Sister Souljah, the hip-hop generation's number one author and most compelling storyteller, delivers a powerful story about love and loyalty, strength and family. In her bestselling novel, "The Coldest Winter Ever," Sister Souljah introduced the world to Midnight, a brave but humble lieutenant to a prominent underworld businessman. Now, in a highly anticipated follow-up to her million-selling masterpiece, she brings readers into the life and dangerously close to the heart of this silent, fearless young man.

Raised in a wealthy, influential, Islamic African family, Midnight enjoys a life of comfort, confidence, and protection. Midnight's father provides him with a veil of privilege and deep, devoted love, but he never hides the truth about the fierce challenges of the world outside of his estate. So when Midnight's father's empire is attacked, he sends Midnight with his mother to the United States.

In the streets of Brooklyn, a young Midnight uses his Islamic mind-set and African intelligence to protect the ones he loves, build a business, reclaim his wealth and status, and remain true to his beliefs.

Midnight, a handsome and passionate young man, attracts many women. How he interacts and deals with them is a unique adventure. This is a highly sensual and tremendous love story about what a man is willing to risk and give to the women he loves most. Midnight will remain in your mind and beat in your heart for a lifetime.

Her "raw and true voice" ("Publishers Weekly") will both soothe and arouse you. In a beautifully written and masterfully woven story, Sister Souljah has given us "Midnight," and solidified her presence as the mother of all contemporary urban literature.

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Books > Fiction > Urban Life

Second novel is a success for Souljah

Midnight, the eponymous protagonist of Sister Souljah's fascinating, long-awaited

novel—no doubt the first of at least two parts, as it begins in mystery and ends in a cliffhanger—is a seriously put-upon young man. A devout Sudanese Muslim, his devotion to his beautiful and talented mother and adorable little sister is absolute. He works in New York's Chinatown to help support them, and studies martial arts under a Pat Morita-esque sensei to protect them. His religion forbids drinking, drugs and premarital sex, though these vices seem part of the air he breathes. When he falls in love with Akemi, a brilliant Japanese artist who speaks not a word of English, he and his family feel that the only honorable thing for him to do is marry her.

He's also, by the way, an efficient and cold-blooded killer. But it's a testament to Souljah's talent as a writer that we like and admire Midnight, even if we don't share or understand his values. Despite those unfortunate murders, he's the farthest thing from a psychopath. He loves passionately and unshakably. He is incorruptible, unfailingly respectful to his elders and hardworking in a way that's astonishing to his American-born friends. Souljah not only brings Midnight to vibrant, complex life, but also makes her minor characters distinct and believable. We get to know the boys Midnight runs with, the brazen neighborhood girls he runs away from, the Chinese fishmonger he works for, the jovial bookseller who engages him in occasional games of chess. We identify with Midnight's patient, loving mother even as we're appalled that she lets her teenaged son get married in America, where he's not old enough to vote, drive or rent an apartment.

Souljah's first novel, The Coldest Winter Ever, is credited with starting the urban lit genre and has been selling steadily since its publication in 1999. In this second novel she continues to portray the realities of urban life. Midnight is remarkable for the empathy, insight and compassion it brings to its myriad characters and their intersecting worlds.

Arlene McKanic writes from Blair, South Carolina.