The Hot Box: A Novel

Zane is known for her steamy tales about African American women seeking love and sexual fulfillment, and her latest certainly fits the bill. Best friends Lydia and Milena are each involved with two men. Lydia has been in a stable relationship with Glenn for three years, but she can’t keep her hands off his best friend, Phil. Milena has eschewed romantic entanglements of any kind ever since she left her fiancé, baseball star Jacour, at the altar eight years ago after discovering he cheated on her at his bachelor party. Now Jacour has returned to the small town of Kannapolis, North Carolina, intent on winning Milena back. Determined to fight her feelings for him, Milena invents a boyfriend and finds an attractive homeless man, Yosef, to play the part. After cleaning Yosef up and learning of the sad circumstances that left him destitute, Milena finds herself falling for him—even as she’s battling her feelings for Jacour. Zane keeps her readers on their toes with some unexpected twists in this appealing and scintillating tale. –Kristine Huntley

Zane is the author of Addicted, The Sex Chronicles, Gettin’ Buck Wild, The Heat Seekers, The Sisters of APF, Shame on It All, Nervous, Skyscraper, Afterburn, and Love Is Never Painless and is also the editor of Chocolate Flava and Caramel Flava. She is the publisher of Strebor Books, an imprint of Atria Books/Simon & Schuster, and lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her family. Visit her website at http://www.eroticanoir.com.

he “hot box”; a baseball drill that can be played with three or more players and two to four bases, or… a title from today’s hottest erotic author. Talk about a double entendre! When you read a Zane book, you pretty much know what to expect. Sex. Drama. Sex. Humor. Sex. More drama. More humor. More sex. However, what makes Zane so special, is even though you know what you’re going to get, she can still surprise you with HOW you get it. I read this book with the same zeal that I read all of her books. I start and I seriously can’t stop until the last freaking page.

This book is aptly named because the people in this book take you hither and yon with all the mess they get into, create, and encourage. I sometimes get lost when there is such a dogfight mentality with the characters and plot, but again, Zane steers us as only a skilled literary navigator can and I didn’t get lost. Only hot. I would finish Zane’s books a lot faster if this woman wouldn’t give me so much to daydream with, DAMN!

This story centers around Milena, Lydia, Glenn, Phil, Yosef, and Jacour. Two women, four men that have more loin action going on than most Las Vegas brothels! No, I’m NOT joking! Milena has some very strong morals, so strong that she hasn’t let anyone near her morals for eight years (yeah you heard me right). The question is how far can she keep on playing “Chastity Clamp-it-shut” before someone comes along that makes her test those morals? You won’t believe what happens. Lydia is quite the little hoochie. She spends major time with the guys and really should open her very own chain of 24-hour Kegel fitness gyms.

Glen & Phil… *sigh*. What can I saw about these two? Like most of you, I had a mother who said, “if you can’t say something nice about someone don’t say nothing at all”. I’m sure Mama Frost meant REAL people, so Glen & Phil are fair game! (good). I’m a guy who loves women so I know firsthand the “power” they possess and what we guys do to get a taste or feel of that “power”. But I mean COME ON fellas! I guess every story must have its fools right? Every one of these characters have redeeming qualities, they just get caught up. Zane comes strong with this one, but really… what else would you expect?

**On a personal note**
While reading an author’s work is in and of itself intimate because you get to read what came from their hands, their brain, their sweat; what Zane writes at the end of this book only makes me admire her even more. She breaks it down and gets really personal and real about some revelations she’s had, how she feels about writing erotica, and her candid feelings on some pretty timely topics. I don’t have to agree with them all to appreciate what a talent this woman is. I’ve always taken issues with people who say “ewww, she writes erotica”. Yeah, so? I’d bet money that most of these people haven’t even picked up a novel written by this woman, and I’m sure they have NO IDEA the careers she’s launched or how brilliant of an entrepreneur she is. I understand why she wrote what she did at the end, but she didn’t need to. Her success says it all.