Sugarbabies

The essence of the story Sugarbabies is about four sisters attempting to hold their family together. Set in the city of St. Louis, this novel was written in 1998.
The four sisters, from the eldest to the youngest, are Denise, Audrey, Lindy, and Tina. The first character introduced is Tina, who feels she has been forced into shouldering the burden of caring for the children of her addict sister, Lindy.
When Lindy realizes the burden of rearing her children is too overwhelming, she makes a decision to abandon them. She comes to this decision without discussing it with any of her three sisters. She simply calls Tina one night after a drinking and drugging binge and informs her that she does not want her children anymore. Tina, who believes Lindy is playing a drunken game, hangs up the phone angrily and dismisses her sister's words as ranting uttered in a drunken fit. She cannot believe that Lindy would contemplate deserting her children, but finds out the next day Lindy was serious.
Left with the responsibility of parenthood, Tina strives to do what she feels is right. She is unwilling to pass the obligation to Denise, the eldest sister, since Denise had been let with the responsibility of rearing Tina, along with the other two sisters.
Although Denise has always been the thread holding the family together, she is weary from combating ghosts from her own past. To add confusion to an already volatile situation, Audrey, the last of the four sisters, leaves her husband then shows up unannounced, pregnant, and with three children in tow.
Sugarbabies accompanies these four sisters through their anguishes, battles, labors, then finally their deliverance. It is a story of how four sisters fought adversity to come out with a deeper understanding of one another, and what is means to be a family.