Let’s Get It on

E. Lynn Harris

"Sexual Healing is a wild, sexy ride...a fearless look at what women want, and a fresh take on how they can get it ...You’ll emerge refreshed and invigorated, in body, mind, and soul."

Pearl Cleage

"Sister Jill isn’t just a foot soldier in what passes for war between the sexes. She’s our commander-in-chief and follow we must."

AOL Black Voices

"Let’s Get It On is imbued with a complex narrative that involves the mob and politics. . . . In terms of life about the yacht, let’s just say Nelson spins a super sexy yarn just in time for summer."

Essence

"Jill Nelson tells it like it is. . . . And while the novel lives up to its name, at its core this is the story of friends having one another’s backs."

Ebony

"A hot summer read from the sizzling social commentator and author of Volunteer Slavery and Sexual Healing."

New York Times Book Review

"As a social commentator, [Nelson’s] pretty fearless. She also knows how to construct a compelling narrative. Happily, she scraps neither of these talents as a novelist."

Publishers Weekly

Now playing: the second verse of Nelson's wildly popular debut (Sexual Healing), with Marvin Gaye again providing the thematic backup for the over-the-top sexual shenanigans and ribald politics embraced by the proprietors of A Sister's Spa. This time out, Yale-educated lawyer LaShaWanda P. Marshall, and fellow spa founders Lydia Beaucoup and Acey Allen recreate their successful unorthodox Reno, Nev., spa on a boat moored off Martha's Vineyard. As Wanda puts it: "We were offering women multiorgasmic sex without the complications or mating, dating, or a relationship, and they were hungry for it," In Martha's Vineyard, the crew appeals to the established black community to open its arms to the new business while battling a mobster trying to shake them down, a racist madman in their midst and a president who aims to outlaw anything but sex-for-procreation with a bill called "No Child, No Behind." It's a dopey mix of overbroad sexual and racial politics, but the sisters still manage to sizzle-and elicit smiles with their insatiable appetites for love, social justice and the sex trade. (June)

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Library Journal

Dreamed up and opened in Nelson's Essence best seller, Sexual Healing, A Sister's Spa is an unconventional business where professional women clients can get a relaxing facial, a massage, reflexology, and a multiorgasmic sexual experience from men trained to please women. Located in Reno, this outrageously successful spa is the brainchild of a group of shrewd friends: Lydia Beaucoup, Acey Allen, and LaShaWanda P. Marshall. After winning a three-million-dollar settlement, LaShaWanda and her friends open a franchise on a yacht off the shores of Martha's Vineyard. But the new franchise comes with new challenges. The federal government is trying to ban sex between unmarried people, the mob wants a cut of the spa's profits, and the yacht becomes the setting for a potential political coup. VERDICT Nelson takes her fans on a sexual fantasy showing that women can be in control and mix business with pleasure. Readers of Zane, Mary B. Morrison, and Eric Jerome Dickey will enjoy Nelson's funny, voluptuous, and erotic tale.—Carol Johnson, Cleveland P.L.

—Carol Johnson

Kirkus Reviews

The crew from Sexual Healing (2005) is back, and this time they're opening a sex spa for women off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. After winning a $3 million lawsuit against her former Wall Street employers, plus-sized spitfire LaShaWanda P. Marshall opts to use her well-earned lucre to give back to the community by launching an East Coast spinoff of A Sister's Spa. Wanda is CFO of America's first and only brothel for women in Reno, Nev., and her first hurdle is convincing partners Lydia and Acey that a new branch will fly. The location is key. Reasoning that women of the black elite who summer in Martha's Vineyard would pay handsomely for the discreet services offered by their team of studs, handpicked by human-resources director Odell, Wanda proposes they set up shop on a luxury yacht three miles from the coast of Massachusetts. (This gets around the whole prostitution-is-illegal-in-most-states thing.) In preparation for the Floating Spa's Memorial Day opening, Lydia and Wanda head east to train new talent and build clientele. That leaves Odell and the comparatively prim Acey alone in Nevada to sort out their feelings for each other. The new spa is an instant hit, thanks in part to Lydia's high-society godmother Ma Nicola, who has deep roots in the Martha's Vineyard community, and to its star employee Jamal, an enterprising young immigrant from Mombasa dubbed "Afrodonis" by Lydia. But there is always someone who wants to spoil the party, and in this case the killjoys include a mobster who wants a piece of the action and a shifty young white sex worker named Tollhouse. Also threatening everyone's good time is the conservative president, whose "No Child, No Behind" policy, aimed ateliminating nonprocreational sex, is sure to put a damper on both business and pleasure. With its sex-positive message and unapologetic emphasis on female enjoyment, Nelson's latest makes for a zingy beach read, even if the political satire is a bit tone deaf. Author appearances in Martha's Vineyard, Mass., New York