October 29

Tags

A House Divided by Kimberla Lawson Roby

Posted by on October 29, 2013 in Fiction | Leave a comment

The tenth installment of the Reverend Curtis Black series.

The Setup
Curtis and Charlotte Black’s eighteen-year-old son, Matthew, is expecting a baby with his girlfriend, Racquel Anderson. But the happy event is marred by major animosity between Charlotte and Racquel’s mother, Vanessa, due to several conflicts of interest regarding their grandchild, Matthew Jr., mostly because of Charlotte’s insistence on having control over everything.

The Twist
Charlotte’s bad behaviour causes the Andersons to limit her visitations with MJ once he’s born. Then, when Matthew and Racquel become engaged, Charlotte decides to take action. She has an anonymous tip called into Child Services, claiming that Vanessa and Racquel are abusing MJ, figuring that the accusations will cause Matthew to break up with Racquel and file for sole custody. Until the investigation is complete, The Blacks agree to take care of their grandson.

The Spoiler
Charlotte’s involvement with the bogus Child Services charges is exposed, and she pleads guilty to two counts of conspiracy, which earns her two years probation, two hundred hours of community service, and a fifty thousand dollar fine. Matthew cuts her off and moves in with the Andersons, who file a ten million dollar civil suit against her. Despite the fallout, Charlotte vows to change her ways.

Additional Spoilers
It wouldn’t be a Reverend Black novel without Curtis being involved in a scandal of his own.

The Setup
Curtis keeps getting anonymous letters and phone calls threatening to expose a secret that could cause him to lose everything. In the meantime, he’s counseling a young engaged couple, Melissa and Dillon, due to Dillon’s addiction to porn and strippers. Dillon promises his fiancée that he’ll stop.

The Twist
Unfortunately, Dillon is unable to resist: one night, he calls Curtis from outside a strip club; Melissa followed him there and broke up with him. Dillon asks Curtis to meet him, and when the older man does, he is beaten and kidnapped. As it turns out, Curtis’ bitter second ex-wife, Mariah, was the one threatening him. She teamed up with Dillon, whose counseling sessions were a hoax; he’s actually Curtis’ long-lost son. Back in college, after Curtis had gotten Dillon’s mother, a stripper, pregnant, he denied paternity and abandoned her, which caused her to take her own life, so Dillon contacted Mariah and together, decided to exact revenge on the man who wronged them.

The Spoiler
A remorseful Curtis apologizes to Dillon, and offers him five hundred thousand dollars to make it up to him. Dillon, touched by Curtis’ generosity, decides to drop the lawsuit he was going to file against his estranged father. Between his and Charlotte’s scandal, Curtis decides to step down from the church.