Behind the Book is a series in which I give you a behind the scenes look at one of the latest installments of The Diamond Collection. For this round, I will be focusing on Diamonds N’ Roses: Part Five of The Diamond Collection.

Diamonds N’ Roses was released on December 25, 2016 and is available at the following online retailers: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Books-A-Million.

Other Available Titles in The Diamond Collection: Diamonds in the Rough, Diamonds are Forever, The Ace of Diamonds, Black Diamonds, The Diamond Tiara (Part Six) and Dirty Red Diamonds (Part Seven).

CHAPTER FIVE: ONLY

There are two major things to dig into when it comes to Chapter Five. The first is mother/daughter relationships. The action and dialogue between Carmen and her mother, Patricia, show how their relationship is strained. Patricia has no filter as she takes shots at not only Carmen’s parenting (because her oldest son has impregnated his teenage girlfriend), but also at Carmen’s illegitimate children with Jay (Rakim and Nyla).

This torn relationship between mother and daughter is becoming a generational curse as Carmen isn’t in the best place with her oldest daughter, Kristian. While not heavily discussed in this book, the animosity between the two stems from Carmen’s affair with Jay (Kristian blames both her mother and Jay for breaking up the family). However, Carmen still remains Mama Bear and is worried about her daughter’s safety as she took an impromptu trip to Georgia to see Victor Fontaine.

This leads me to the second thing I want to dig into…

When I wrote this book back in 2016, I believed Victor Fontaine was going to be a character that would be heavily present in the rest of the collection. This is the reason I had him pop up in this book. I thought he would be a good love interest for Kristian as he was her knight in shining armor in Book 4, Black Diamonds, during her kidnapping. Even in this chapter, he comes to her rescue when she has a night terror. I wanted readers to become familiar with seeing him.

I can honestly say as I type this that I am torn on what to do with his character. For one, Kristian has another love interest, Dijuan Harrison, who was heavily present in Book Two, Diamonds are Forever. I feel like he needs to make a grand return and Book Eight: Diamond Life, would be a good place. If he comes back, Victor has to come back, too, but I don’t want another love triangle. I feel like I have enough of that with Carmen, Jay, and Kane.

Oh well, I’ll have it figured out by next year.