Simply Cheris. . .

If the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery haven't taught us the importance of local elections, I don't know what it will take for us to learn that lesson. Yes, the federal government is a dumpster fire right now. But we're touched by what the people in our front yard do. Stream the latest City Council meeting here . (Starts at 5 p.m. today)  And a lot of times, those touches are more like punches to the face. Take Charlotte, for instance, during this global pandemic,   our mayor was basically MIA . When protests started in the Queen City,  Mayor Vi Lyles finally showed up. She wanted to talk. She talks a lot. As well as the Charlotte City Council. Charlotte has been talking since the 2016 uprising after the killing of Keith Lamont Scott by CMPD. Lyles was a city council member during that shooting.  She proposed a seven-point plan to reduce racial and class divisions in the city, parts of which were approved by the council. Present...

What happened to protesters in Uptown Charlotte was city sanction attempted murder. Yep. I said it with my whole chest. Tuesday night, Queen City Nerve live streamed the attempted murder of peaceful protesters and y'alls police chief doesn't know who gave the order to shoot pepper balls, flash bangs and tear gas at unarmed people. According to WBTV, Charlotte Mecklenburg Police chief Kerr Putney addressed a crowd who wanted answers about the deployment of chemical agents on protesters Tuesday night. Chief Putney addressed questions from the community. When he arrived, he expressed his frustrations with police brutality and had a question for the crowd. “I understand the frustration. I have it too. But I want to know, what do we really want to do about it?” Putney said. The crowd had many questions about why Tuesday night’s incidents were allowed. "Who gave the order?” Someone in the crowd asked about tear gas being deployed during Tuesday prote...

Hey, Vi. Girl, where have you been? There's a whole pandemic going on and the citizens of the City of Charlotte, the ones you duped, I mean who voted for you and swallowed your campaign promises,  haven't heard a word from you. Let's face facts, Charlotte mayors are figure heads. The city manager and council run the city. Clearly the police too, but we'll get there in a minute. Not only have you been missing, but you've changed.  I was proud in 2017 that my adopted home of Charlotte, NC had its first woman mayor who was African American. But my grandma was right, all your skin folk aren't your kin folk. But you tricked me, sis. I remember when you stood for something. Following the  shooting of Keith Lamont Scott  in September 2016, (Lyles) proposed a seven-point plan to reduce racial and class divisions in the city, parts of which were approved by the council. It's four years later and here we are—again. So, you sat out the pandemic and whil...

Coming this September,  Tempted At Midnight  is gaining advanced praise. “Scandal and seduction…nobody does them better.” —Zuri Day, author of the  Sweet Heat “Once again, Cheris Hodges brings the heat with a sensual and romantic page turner that doesn’t disappoint. In  Tempted at Midnight , Sylvie and Erik heat up the page!”  —K.M. Jackson, author of  As Good as the First Time For fans of Brenda Jackson,  Cheris Hodges  brings the heat in a new contemporary romance where New Years Eve fireworks last long past the stroke of  midnight . Here’s a little sneak peak inside this forthcoming novel! Ten! Sylvia hated the countdown to a new year. Especially in a crowd of couples. Everybody would be kissing in nine seconds and she was standing there with her third glass of champagne. Sylvie didn’t even like champagne but as the room celebrated the engagement of her best friend, Olivia Brown and her man LJ, she had to drink the swill. Th...

She wasn't expecting a kiss to change her life . . . #NewYearsEveKiss #KissingaStranger

By now, you have to be a fan of romance author Kathy Douglass . If you're not, then let me tell you that it is time to treat yourself to some of the sweetest romance on the shelves right now. Kathy introduced us to the small town of Sweet Briar, NC in  HOW TO STEAL THE LAWMAN’S HEART   – Harlequin Special Edition – February, 2017 Forgiveness starts with a stolen kiss… Chief of police Trent Knight had it all until an accident took his wife and he was left alone to raise two beautiful girls. Now the person he always blamed for his loss is back in town, and all bets are off. But soon his anger toward Carmen Shields gives way to a very different emotion — awareness of Carmen as a woman. On one hand, it feels like a betrayal of his late wife’s memory. On the other, it could be his second chance at life — and Carmen’s shot at redemption. Maybe she can go home again — with the help of a certain lawman. And she takes us back in her latest,  THE RANCHER’S RETURN   – ...

I went to a historically black college, Johnson C. Smith University. And while a lot of people my age credit A Different World  for the reason why they chose an HBCU, for me it was only one of the reasons. The main reason I wanted to go to a historically black college was because of my aunt and uncle. Two of the smartest people I had ever known, she was a graduate of Benedict and he was a graduate of South Carolina State. They both made history in education, he at the University of South Carolina and she in Richland County's school district. I wanted to be like them. And it started with going to a black college. My uncle passed away earlier this mont h. And the tributes to this wonderful man have been pouring in like a soothing rain. White was USC’s first African-American coach in any sport, but his greatest impact on the school and on hundreds of its athletes came after he left that role to become an academic advisor for the team and then build from scratch the athletic depar...