Morrison, Mary B. (Honey B.)

PERSONAL:

Children: Jesse Byrd, Jr.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Oakland, CA. Agent—Andrew Stuart, The Stuart Agency, 260 W. 52 St., 24C, New York, NY 10019. E-mail—MaryBMorrison@aol.com.

CAREER:

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, DC, former employee. SHIFT (Supporting Healthy Inner Freedom for Teens) and The RaW (Readers and Writers) Advantage, founder and president.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Soul Mates Dissipate (originally self-published), Booga Bear Poetry Group (Washington, DC), 2000.

Never Again Once More (sequel to Soul Mates Dissipate), Dafina Books (New York, NY), 2002.

He's Just a Friend, Dafina Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Somebody's Gotta Be on Top, Dafina Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Nothing Has Ever Felt Like This, Dafina Books (New York, NY), 2005.

When Somebody Loves You Back, Dafina Books (New York, NY), 2006.

(With Carl Weber) She Ain't the One, Dafina Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Also author of the poetry collection JUSTICE Just Us Just Me, and the nonfiction title, Who's Making Love. Author of erotica published under the pseudonym Honey B.

ADAPTATIONS:

Never Again Once More was adapted for audio cassette, Recorded Books, 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

In 1999 Mary B. Morrison left a successful civil service career in Washington, DC, to try her hand at fiction. Her resulting first novel, Soul Mates Dissipate, which was initially self-published, proved to be a best seller in the romance genre, and was later reissued by a Kensington Books imprint. Dubbed a "steamy debut novel" by Black Issues Book Review contributor Nicole Bailey-Williams, Soul Mates Dissipate features fashion photographer Jada Diamond Tanner and her love affair with investment banker Wellington Jones. The banker's status-seeking mother, however, does not feel Jada is the right material for her adopted son, and so she joins forces with Melanie Thompson to lure her son away from his newfound love. Soon the soul mates' devotion to one another is tested in this "wonderful web of a story," as Bailey-Williams described it. Jada and Wellington pair up again in the sequel, Never Again Once More. The reader discovers that the pair have remained friends since their separation, though Jada has since married and raised a son. When they are thrown together again, it is hard for them to refuse their love in this "deep, passionate story that holds readers from beginning to end," as Black Issues Book Review contributor Althea Lenore Honegan related.

In the 2005 novel Nothing Has Ever Felt Like This, Morrison continues the story of Jada and Wellington, in a tale featuring their natural son, Darius. Jada is now a wealthy businesswoman, and her son, in addition to being a star college basketball player, also works on film projects. Apparently, though, he tends to father children indiscriminately, for three women claim to be carrying his child. Booklist contributor Lillian Lewis typified this as a novel that deals with "consequences of … past actions." Morrison collaborated with best-selling author Carl Weber in their 2006 title, She Ain't the One, which features two of the authors' favorite characters, Jay Crawford and Ashley Anderson. Jay at first does not see that sexy Ashley is mentally unbalanced. A Publishers Weekly critic felt the book "could be reminiscent of Fatal Attraction," except for its "pedestrian prose" and "a phoned-in portrayal of pathological behavior."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Black Issues Book Review, July, 2001, Nicole Bailey-Williams, review of Soul Mates Dissipate, p. 35; September-October, 2002, Althea Lenore Honegan, review of Never Again Once More, p. 29.

Booklist, May 1, 2001, Lillian Lewis, review of Soul Mates Dissipate, p. 1668; September 1, 2005, Lillian Lewis, review of Nothing Has Ever Felt Like This, p. 66.

Essence, September, 2001, review of Soul Mates Dissipate, p. 82.

Publishers Weekly, August 7, 2006, review of She Ain't the One, p. 30.

ONLINE

Mary B. Morrison Official Web site,http://www.marybmorrison.com (October 26, 2006).