Playing Hard to Get

Returning to BAP (Black American Princess) best friends the 3Ts—Tamia, Tasha, and Troy—Octavia (Take Her Man) presents a satisfying New York story of friendship, romance, and getting the hang of adulthood. All three begin with relationship problems: Tamia has found success and happiness as an attorney, but she's troubled by her going-nowhere affair with Charleston, a wealthy malpractice lawyer; Tasha, now a married mother of two, harbors worries about her high-profile marriage to New York Knicks superstar Lionel; and Troy, now first lady of Harlem's First Baptist Church, is discovering cracks in her marriage that she's uncertain can be healed—at least not by prayer. Predictably, the sticky challenges bring the "Classy Girls" closer than ever, even as fulfilling solutions seem just out of reach, edging them closer to disillusionment and dismay. When she sticks to the narrative, Octavia gives Sex and the City a smart Afrocentric update, but she interrupts her story too often with distracting (though occasionally funny) self-help–style asides ("25 Classy-Girl Rules of Class Action") and glossary-style footnotes. (July)