous exploits. But the author gives each of his characters an externalized conscience in the form of a generous, loving, honorable best friend. By adding this human dimension to his main characters, Harris makes it a little easier for readers to enjoy his sassy contemporary melodrama. (On-sale: July 10) Forecast: Not a Day Goes By was a vigorous bestseller, and this more-of-the-same sequel should match its performance. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.