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Zetta Brown wrote her first novel at the age of 10 and is the author of several short stories. She was the regional first-place winner for The National Society of Arts & Letters (NSAL) Award for Short Fiction in 1998 and her work has been published in literary journals produced by Tarrant County College in Hurst, Texas, Mary Hardin-Baylor University in Belton, Texas and Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. In 1999 and 2000, her stories were adapted for performance for Letters Live! at the Craft of Writing conference in Denton, Texas. Her first novel Messalina: Devourer of Men is due for release May 2008, published by Logical-Lust Publications.
What is Messalina: Devourer of Men about?
It’s about a woman trying to accept herself for what she is: a big, beautiful, sexual, black woman. Evadne Cavell has allowed others to direct her life and shape her image forcing her to rebel by way of her sex life.
As a college professor in her 30s and feeling pressure from her family and career to live up to a certain “good girl” image, Evadne remembers a time when she was more of a wild child. Something her best friends, Ana-Marie Benedetto and Tony Lobos, try to encourage. Evadne is about to resign herself to the dust heap of life when in walks Jared Delaney, a self-assured artist who immediately tries to crack Evadne’s icy exterior because he can see a fire burning underneath. But will Evadne let Jared, or anyone, expose this fire or will she let it consume her?
It would seem that Evadne and Jared have little in common. She’s the youngest child in a prominent black family with parents who were on the front lines of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s whereas Jared is a white man from Texas with a disturbing past. But as it turns out, they’re not such an odd couple after all.
However, jealousy, deception and blackmail are just some of the things that threaten to tear Evadne and Jared apart and it comes in the form of Messalina: Devourer of Men.
Messalina is sex. She is bold and unashamed in her sexuality and will use her power to get what she wants. How can Evadne compete with her? What would happen to her if she even tried?
As Evadne struggles with demands from her job, her family and a stormy, highly passionate and somewhat public relationship with Jared, can she accept that some of the “issues” threatening her career and causing her misery are self inflicted?
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