Product Description

Queen of hip hop fiction Nikki Turner follows her gritty, emotionally charged novel The Glamorous Life with this new tale from the hood featuring a beautiful down-on-her-luck sister who can out-hustle the best of them as she rises from the ghetto to glory.

After Mercy’s beloved dad is murdered in cold blood on her seventh birthday, her mother gives her up to foster care. But despite an unsavory upbringing, Mercy vows to make something of herself–at all costs.

Working as a concierge at a hotel notorious for its shady clientele, Mercy meets and falls hard for a notorious dealer who keeps her living large in Gucci clothes and off-the-hook apartments. Then she lands a real lucrative deal: running drugs up Interstate 95 from Miami to New York.

But Mercy doesn’t want to live the gangsta life forever. She’s got bigger dreams. She turns legit and makes her mark, yet despite a new, cleaned-up career, she can’t get the streets completely out of her blood. A sexy hustler named C-Note steals her heart. And as their relationship heats up, Mercy discovers that their pasts are hopelessly–and tragically–entwined.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #216447 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-25
• Released on: 2006-04-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780345476845
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
In this gritty, fast-paced street tale with heart, a feisty young woman searches for passion, love and understanding while she hustles for survival. Mercy Jiles was a Daddy's girl until the age of seven, when gangsters murdered her father over a gambling debt. This loss, and her mother's neglect, defines Mercy's tough character, which is further shaped by subsequent years in an abusive foster care system. On her 18th birthday, she determines to make a life for herself in the inner city of Richmond, Va., where she meets a ghetto-fabulous drug-dealer-turned-murderer, C-Note. Social vulnerability, financial straits and materialistic ambitions lead her to transport drugs along the titular highway. Broke, unhappy but ever resourceful, Mercy leaves her life of crime for a career as a screenwriter, turning her shady experiences into successful movies. C-Note and Mercy cross paths again once Mercy has gone Hollywood and find a twisted redemption in one another, but their tangled pasts threaten their future. Turner (The Glamorous Life) offers a vivid, nonjudgmental glimpse into a world of broken ambitions, backstabbers and self-loathers, where violence, crime and greed are flaunted as the keys to a better life. (Apr. 25)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Interstate 95 runs from Maine to Florida, and the stretch between Richmond and Miami is the main thoroughfare for drug traffickers. Growing up in Richmond, Virginia, Mercy Jiles is the last of eight children born to street hustler Nathaniel Jiles, who is murdered over a gambling debt on Mercy's seventh birthday. After 10 years of being in foster care, molested and mistreated, Mercy seeks emancipation. She works the only job she can get, as the concierge at a seedy hotel, and makes friends with some of the clientele. Once she begins dating a drug dealer, her quality of life improves. Without realizing what happened or how, Mercy becomes his mule, trafficking drugs on I-95. Another up-and-coming drug dealer, C-Note, notices Mercy. Each time they have an encounter, it is foiled because of their underground lifestyles. They finally become involved and discover that their families are linked. Mercy and C-Note have to decide if their desire to build a future together is stronger than their destructive pasts. Lillian Lewis
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“Riding Dirty on I-95 is USDA hood certified.”
–Teri Woods, author of the Dutch Trilogy and True to the Game

“[A] gritty, fast-paced street tale with heart.”
–Publishers Weekly


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Customer Reviews

LORD HAVE MERCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Queen of Hip Hop has graced us with her very best! Nikki takes you there with two very diverse characters that have destinies that are intertwined and destined to bind a true love so divine! Mercy and C-Note both travelled the same road and through them you will become enraptured with their kindness, their mistreatment, the loyalty to the game, the bumps and the bruises that they endure and are still able to maintain, and finally the love everlasting that they both wanted.

To those that don't know, this is a continuation of "The Glamorous Life" with the featured character being Cleezy, Lynx's baby brother! The combination of these two give it a bit more spice and flavor!

My personal opinion is that this is her very best piece of work! She took you from foster homes, dealing drugs, murder, and finally to the Lord! Life in its simplest form!

Congrats Ms. Turner! There has to be a Part III to finish the story! Can't wait for the three-quel!

PURE FIRE
This book was wonderful. I loved all the characters. Nikki did the damn thing. I read this book in a matter of hours. It was worth every penny. I cant wait untill Ms. Turner comes out with another one.

Struggles do pay off
Until just reading one of the other reviews i had no idea there was another book before this. But this book was off the chain nonetheless. I commend Mercy in all her struggles she never once gave up and all her hard worked did pay off in the end. Its crazy how Mercy and C-Note aka Cleezy lives entertwined way before they even met, but im glad Mercy did the wise thing and stuck with him anyway. Nikki you had me scared for a moment at the end but im glad it turned out the way it did. I hope there is another part to this story i would love to see how there lives turned out in the end. Great job Nikki Turner and i definitely recommend this book!!!! 5 stars