Not a Day Goes By: A Novel

By E. Lynn Harris

John “Basil” Henderson has always played the field, both as a professional football player and as an equal opportunity lover. After retiring his jersey for a career as a sports agent, the dashing playboy is surprising everyone—including himself—by deciding to settle down and commit to his new love, Yancey Harrington Braxton. A fiercely driven Broadway star on the rise, blessed with beauty, charm, and a fondness for the finer things in life, she appears to be his ideal mate. A lavish wedding is planned, but just before the nuptials, fate and a little comeuppance threaten the happy couple’s future.

Charged with narrative exuberance and sumptuous detail, Not a Day Goes By proves that nobody spins a sexy urban love story like E. Lynn Harris.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Dec 18, 2007
• ISBN: 9780307427038

E. Lynn Harris

E. Lynn Harris, a #1 national and New York Times bestselling author, wrote twelve acclaimed novels including Basketball Jones, Just Too Good to Be True, and I Say a Little Prayer. There are more than four million copies of his novels in print. He died in 2009 at the age of 54.

Reviews for Not a Day Goes By

[lycomayflower · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Set (and written) in the late nineties, Not a Day Goes By follows Basil and Yancey as they navigate personal secrets and their love for one another. This is sometimes billed as a romance novel, and it's really not. It's a love story, but, spoiler alert? absent an HEA (this story does not have a happy ending), it isn't a romance. That's just a heads up, really, not any kind of criticism. I found the story and the writing fairly compelling despite (?) seriously disliking both of the main characters (they are so rotten to each other, and whatever their relationship is based on, it isn't trust). Basil, despite (because of?) his own bisexuality, treats gay men abysmally several times throughout the book, and a number of characters say things about bisexuality that grind my gears like whoa. In the end, all of this is in service of an exploration of the two main characters, their complicated pasts, and their resulting messy lives. For me, ultimately, it was an awful lot of cringey stuff to sit with for not enough pay off, but I'm also glad I had the experience of reading the book.

[seriousgrace · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In a word, Not a Day Goes By is about secrets. Former professional football star John Basil Henderson has some big ones he's hiding from his fiance, Yancey. But, broadway star Yancey Harrington Braxton has even bigger ones she's keeping from "Basil". With their relationship chock full of lies, together they make the perfect couple. On the surface they are both beautiful, driven, talented individuals, but beneath those perfect facades hides homosexualty, a child out of wedlock, greed and old lovers who refuse to go away. Sexuality and sin ooze from nearly every page. Definitely a guilty-pleasure read!