Go out to a bookstore or order it on the Internet, but buy yourself a copy of Some Things I Never Thought I’d Do. Then buy copies for your friends.
This charming urban fairy tale is about renewal, love, hope, and creating one’s best self. Regina Burns wrecked her life. Now, out of rehab, she is determined to save the family house from foreclosure. The job she has to take to do that is as a speechwriter for an ambitious woman who destroyed Regina’s romance with the woman’s son, who is now dead.
Meanwhile, Regina’s psychic Aunt Abbie warns her about a blue-eyed man. Regina’s new landlord turns out to be a blue-eyed black man who knows how to keep his neighborhood safe.
As Regina rebuilds her life and forges new relationships with both family and friends, she is confronted time and time again with difficult choices. Can she hold on to the job that will save her home and still retain her integrity? Does she dare to love a man who, in the name of what’s right and good, may well be involved in illegal activities? Can she accept responsibility for creating her own future rather than handing her life to anyone who believes he/she knows best?
Pearl Cleage wrote the extraordinarily beautiful novel What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day and the heartwarming novel I Wish I Had a Red Dress. This is as beautiful and loving a book as her previous books. Her commitment to characters who survive the negative by searching for and demanding the positive make her work life-affirming. Cleage’s themes of love, friendship, personal responsibility and belief in joy run through her works and provide welcome hours of pleasure that linger long after the final page is read.