Day 14 – A Book for Lovers:
Today is Valentine’s Day and the photo pic for the day is a book for lovers. While rummaging through my shelves I realized that I don’t read lots of stories that contain a romantic/love connection and nor do I plan to read any from the looks of my enormous TBR pile; that is at least I don’t think so. I decided to go with two
of Eric Jerome Dickey’s novels: Friends and Lovers (1997) and Between Lovers (2001). I know a lot of people who are Eric Jerome Dickey lovers have at least one copy of something by him. These two novels contain all the ingredients for guilty pleasure reading. They are light, fast reads, funny, have a juicy love story along with all the typical tropes, and of course a bit of sex.
Now it’s been ages since I actually picked one of his books up. Both of these two would be a great Valentine’s Day read and wouldn’t take up too much of your time to finish. Some of you might be wondering who h is. Well, Eric Jerome Dickey was supposed to start a career as a computer expert in an engineering company. Soon after that he started acting and doing stand-up, which eventually led to the development of his writing. Dickey is one of the most well-known and loved Urban fiction writers and has written a variety of novels, a screen play, and a comic. For the moment, I’m most interested in the Gideon series. Haven’t had the time to start it yet. So many other books have sped up the TBR and have become higher priority. I promise to change that and finally dig into the Gideon series which was popular from 2007-2009. “It introduces a great new bad-boy narrator: a hit man who goes by the name of Gideon. He’s a man who lives off the grid, drifting along while making love on the run as he works as a hit man—enacting the revenge of the broken-hearted . . . for a price.”(Goodreads novel description) I’m a little late to that game but I’m still going to try it out. More on Eric Jerome Dickey click his name. If you’ve read the Gideon series tell me what you thought. What would you suggest as a book for lovers?
Do you think Eric Jerome Dickey is considered an Urban writer?
Well I’m not sure. However I feel that Urban fiction is wider than what most people think. I don’t consider him to be literary, but he is contemporary borderline erotic at times. His stories do contain a lot of the themes that we equate with Urban fiction. Dickey’s writing is good and that’s what sets him apart from common Urban fiction. Might be something for me to explore, although I’m not a big fan or extremely knowledgeable of Urban fiction. What do you think?
Yeah, I agree! His work is quite erotic hahaa. I just rarely see his name when whenever the ‘urban literature’ genre pops up- sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t…so I was wondering. I think he is def an urban writer though, just because of the subject matter he writes about and the way he goes about writing it. His work is very well written though, and not raunchy like other urban lit writers.
I agree that his writing is good and erotic. Yes he is one of the better Urban Fiction writers. There’s also Sister Souljah but I haven’t read any of her stuff yet. I probably should read The Coldest Winter too.
Oh yes you should! Sister Souljah is a writer I really respect. The Coldest Winter Ever and her new book, A Deeper Love Inside are great cautionary tales. (ohh, and TiffReads youtube video on urban fiction was a great addition to the bhm program/#readsoullit. Thank you again for organizing this!)
Yes I definitely will be checking her work out. Yes Tiff really did a good job. All the videos are very diverse and give a rich perspective on the black Booktubers. I hope this even brings them loads of new subscribers. You’re very welcome!