Tappin’ on Thirty-Candice Dow

Tappin’ on Thirty
Candice Dow
Kensington Dafina, Feb 2008, $14.00
ISBN: 9780758219377

In DC Train Worker’s Union lawyer Taylor Jabowski looks back to her freshman year in college when she dumped her once in a lifetime love Scooter Evans so that she could play the field. By Christmas she knew she made a mistake, but Scooter, who cried when she said she wanted more than a long distance relationship at separate colleges, moved on and he and his family rejected her. Now at the high school reunion she hopes to have a second chance with Scooter. Although he tells her he has a new love Akua, a fellow medical student, they make love.

Not long after that, divorced New Yorker Devin Patterson meets Taylor at the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Black Party. They hit if off leaving her confused and he wary as he has not forgotten the lesson of six years ago when he married Jennifer; though good came out of that mistake, his beloved daughter Nicole. As Taylor and Devin fall in love leaving her bewildered as to how she can desire two men, Scooter feels the same way as he loves two women. However, soon there will be a reckoning as Devin and Scooter are close friends having roomed at Princeton together.

Readers need to make a slight adjustment to the rotating first person accounts as Taylor, Scooter, and Devin take turns as to how they feel. Thus the audience receives an entertaining deep African-American contemporary relationship drama that enables a close look into the hearts of the Black professional class through the prime trio and to a lesser degree Akua. Candice Dow provides a Lovin’ Spoonful “Did You Ever Have to Make up Your Mind?” relationship drama.

Harriet Klausner