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Addicted: A Novel Paperback – October 1, 2001
Purchase options and add-ons
For successful African-American businesswoman Zoe Reynard, finding the pleasure she wants, the way she wants it, is not worth the risk of losing everything she has: marriage to the man she has loved since childhood, a thriving company, and three wonderful children. But Zoe feels helpless in the grip of an overpowering addiction…to sex.
Finding a compassionate woman therapist to help her, Zoe finally summons the courage to tell her torrid story, a tale of guilt and desire as shocking as it is compelling. From the sensitive artist with whom she spends stolen hours on rumpled sheets to the rough and violent man who draws her toward destruction, Zoe is a woman desperately searching for fulfillment—and something darker, deeper, and perhaps deadly. As her life spins out of control and her sexual escapades carry her toward a dangerous choice, Zoe is racing against time to uncover the source of her “fatal attraction”—as chilling secrets tumble forth from the recesses of a woman's mind, and perilous temptations lead toward a climax that can threaten her sanity, her marriage…and her life.
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherAtria
- Publication dateOctober 1, 2001
- Dimensions5.25 x 1 x 8 inches
- ISBN-109780743442848
- ISBN-13978-0743442848
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Franklin White Author of Fed Up with the Fanny and Cup of Love Hot! Sensational! This is one you won't be able to put down!
Karen E. Quinones Miller Author of Satin Doll Erotic and well-written, Addicted sizzles and satisfies. Zane has managed to pen a novel that expertly portrays both romantic and earthly love and does more than simple justice to each.
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The first time I ever laid eyes on Jason, I thought he was a junior-mack-daddy-wannabe that probably sat around on a Commodore 64 computer drinking grape Kool-Aid out of a peanut butter jar while watching Good Times. I couldn't stand his ass.
The feeling was mutual, though, because our first physical interaction was when he gave me the finger and then spit on my saddle shoes. We were in the fifth grade, and from the day my parents and I drove up in our Ford station wagon, I knew he was trouble.
The movers got there about an hour after we did. I was sitting on the curb playing jacks when the big truck came flying around the corner, practically tilted on one side. I figured the driver was going to lose control of the truck for sure, and every valuable possession we owned would end up strewn all over the street.
Being the wonderful and unselfish little girl I was, my main concern was that my black Barbie didn't lose a limb or anything in the process. Table lamps, my father's eight-track tape player, and my mother's dishes were all replaceable, but the hell if I was going to be able to replace my Barbie. She was my pride and joy. I had even painted her fingernails with glittered polish and made her a sexy dress out of the red bandannas my mother made me wear to bed so my pressed hair wouldn't frizz up. Other than that, I was worried about my Snoopy Snow Cone Machine, and that was about it.
Jason and his parents lived directly across the street. He was outside that day trying to get some mail-order rocket to soar into the heavens. What a rip-off! The whole time I was watching him, the stupid thing never made it a yard off the ground. It was after about the hundredth try, when the movers had half the truck unloaded, that I noticed his ass rolling his beady eyes at me. I was using a piece of pink chalk to draw a makeshift hopscotch diagram on the street in front of my house when he approached me. His Kangol hat and leather bomber jacket made him look like a pint-size pimp. All he needed was a couple of gold teeth.
"Girl, you better quit! I'm gonna tell my momma on you!" I glared at him, smacking on a wad of Bubblicious like a cow.
"Little man, you better go play with your cheap broken rocket and leave me the heck alone!"
He got all the way up in my face then. "Girl, don't you be ordering me around! I'll stomp your skinny behind into the concrete!"
"Oooooooh, I am sooooooo scared!" I rolled my eyes, chastising him.
Then, the miniature version of Shaft flipped me the finger, made a disgusting noise while he gathered saliva in his mouth, and then spit on my brand-new black-and-white saddle shoes. I beat his little ass too. We were the same age, but I had him by a good three inches in height. Milk wasn't due to start doing his body good for a couple more years.
Two of the moving men broke the fight up. I accidentally scratched one of the men on the nose because I was not about to stop fighting until the fat lady sang. That's when both our mothers came dashing out of our respective houses yelling, "Oh, my poor baby!" and things like that. It was mad funny. They took over, throwing our heads into their heavy breasts and feeling all over us to make sure there was no permanent damage. Jason and I just glared at each other like two sumo wrestlers ready for round two.
My mother helped me inside like I was handicapped. In actuality, I had never felt better in my life. I was the victorious one. Jason retreated to his house as well, and that was the end of it. My parents and I did just enough unpacking that night to get by, threw some sleeping bags on the living room floor, and munched down on some KFC. My Dad hooked up his eight-track, and I fell asleep listening to the harmonized singing of Earth, Wind and Fire. It was a Saturday.
I started school the following Monday and was anxious to get there to meet all the new kids. I rushed through a bowl of corn flakes and caught about ten minutes of The Flintstones before grabbing my tin lunch pail and running out the door to get to the bus stop on time.
The bus was about to pull off, and I was panting by the time I caught up to it in time to bang on the door, signaling the driver to stop. After I got on the bus, he asked me who I was. I explained I was a new student who had just moved. He snarled at me, his au naturel breath almost knocking me backward down the steps and back off the bus, "Well, you make sure your teacher gets your name put on my roster A-S-A-P 'cause I'm not supposed to be picking up no knuckleheads I don't know! Now, find a seat, sit down, and shaddup!"
I searched for an empty seat and couldn't find one in the front of the bus, so I started walking toward the back. All of the kids were checking me out, and some were even snickering. I noticed most of the seats were occupied, either by two girls or two boys, with the exception of the one in the far rear. A boy and a girl, obviously suffering from a severe case of puppy love, were seated there. He had his arm around her shoulder, and she was blushing from ear to ear.
I was ready to ask the driver if I could sit on the steps when I realized the only available seat was next to the horror film creature himself, Jason. He stopped playing with his GI Joe with the kung fu grip just long enough to smirk at me. I turned around and headed toward the front to beg the driver to ask someone to trade places with me, but he yelled at me again. "You taking too long! School starts in fifteen minutes! Now, sit your be-hind in a seat and shaddup!"
I scurried my ass back to the seat and noticed Jason had placed his knapsack on the vinyl seat beside him. "Could you move that, please?"
He didn't respond, nor did he look at me, so I took the bag, threw it on his lap, and sat down. He was about to be a smart aleck, but I stopped him dead in his tracks. I rolled my eyes and gave him a head-from-side-to-side-with-a-finger-snap combination. "Don't say nothing to me, or I'll give you an even bigger beatdown than I did Saturday."
A couple of the kids heard me and started giggling and taunting him. He just grabbed his knapsack, held it tight, and didn't look at me the rest of the way to school.
As if things weren't going bad enough, I get my class assignment from the principal's office, go to my homeroom, and his trick ass is the first face I see. Our homeroom teacher was Mrs. Williams, and she was displeased to have a student transfer into her class in the middle of the fall term. She snarled at me too. Maybe it was my cherry-flavored lip gloss that was making everyone demonic toward me. "Little Miss Zoe," she started in on me as she looked over my school records, "have a seat over there by the window and pay attention. You have a lot of making up to do in order to catch up to the rest of the class."
There was one glimmer of sunshine in my day. I didn't have to sit near Jason in homeroom. He was clear across the class, and that suited me just fine. He must have been a smart-ass with everybody because Mrs. Williams had his desk pushed right up against hers, several feet away from the rest of the class. Teachers always make the troublemakers sit up in their faces, and I remember thinking to myself, "Goodie!"
My first day at Benjamin Franklin Elementary was pretty uneventful. I made a couple of new friends, got to jump rope at recess, made a deformed clay vase in art class, and learned how to count to ten in Spanish. At lunch, I sat with this little girl named Brina that thought she was the next Diana Ross. I started to school her ass and tell her she couldn't be the next Diana Ross because I was. She would fling her hair back after every bite of her Twinkie and took special care making sure she didn't end up with a milk mustache when she rinsed it down. She spent the entire lunch period bragging about everything from her collection of ribbons for her hair to the straight A's she made on her last report card.
Jason did decide to get bold for a minute and started spitting half-frozen peas across the room at the back of my neck through a straw. He made the mistake of hitting the PE teacher, Mr. Lewis, in the cheek with one and was immediately dragged by the ear to the office.
When I got on the bus that afternoon, I was lucky enough to find a seat up front. I made sure I was one of the first ones on the bus, pushing a couple of wimpy boys out my way so I wouldn't have to sit next to Cousin It. Jason got on the bus about ten kids after I did. I stuck my tongue out at him and flipped him the bird. He tried to tell the bus driver on me, but all he got was an attitude. "Sit your be-hind down, little man, and shaddup!"
I was playing hopscotch about an hour later when he came out of his house, stood on the curb on his side of the street, and started talking trash. "You know what? I hate you and I hope all your hair falls out and you get red pimples all over your face!"
I stopped hopping on number six with my right foot up in the air, gave him an icy cold look, and decided to pay his ass back for the comment. "Oh, yeah? Well, I hate you too, and I hope the next time you shoot that cheap rocket of yours, it gets stuck up your behind!" As an afterthought, I added, "And I hope your itsy bitsy dang-a-lang falls off too!"
I held up my pinkie finger to emphasize the point, and he left the curb, on his way over to my side of the street to finish off the fistfight we started the Saturday before. I was about to meet him in the middle when my mother opened up the front door. "Zoe, get in here and get washed up for dinner! Now!"
Walking away, I placed my hands on my hips and strutted like Greta Garbo. I turned around and addressed him with my best voice imitation. "Next time, Big Boy!"
I left his cross between Chewbacca from Star Wars and Scooby Doo ass standing right there in the street with his hands balled into fists and a look of hatred on his pathetic face.
I tried to keep my distance from Jason, other than in school, but my daddy wasn't making it easy for me. For some odd reason, the two of them bonded. Maybe it was because Jason's daddy was always working, or maybe it was because my daddy was good with his hands and Jason admired the way he fixed things around the house and made furniture out of wood as a hobby. Whatever it was, I didn't like or appreciate them being buddy-buddy at all.
I was up in my bedroom one Saturday morning, sorting out my record collection and singing my ass off, when my mother yelled for me to come down. I had just taken "The Best of My Love" by the Emotions off the turntable. I was about to pull my shades down and throw on "Flashlight" by Parliament Funkadelic and dance around my room, making circles on the walls and ceiling with the Maglite my daddy gave me when my mother interrupted my flow.
"Zoe, can you come down here for a second?" Her voice carried well up the stairwell, and I knew she deliberately waited for a break in the music to call for me. It was a regular routine.
"Okay, Momma. I'll be right down." I muttered under my breath while I gathered the dirty clothes out of my wicker hamper and tossed them in a laundry basket. It was laundry day, and I hadn't done a thing, so I lugged my clothes downstairs with me in order to save myself a return trip.
As soon as I turned the corner into the kitchen, my eyes lit up as I spotted the ice-cold pitcher of freshly squeezed lemonade and the cookie sheet of chocolate chip cookies with Hershey's Kisses hidden inside cooling on the stove.
"Momma, you made my favorite cookies!" I let the laundry basket drop on the floor and gave my mother a huge, elephantine hug. "You're the most spantacular, bomb-diggity, coolest mother in the whole wide world."
She let out a slight giggle and then gently pushed my hands away. "Zoe, quit before you make me spill the lemonade."
"Sorry, Momma." I licked my lips, dreaming about how delectable the cookies were going to taste hitting my throat, and decided to earn some brownie points so I could sneak a couple before dinner was ready. I retrieved my laundry basket and headed toward the basement steps. "I'm going to go ahead and put my clothes on, and then maybe I can help you with the other cleaning like vacuuming or polishing the furniture."
My mother walked over to me, wiping her hand on the bib of her apron, and placed her right palm over my forehead, checking for a fever. "Is this my child?" she asked sarcastically.
I grimaced. "Yeah, Momma. I'm just trying to do my share around here."
She gleamed at me. "Good, do me a favor before you go downstairs." She took two glasses out of the cabinet and poured some lemonade in them. Then she put four cookies on a saucer and placed everything on a wooden tray. "Take this lemonade and cookies out to the garage for your daddy and Jason."
"Jason? What the hell, I mean heck, is he doing over here?" I felt a sudden tension in the back of my neck, hotter under the collar than the pot of white potatoes my mother had simmering on the stove for dinner. "Why does he have to come over here all the time?"
"First of all, Miss Thing," my mother scolded me, "Jason isn't over here all the time. Your daddy's helping him build a go-cart."
"A go-cart?" That did it! "I asked Daddy to help me build a tree house like fifty million times, and he hasn't done it yet."
"You asked your daddy once, and he fully intends to do it, but the oak in the backyard needs some branches trimmed off it first before he can. The men are coming next weekend to cut them down, and then -- " My mother glared at me, probably wondering why she was even bothering to try to explain. "Never mind all that. Just take this tray out there and then come in so you can do your laundry and vacuum."
"What about some lemonade and cookies for me?" My bottom lip was poked out more than a set of 44DDD breasts.
"After you finish your chores, you can have some."
I smacked my lips, reluctantly took the tray, and headed toward the small alcove off the kitchen leading to the garage. Why did I have to do chores while Jason got the special treatment like he was Shaka Zulu or some damn body?
As soon as I entered the garage, I was immediately jealous. There was my daddy, shooting the breeze with Jason and going over the diagrams for building the go-cart they had halfway put together on the workbench attached to the back wall. They were so busy bonding, they didn't even notice me come in at first.
"Mr. Wallace, I really appreciate you helping me out like this. My daddy's always working, and I never thought I'd have it done in time for the Cub Scout Derby next week." What an ass kisser!
My daddy patted Jason on the head like he was a Doberman pinscher, which he kind of resembled, I might add. "Not a problem, Jason. I love working with my hands. In fact, within the next couple of weeks I'm going to start on Zoe's tree house. Maybe you could help me out and when it's done, you can hang out in there with Zoe sometimes."
"That sounds great!" I could see Jason's profile, and from the side he looked completely toothless, since he had four teeth coming in at the same time.
"Not hardly," I interjected, letting my presence be known. "Once my tree house is done, it's for me and my friends. You're not even my friend."
"Zoe, what you got there?" My daddy attempted to change the subject before I had to beat Jason's little ass again.
"Some lemonade and cookies, Daddy." I walked over and sat the tray on the hood of my daddy's silver Buick Century. "Momma told me to bring them out for you and Alf."
"Alf? I got your Alf, girl!"
Jason really wanted me to open another can of whup-ass. "Yes, Alf as in orange alien." I looked him right in his beady eyes. "Dang, boy, you look messed up with all those missing teeth." He smirked at me and rolled his eyes, so I added, "What's that on your face? A pimple or a golf ball?"
Before Jason could make a comeback effort, my daddy jumped all up in the mix, trying to protect the mongoose. "That's enough, Zoe. Don't be disrespectful to company!"
"Company? Daddy, that nucca's always over here. Why do you have to take his side every time?"
My daddy laughed. I failed to see anything humorous. "You know, the way you two go at it reminds me of your mother and I when we were younger."
I analyzed the statement, recalling the stories of how my parents met when they were children, grew up together, and eventually married. "Ewwwww, that's sick, Daddy! Jason and I are nothing like you and Momma. I can't stand his ass, I mean behind."
My daddy curled his mouth up at my slip of the tongue. "Yeah, I know you meant behind." Jason grinned at me, glad to see me being chastised.
"What you looking at, fool?"
He glanced from my head to my feet and back up. "Nothing much. That's for sure."
My daddy laughed all over again. "Uh-huh, I can see it now. The two of you will probably end up married, just like your momma and I, with two or three kids and a house similar to this one."
"Daddy, I don't mean you no harm." I just had to correct him, because he was obviously hallucinating. "But before I marry that cross between a gorilla and a skunk, I will run away and become a nun."
"Hahahahahahaha." Jason chuckled like I had just said something hilarious, but I was dead serious. "Girl, you know you ain't going to join no convention!"
"Convention?" I pointed my finger at him. "You're so stupid. It's convent, dummy!" With that, I turned around and ran into the house to inform my mother about Jason's stupidity quotient. "Momma, guess what the stupid nucca just said!" That's how I first met Jason Reynard! That's how I first met my husband!
Copyright © 1998 by Zane
Product details
- ASIN : 0743442849
- Publisher : Atria; Reprint edition (October 1, 2001)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780743442848
- ISBN-13 : 978-0743442848
- Item Weight : 10.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.25 x 1 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,117,712 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #650 in Black & African American Erotica (Books)
- #6,156 in Romantic Erotica (Books)
- #9,033 in Urban Erotica (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Zane is the author of Addicted, The Sex Chronicles, Gettin' Buck Wild, The Heat Seekers, The Sisters of APF, Shame on It All, Nervous, Skyscraper, Afterburn, and Love Is Never Painless and is also the editor of Chocolate Flava and Caramel Flava. She is the publisher of Strebor Books, an imprint of Atria Books/Simon & Schuster, and lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her family. Visit her website at www.eroticanoir.com.
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What I loved most about this book is the way it’s written. I greatly appreciate “real talk”, meaning characters who talk like your average person, slang and all. It makes them easier to relate to and the story just flows better because it’s almost like you’re talking to or listening to a friend. That’s one of the reasons I was able to finish it in a day, well that and because I literally couldn’t put it down.
While I typically don’t go for books that involve cheating or love triangles I couldn’t resist this one. We always hear about male characters or even male celebs in real life being sex addicts, but we never really hear the story from a female addict’s perspective. Some people might say, “I don’t care what she has to say about it, cheating is cheating”, but it’s really not, at least not in this situation. Zane does an amazing job of portraying Zoe and Jason’s relationship from the moment they first met until their current predicament. She basically lays out the foundation showing their ups and downs and mixed emotions, so we know without a shadow of a doubt that Zoe is in fact madly in love with her husband. She’s just sick and needs help.
I can’t help but place some of the blame on Jason. Zoe reaches out to him every chance she gets, trying to initiate both sex and conversation, and he turns her down every single time. On the rare occasions they actually do have sex it’s bland and boring and Zoe is always left unsatisfied. It’s not that she doesn’t desire her husband or that she finds him unattractive. It’s the complete opposite, she comments on his good looks and amazing personality all the time. The problem is that he’s just not worried about her needs and wants, only his own, and that’s not enough for her. Coupled with the addiction, it just leads to numerous bad decisions on Zoe’s part.
The amount of drama, romance, suspense and over all craziness packed into this novel was insane, in a good way. I was literally on the edge of my seat throughout the entire book, hence the reason I finished it in a day. All of the plot twists really did catch me by surprise, especially the ending. Zane does an amazing job of weaving an intricately detailed story of lies and deception and spinning it into an absolutely gripping unputdownable (totally making that a word) novel. My coworkers and I did a group reading of this book, even though we all finished at different times, and we all agreed that it was sexy, shocking and seriously intense. And we’ll all be seeing the movie together :)
As much as I loved this book I do have a couple of issues. My main issue being a little something I like to call inappropriate use of exclamation points. In my opinion exclamation points are used to express excitement or anger and should always be used in the proper context. That wasn’t the case here; exclamation points were used at the most awkward times when neither of the aforementioned emotions was present. Now this might not bother you in the slightest but for me it interfered with my reading because in my mind I’m picturing the characters responding a certain way and the exclamation points just don’t coincide with what’s being said or the tone of the scene.
My other issue is that certain plot points seemed unbelievable. To give an example I have to include a SPOILER so consider this your warning. When Zoe is in the hospital from her accident she awakes to her husband and her therapist in the room. The therapist then proceeds to tell Zoe how she already informed Jason of EVERYTHING that had happened with Zoe and her affairs. Umm, I’m sorry but is a doctor supposed to do that?? What about the whole doctor-patient confidentiality thing?? I mean I felt like Zoe’s therapist was way underqualified to help her anyway and should’ve referred her to another doctor who specialized in Zoe’s type of addiction but that’s another issue entirely. Maybe she was supposed to be like that, who knows.
This was my first experience reading a book by Zane but definitely not my last. I can’t wait to see what else she has to offer. Oh and if you couldn’t tell I DEFINITELY recommend this one ;)
This story is told by Zoe. In parts of it, she is going through therapy for her sex addiction and she rehashes her childhood years and the other parts she is sharing the current state of her life. She is desperately in love with her husband, but he is not giving her what she craves in the bedroom. So, she heads out to find it elsewhere, even though she really did love her husband. I liked that there was no doubt that she loved her husband even though he was betraying him in the worst way. Sometimes, in cheating books, I feel like there is no way the cheater loves the other person, but Zoe made it clear that she LOVED Jason not those trifling men that she was sharing her body with. I think Zane did a great job with Zoe's character. I felt for her even though she was doing bad things.
This story is packed with love, suspense, action, betrayal and everything else. Boy, was I impressed with this story. I cannot wait to see the movie. Even though I know books are ALWAYS better than movies.
Zane's Addicted will most definitely show you why cheating is a very bad idea. Whew, everyone could learn from Zoe's story. Don't do it, it will ruin your life and everybody's life that you know.
Great read, totally unexpected.
What the author does well, however, is tell a story. The characters develop. You care about them. You want to keep reading.
This book never had a chance at winning a prestigious literary award, but it's a fun read. Good for passing a weekend with if you're in the mood for soap-opery drama. I put it in the same category as something like... Flowers In The Attic (except those books are actually a tad better). Trash. But the good type of trash. 🤷♀️
Top reviews from other countries
I also loved the character Jason ... A good man most men would have given up after all of that but he supported his wife Zoe right to the end.... Very good writing Zane.... I LOVED EVERY CHAPTER.....took me almost 4 days on and off because I couldn't put it down.... Loved it loved it... 2 books I will never forget ....both had an impact on me....