Howard, Tracie

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Howard, Tracie

PERSONAL:

Education: Georgia State University, B.A.

ADDRESSES:

CAREER:

Write r and columnist. Savoy magazine, travel and lifestyle editor. Previously worked in marketing in Atlanta, GA, for Xerox, Johnson & Johnson, and American Express; member of core marketing team for 1996 Atlanta Centennial Olympic Games.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

(With Danita Carter) Revenge Is Best Served Cold, New American Library (New York, NY), 2001.

(With Danita Carter) Talk of the Town, New American Library (New York, NY), 2002.

Why Sleeping Dogs Lie, New American Library (New York, NY), 2003.

Never Kiss and Tell, New American Library (New York, NY), 2004.

(With Danita Carter) Success Is the Best Revenge, New American Library (New York, NY), 2004.

Gold Diggers, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2007.

Author of monthly column "Tongue 'n Chic" for Savoy magazine.

SIDELIGHTS:

Tracie Howard worked for many years in marketing before turning to writing novels that feature African American characters in story lines revolving around romance, suspense, and action. "Along with the freedom I derive from working with a blank canvas, one of the main reasons I initially felt compelled to write was my desire to depict another aspect of African American life," the author noted in an interview on her home page. "I've always felt that stories and characters depicting the lifestyles of mainstream African Americans who are doing well was underrepresented in popular fiction. Their stories provide another distinct texture that will only serve to enhance our rich cultural mosaic."

Howard's first book was cowritten with Danita Carter and titled Revenge Is Best Served Cold. It tells the story of the successful African-American women Morgan Nelson and Dakota Cantrell as they become involved with Blake St. James, part of the New York social elite. When Blake offers a business proposal, Morgan agrees to participate only to find that she is soon losing money. Ultimately she must confront Blake as his underhanded dealings threaten to wreck the careers of both her and Dakota. Talk of the Town is a sequel to Revenge Is Best Served Cold. In this title, the authors once again feature Morgan and Dakota. Still successfully pursuing their careers, the duo find that they are having more difficulties in handling personal matters, which include an unwanted pregnancy and a cheating husband. A third novel by Howard and Carter, Success Is the Best Revenge, focuses on Lyle Johnson, a successful Wall Street investment banker who also owns a bar in New York City called Street Signs. When Contessa "Tess" Aventura Dubois comes to town, she ends up buying a share of Lyle's business only to threaten everything Lyle has worked hard to achieve, both in his business and family life. Lillian Lewis, writing in Booklist, called Success Is the Best Revenge "an engrossing story with great characters."

Howard is also the sole author of several novels. Her first solo effort, Why Sleeping Dogs Lie, finds Mallory Baylor leaving her position as head of Heat magazine to forget a failed romance and begin life again. "Howard's writing is explicit and sophisticated," wrote Joycelyn A. Wilson in her review of Why Sleeping Dogs Lie in the Black Issues Book Review. "She manipulates language in such a way that places the reader right in the thick of the situation."

In Never Kiss and Tell, Howard features successful interior designer, Kiernan Malloy, and her husband, investment banker Taylor Hudson. Both are unhappy in their marriage when Taylor meets another women leading to a complex love triangle. Furthermore, Taylor's love interest, psychologist Brooke Parrish, happens to have Kiernan as one of her patients. Lillian Lewis wrote in Booklist that the novel "is entertaining." Gold Diggers tells the story of four African-American women who go to New York to follow their dreams. As their stories unfold, envy and sex play a role in threatening the four women's friendship. Writing in Booklist, Patty Engelmann wrote that the author "explores the fleeting world of fame and bling with verve and flash."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Black Issues Book Review, March-April, 2004, Joycelyn A. Wilson, review of Why Sleeping Dogs Lie, p. 53.

Booklist, October 1, 2001, Lillian Lewis, review of Revenge Is Best Served Cold, p. 299; April 1, 2004, Lillian Lewis, review of Success Is the Best Revenge, p. 1346; October 15, 2004, Lillian Lewis, review of Never Kiss and Tell, p. 389; March 1, 2007, Patty Engelmann, review of Gold Diggers, p. 63.

Essence, June, 2004, Deborah Gregory, "Back to the Beach," p. 138.

Library Journal, November 1, 2001, review of Revenge Is Best Served Cold, p. 115; November 1, 2002, Ann Burns, review of Talk of the Town, p. 111; November 1, 2003, review of Why Sleeping Dogs Lie, p. 103.

Publishers Weekly, October 8, 2001, review of Revenge Is Best Served Cold, p. 44.