sequel (noun) A published, broadcast or recorded work that continues the story or develops the theme of an earlier one.
prequel (noun) A story or movie containing events that precede those of an existing work.

Sister Souljah wants to make it clear that her latest book, 'Midnight,' is not a sequel to 'The Coldest Winter Ever.' It's a prequel.

And for those who have been writing her and calling her hotline for the last ten years, urging her to hurry up and write the sequel to her smash success, 'The Coldest Winter Ever,' they may be waiting for a very long time.

"I wrote 'The Coldest Winter Ever' as a complete work. If I were to do a sequel, let's look at the story: At the end of the book, Winter went to jail and was sentenced to 15 years. When Winter comes out of prison at 33, will her story still be hot? Would she have the same confidence? Her mom is dead, her father is doing life. These are real things that happened. She doesn't have the same resources. Do you really hold the same position when you're 33? Can you talk all of that shit you talked when you were a teenager? No! So what makes that so hot?

"I loved 'The Coldest Winter Ever,' I would be a fool not to love it. I wrote it. I imagined it. I put it into circulation. But I wrote it in a complete form -- a beginning, middle, and an end."

The overwhelming reaction to 'The Coldest Winter Ever' and people's connection to the characters was what sparked the creation of Midnight. Souljah said she would be on lecture tours for the book and invariably women would want to know about this character, Midnight, who had a very limited role in 'The Coldest Winter Ever' but seemed to be so vivid and real for so many.

"I had women and girls telling me how much they loved him and they wanted to meet him. I even had one woman tell me that she had actually met him on a highway one night. And I kept telling them that he wasn't real. He was just a character I made up. But so many women wanted him to be real. They knew nothing, absolutely nothing about him, but they were in love with him.

So she brought him to life in Midnight. It is the story of a young man, born into wealth in the Sudan. Just a boy, he had to leave his father and his wealth behind and flee his country with his pregnant mother and make a life on the mean streets of New York. He has to navigate though violence, drugs and sex while maintaining his dignity and devotion to his family, his religion and to himself.

While also fighting off the young women who seem to throw themselves at him at every turn, Midnight becomes a man, falls in love and tries to do the right thing by all of the women in his life-his mother, his sister, and eventually his wife.

"I thought, 'wouldn't it be something to speak in a male voice?' And wouldn't it be something else to speak in an Islamic voice? Once I realized I had to go deep into my imagination and that the manhood had to stay in the tone and that I couldn't slip into a Souljah or feminine voice, I got excited about it. As I writer you have to be excited about what you're writing about. If you're not excited, you can't excite the reader."

The readers seem pretty excited about 'Midnight' -- even those expecting a sequel to 'The Coldest Winter Ever.' 'Midnight' will debut in the top 10 of the New York Times best-seller's list (NOTE: Black Voices had Midnight as one of their Hot Picks first).

And while Sister Souljah was hoping for the slow, steady success that she had with 'The Coldest Winter Ever,' this book seems to be an instant star.

There has been some push back, however. In addition to disappointment over there not being a Winter Santiago sighting, some question why Midnight's love interest had to be Japanese. And why are the black girls in the books-except for those from Midnight's community-leaving much to be desired?

"I wanted to show African American girls that you have to have more than pussy and attitude," she said. "Now that we're in this global society, these girls are going to have to compete with women that they've never had to compete with before. Here's this beautiful girl (Akemi). She speaks five different languages, is an artist. She chose Midnight and she worked to get him-not through sex. She presented a package that was different from all of the other packages he was exposed to."

'Midnight' is also a message to black men about the possibilities. "I call it a blackprint of manhood," said Souljah. "It's telling men and women what a man is and showing the various predicaments that a man living in a hood are living with and how the hardships and the troubles can be worked through and overcome."

It took six years for Souljah to complete this tale of Midnight, which ends in a cliffhanger. She promises, however, that it won't be nearly that long to find out what happens next.