num_pages: 179
description: The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world caught as they are between the churchs double standards and their own needs and passions.There is fourteen-year-old Jael who has a crush on the preachers wife. At forty-two Lyra realizes that her discomfort with her own body stands between her and a new love. As Y2K looms Carolettas same time next year arrangement with her childhood best friend is tenuous. A serial mistress lays down the ground rules for her married lovers. In the dark shadows of a hospice parking lot grieving strangers find comfort in each other.With their secret longings new love and forbidden affairs these church ladies are as seductive as they want to be as vulnerable as they need to be as unfaithful and unrepentant as they care to be and as free as they deserve to be.
language: English
title: The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
publisher: West Virginia University Press