He Used to Love Me by Dorothy Brown-Newton

 

I thrifted this on impulse and it was just like a soap opera! It opens with a murder and everyone is cheating on everyone. There are multiple POVs, although the main one is Jakiyah, a woman who lives in New York but comes down south to be with her family after the death of her sister. Other narrators are Qua, her high school ex-boyfriend, German, her most recent ex-boyfriend who left her for Tamia (who is crazy and has an even crazier sister), and Tyhiem, Jakiyah's brother, who has a long term girlfriend he refuses to tie the knot with and is also German's best friend.

At first I thought this was going to be a romantic suspense but the mystery wasn't much of a mystery and they figure things out halfway through the book. HE USED TO LOVE ME kind of defies genre category, because it's a little bit of everything but it doesn't really commit to anything. In some ways, it feels a lot like one of those 80s potboilers-- kind of like a Jackie Collins novel, but with all Black characters. I'm not usually into cheating romances at all but this one was pretty entertaining and there was even a hair-pulling fight which is a plus. If you're going to serve up drama, commit to the dish.

3 out of 5 stars