Authors: Lutishia Lovely
Reverend Feelgood
Sex in the Sanctuary
Love Like Hallelujah
A Preacher’s Passion
Heaven Right Here
To my grandfather, Willie Hinton, Sr.,
who always encouraged me to write him a letter,
and to my father, Reverend Willie Hinton, Jr.,
who told a nappy-headed, ashy-knee’d little colored girl
that she could go anywhere, and do anything….
You would think that the more books I write, the fewer people I’d have to acknowledge. I mean, didn’t I cover just about everybody in the first four books? In actuality, what happens is with every new novel there are more people to thank and more reasons to feel grateful. And while I’ve thanked some people in the past, there are some you just can’t thank enough.
Like editor Selena James, for instance. So what that I just thanked her in
Heaven Right Here,
and in
A Preacher’s Passion
before that, and in
Love Like Hallelujah
before that. This thank-you is for
Reverend Feelgood
, y’all, because her input and support were no less valuable in bringing this latest work to fruition. Behind every good writer is a great editor, believe that! Standing next to that editor is an awesome agent, Natasha Kern, and a fabulous, get-her-hustle-on-all-day-long personal publicist, Ella Curry, of EDC Creations. This is just part of “Team Lutishia” that is helping me take this brand to a whole nutha level!
Another big part of this team is my extended Kensington family: publicist Adeola Saul, Selena’s assistant Mercedes Fernandez, copy editor Ellen Winkler, production editor Paula Reedy, cover designer Kristine Mills-Noble, along with cover photographer George Kerrigan, wardrobe stylist Denise Martin, and hair and makeup artist Lysette Drumgold, who gave those designers such great shots to work with. What draws readers to what’s on the inside of a book begins with what’s on the outside. Thanks for the great work. To the sales and marketing team who work so hard getting my books in as many stores and on as many websites as possible—I appreciate your efforts in making mine a household name!
I was very fortunate to be able to call my longtime friend Carol Nichols regarding information on “all things Louisiana,” where some of the Feelgood story line takes place. I still can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve bitten into a beignet or sipped a hurricane. See you soon, Carol. I’m way overdue for a trip to N’awlins….
Okay, let me put a disclaimer here and say I’m getting ready to start something. Because I’m getting ready to talk about what I feel is a writer’s salt of the earth—readers. And not just any reader, but those collective groups of readers otherwise known as book clubs.
Baby!
Y’all sistahs and brothahs hold it down on the real tip, and I love, love, LOVE a book club. Y’all don’t hear me, though. No, really, you don’t even understand how deep this love goes! These readers will swim across an ocean, climb Mount Everest, and then head to the moon if there is a good book there waiting. And then they’ll tell everybody else about it. They are the best fans and supporters an author can ask for. Every single book club out there is amazing, and aforementioned disclaimer in mind, I know I’m about to get into trouble by naming some, because I know I’ll miss somebody, but these are the groups I’ve either met or interacted with recently, and without the naming of which, these acknowledgments would not be complete: Nikkea Smithers and Readers With Attitude (Richmond, Buffalo, and LA chapters), Tamika Newhouse and AAMBC, Lacha Mitchell and Woman To Woman Literary Sisters, Claudia Mosley and Sisterhood Book Club, TaNisha Webb and KC Girlfriends, Patricia Crowe and Ladies Of Color Turning Pages, J’Me Adams and Passion 4 Reading, Adrianne and Black Women Who Read, Tifany Jones and Sistah Confessions, Tee C. Royal and Rawsistaz, SBS (Sisters and Brothers with Soul), Women of P.U.R.P.O.S.E., Reading Is What We Do, Sister2Sister, Cedar Hill Divine Women Of Faith, F.A.M.E Book Club, Peace In Pages, Cush City, Page Turners, AA Book Lovers, People Who Love Good Books, Genesis, Phenomenal Women Of Color, and Carlos (Mikkar) and the Delaware Men Of Distinction Book Club. I just have two words: thank you. No, I have four: thank you very much!
Writing is a solitary endeavor, but I am blessed to have some wonderful authors in my life who make this journey one of camaraderie, mutual support, friendship, and fun! In them, either through personal relationship or literary inspiration, I’ve become a better writer, one who is proud to spell her name w-r-i-t-e-r. This list isn’t complete, by any means, but it highlights those I especially appreciated during the writing of this book: mentor and phenomenal woman Gwynne Forster, the legendary Donna Hill (happy twentieth, Donna!), Renee Daniel Flagler, Trice Hickman, ReShonda Tate Billingsley, Shelia Goss, Alice Heiss, Venise Berry, Vincent Alexandria, Mary B. Morrison, and E. Lynn Harris. It was E. Lynn’s hustle and success story that inspired me to independently publish my first book. (Sadly, just days after sending these acknowledgments to Selena, I received the news that E. Lynn had made his transition.) While I wish I’d been able to thank him in person, I am grateful to be able to thank him from these pages…where I believe he’ll see this shout-out. And while E. Lynn Harris has written his last novel, his life and what it meant is forever written in my heart. There are more names to add to this list…next book, y’all!
Finally, as always, my thanks to Spirit, who has taken me on a wonderful, meandering journey from the religious to the spiritual, and has taught me that this entity is beyond names, denominations, definition, and/or description. Spirit is simply “all that is.” I am all that I am, because of You….
The biggest religious scandal in modern American history was about to make headlines. This was an unfortunate fact for the Total Truth Association, an umbrella organization for several dozen ministries around the globe, which had one of its newest members and brightest stars smack dab in the middle of the controversy. Reverend Nathaniel “Nate” Thicke, senior pastor of the Gospel Truth Church in Palestine, Texas, had been caught on tape. And he hadn’t been preaching the gospel.
King Brook, the interim president of Total Truth, paced his well-appointed church office as he talked on the phone. “We’ve got people threatening lawsuits, and several churches have vowed to pull their membership if we don’t take decisive action—
immediately
. There’s even talk of a federal investigation.”
“Federal investigation?” Derrick Montgomery asked. Derrick was a founding board member of Total Truth and King’s best friend. “Why?”
“Because some are saying the woman on the tape is underage and that Nate may have crossed state lines to…be with her.”
“No,” Derrick answered. “She’s legal. Barely, but she is.”
“How do you know?”
“Trust me, I know. I’ll fill you in when we meet in Texas.”
King continued pacing. “Man, how in the
hell
could he have been so stupid as to sleep with jailbait, and then allow himself to be videotaped in the act? Especially right before he was to headline at our convention? His irresponsible actions have put the entire organization in the spotlight, and our reputation, maybe even our nonprofit status, in serious jeopardy.”
Derrick knew how “stupid” could happen, and he knew King did too. A man often did foolish things when he let the wrong head make decisions. Still, Derrick understood his friend’s frustration. Especially since King had reluctantly accepted the interim president position only after Derrick had pleaded with him to do so, and was therefore the unfortunate spokesperson at this auspicious time.
Total Truth’s membership consisted of a variety of churches that had split from their traditional Baptist, Methodist, and Pentecostal roots, and adopted a less restrictive, more inclusive nondenominational position. Members under the organization’s auspices recognized and practiced miracle healing, speaking in tongues, the prosperity message, and also more progressive spiritual practices such as the law of attraction, mantras, affirmations, meditation, and a controversial stance on homosexual tolerance within their congregations.
The sitting president had resigned unexpectedly following a death in the family, and Derrick, knee deep in an interfaith rebuilding effort that had him spending considerable time in Darfur, South Africa, had asked King to pinch hit. King was busy too. His church was in the middle of a major community development project, and his television ministry was flourishing. He’d been president before, when the association was in its infancy, so he knew how much time the role required. But Derrick assured King the position would be perfunctory—a couple conference calls, maybe a meeting or two, nothing more. And only for three months, until elections were held at the July convention. King had been two days away from passing the presidential baton on to a successor. And then the tape played.
King was not a stranger to scandal. As the handsome, forty-something pastor of Mount Zion Progressive Baptist Church in metropolitan Kansas City, he’d had to ask God for forgiveness more than once. Like Nate, he drew women to him like steel to a magnet. The two men even looked somewhat alike: both tall, dark, a study in rugged masculinity. But where King kept his black hair closely cropped, Nate let his texturized locks grow almost to his shoulders, and maintained a tidy goatee.
It was within this framework of understanding that King empathized, even as he denounced what his ministerial brother had done, even as he understood that decisive action would have to be taken to disassociate Total Truth from Nate’s irresponsible actions.
“There’s no doubt that Nate and his congregation will have to be completely severed from the association,” King said. “We’ll have to clearly and unequivocally break all ties with and support of that ministry.”
Derrick listened intently, shifting the receiver from one ear to the other as he looked out the window of his home office and beheld a beautiful California afternoon. He passed a weary, deeply tanned hand across his handsome, clean-shaven face. It seemed that for the past five years there had been one church drama after another for him to deal with. Would the scandals ever end?
“I’ll try to keep an open mind when we get to Texas tomorrow. Let’s hear his side of the story,” Derrick finally said. “But a picture is worth a thousand words. I hate to completely sever our relationship with his ministry, but unless he repents, steps down as senior pastor, and agrees to extensive counseling, we will have to. He was caught live and in living color. And the way it happened, fully exposed, before God and everybody…Jesus!”
“Kids in the sanctuary, church mothers, celebrities, the media.” King plopped down heavily in the well-worn black leather chair behind his desk. “Lord have mercy. Somebody sure set out to ruin that brothah. Looks like they got the job done.”
After making sure their travel plans for the emergency board meeting were properly coordinated, the friends hung up. But each man remained in his office—contemplating the catastrophe, and the possible ramifications for all involved—for a long time.
Derrick was especially troubled. It was bad enough that a pornographic video featuring a clear shot of Nate Thicke’s glistening backside had been spliced into what was supposed to be a promotion of the Gospel Truth Church’s holiday cruise. It was unconscionable that almost five seconds of the explicit tape was then seen by some of the record-setting twenty thousand attendees who’d gathered for the convention, before being abruptly stopped by a stunned yet quick-thinking technical director. And it was both shocking and devastating that Derrick had immediately recognized the woman moaning and thrashing beneath Nate’s rhythmic thrusts, licking her lips as she turned her face toward the camera.
She was a former member of the ministry he headed, Kingdom Citizens Christian Center, and at sixteen—fast, feisty, and too much for her fifty-something parents to handle—had been sent to a Christian boarding school near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. That was about three years ago, Derrick figured. And he figured something else. Melody Anderson had moved again, to Palestine.