#FirstFiveFriday

One of the distinguishing features of my writing is that I always set my stories in my home state of North Carolina. Since publishing my first novel in 2012, I have chosen various settings—ranging from bustling cities and college campuses to quaint small towns—to celebrate my interpretation of Southern Sisterhood.

I invite all those curious about the lives and loves of the Southern Sorority women who come to life through my work to enjoy a little taste of my writing, which I call #FirstFiveFridays. I will share the first five lines of one of my short stories every First Friday of the month. To learn more, subscribe to my newsletter. Enjoy

While I was born in Washington, D.C., more than five decades ago, home will always be the small Southern town of Southport, NC. The city, with a population of under 5,000 people, is renowned for being the setting of numerous Hollywood movies and for serving some of the finest seafood you will ever experience. But its biggest claim to fame is being North Carolina’s official Independence Day Celebration. The designation awarded to the city in 1972 brings thousands of visitors to the town for several days of events, including fireworks, vendors, and, of course, good food.

It is within the setting of the Fourth of July festival that my partner’s favorite story of mine takes place. Heat Wave: Southport is a sexy and sultry imagining of what happens when a dutiful daughter comes home to help with her family’s food truck and encounters a long-lost classmate. The two spend the day catching up and end up in the city’s library after hours. Let’s say the two do more than test their knowledge of the Dewey Decimal system. To learn what happens, Heat Wave: Southport is available for purchase at https://www.jms-books.com/la-toya-hankins-c-224_349/

Zora knew she should have said no when her mom asked
her to come home for the Fourth of July. If I had stuck to my
guns, this dark chocolate cutie could have been in Charlotte
enjoying a cookout and making eyes at the currently unattached
graduate student next door, she thought, wiping her forehead
with the back of her plastic-gloved hand. Instead, she was selling
shrimp burgers and French fries in a hot ass food truck back in
the town she had called home for the majority of her life. Damn
that sense of family loyalty.

“I’m so glad you decided to come down and help out. Your
father would never say it, but it means so much to him that you
want to help promote the restaurant. It’s always so much fun
when the family works together and we rarely see you anymore
since you moved so far away for your job,” her mother said,
bustling around the cramped space like an over-caffeinated
humming bee.

Zora took in her current situation. The sizzle of
grease, the languid whirl of an ineffective fan, and the chatter of
the crowd building outside the bright robin blue and white kitchen
on wheels came close to drowning her mother’s Jamaican lilt.
Yep, this is how I wanted to spend my day off, she thought to
herself.