Marking a dramatic new direction for Jones, a riveting tale set in the Post WWII South, narrated by a Black soldier who returns to Jim Crow and searches for a mythical ideal. Set in the early 1950s, this latest novel from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Gayl Jones follows the witty but perplexing army veteran Buddy Ray Guy as he embodies the fate of Black soldiers who return, not in glory, but into their Jim Crow communities.. A cook and tractor repairman, Buddy was known as Budweiser to his army pals because he's a wise guy. But underneath that surface, he is a true self-educated intellectual and a classic seeker: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love.. As he moves around the south, from his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, primarily, to his second home of Memphis, Tennessee, he recalls his love affairs in post-war France and encounters with a variety of colorful characters and mythical prototypes: circus barkers, topiary trimmers, landladies who provide shelter and plenty of advice for their all-Black clientele, proto feminists, and bigots.
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9780807030035
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Hardcover
The Road to the Country
By Obioma, Chigozie
A sweeping, heart-racing, mystical novel about a university student in Lagos trying to save his brother, and himself, amid the chaos of Nigeria's civil war - a story of love, friendship, and brotherhood by the two-time Booker Prize finalist and "the heir to Chinua Achebe" (New York Times) . "Chigozie Obioma is that rare thing: an original. His world is a mix of the real and the folkloric, and his writing sounds like no one else's." - The Wall Street Journal. The first images of the vision are grainy - like something seen through wet glass. But slowly it clears, and there appears the figure of a man.. Set in Nigeria in the late 1960s, The Road to the Country is the epic story of a shy, bookish student haunted by long-held guilt and shame who must go to war to free himself.
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9780593596975
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Hardcover
Between Friends & Lovers
By Obuobi, Shirlene
Talia Hibbert meets Carley Fortune in this swoon-worthy story of love and friendship in the age of social media - where what you see might not be all you get. To her countless Instagram followers Josephine Boateng is the dazzling Dr. Jojo - and her opinions on health, growth, and self-love matter. Her message: be smart (she has a medical degree after all) , be significant, and do not put up with foolish men.But behind the camera, Jo's story is more complicated - she finds her influencer career underwhelming; her potential career in medicine overwhelming, and she's hung up on her best friend, nepo-baby and romcom heartthrob Ezra Adelman. When Ezra shows up to his thirtieth birthday party with her childhood bully on his arm, however, Josephine realizes that it's time to take her own advice and prioritize herself for once.
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9780063307308
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Hardcover
Let the Games Begin
By Mazarura, Rufaro Faith
Set against a sizzling-hot Greek summer filled with sunshine and souvlaki, Rufaro Faith Mazarura's Let the Games Begin is a page-turning debut rom-com about two strangers at the top of their game.. Athens, 2024. Olivia Nkomo has always been ambitious, smart, and an overall go-getter. Now that she's graduated from university, she's willing to do whatever it takes to land her dream job at the Summer Games. The first step? Securing her new internship, which will put her in the center of all the action, where she hopes to run into some of her favorite athletes.. Ezekiel "Zeke" Moyo, the heartthrob star runner of Team Great Britain, is more than ready to claim his title as the fastest man in the world, following in the footsteps of the greatest athletes of all time.
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9781250354532
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Paperback
Grown Women
By Johnson, Sarai
In this stunning debut novel, four generations of complex Black women contend with motherhood and daughterhood, generational trauma and the deeply ingrained tensions and wounds that divide them as they redefine happiness and healing for themselves.Erudite Evelyn, her cynical daughter Charlotte, and Charlotte's optimistic daughter Corinna see the world very differently. Though they love each other deeply, it's no wonder that their personalities often clash. But their conflicts go deeper than run-of-the-mill disagreements. Here, there is deep, dark resentment for past and present hurt. When Corinna gives birth to her own daughter, Camille, the beautiful, intelligent little girl offers this trio of mothers something they all need: hope, joy, and an opportunity to reconcile.
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9780063294431
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Hardcover
A Gamble at Sunset
By Riley, Vanessa
Award-winning author Vanessa Riley turns all convention on its head for the first in an enchanting, dazzlingly diverse new Regency romance trilogy featuring a duke, three sisters, and a tantalizing bet with a most desirable reward.... When a duke discovers the woman he loves was tricked into marrying another, the master chess player makes the now-widowed Viscountess the highest-stakes wager of his life in a last-ditch effort to win her affection: he will find husbands for her two sisters - or depart forever. Thus begins a sparkling new series from acclaimed author Vanessa Riley.. Georgina Wilcox, a wallflower with hidden musical talents, is furious when her reclusive older sister - the recently widowed Viscountess - refuses sorely needed help from the Duke of Torrance, the only gentleman who has shown kindness to the bereft Wilcox sisters.
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9781420154856
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Paperback
Curvy Girl Summer
By Allen, Danielle
Bridget Jones meets Insecure in CURVY GIRL SUMMER, a smoking-hot, hilarious novel about the perils of online dating.. Aaliyah is determined to celebrate her thirtieth birthday with a boyfriend. And after a failed blind date, the local bartender, Ahmad, suggests she joins a dating app.. Filled with lies, catfish, and fetishizing, the wild world of online dating makes Aaliyah think she's in over her head.. And she is. But with her two best friends and a protective bartender by her side, what could go wrong?. Everything.. Everything could go wrong.. And that's the problem.. Because as Aaliyah is set on finding exactly what she's looking for, she ends up finding something she never expects.
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9781250331045
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Paperback
They Dream in Gold
By Sennaar, Mai
For fans of Tara M. Stringfellow's Memphis and Abi Daré's The Girl with the Louding Voice comes a stunning literary debut about one intercultural family's search for home and the power of a lifelong dream.. It is summer 1969 in the Swiss countryside, and the house on the hill is busy. In the kitchen, Mama Eva and her sisters sing along to Congolese rumba, season fish, and pound garlic in preparation for the realization of a childhood dream: the grand opening of her Senegalese restaurant. Upstairs, African American daughter-in-law Bonnie paces across the floorboards, hopelessly waiting for news from the father of her unborn child. . Mansour has been gone for three months. His tour was only meant to last three weeks, but he and his band have yet to return.
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9781638931102
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Hardcover
The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye
By Cameron, Briony
This epic, dazzling tale based on true events illuminates a woman of color's rise to power as one of the few purported female pirate captains to sail the Caribbean, and the forbidden love story that will shape the course of history.. In the tumultuous town of Yáquimo, Santo Domingo, Jacquotte Delahaye is an unknown but up-and-coming shipwright. Her dreams are bold but her ambitions are bound by the confines of her life with her self-seeking French father. When her way of life and the delicate balance of power in the town are threatened, she is forced to flee her home and become a woman on the run along with a motley crew of refugees, including a mysterious young woman named Teresa. Jacquotte and her band become indentured servants to the infamous Blackhand, a ruthless pirate captain who rules his ship with an iron fist.
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9781668051023
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Hardcover
What You Leave Behind
By Morris, Wanda M.
Award-winning author Wanda Morris returns with a powerful, haunting thriller following a lawyer who after the mysterious disappearance of a local landowner and the death of his sister just months before, uncovers a conspiracy that dates back to Reconstruction and persists in half the United States today.Deena Wood's life has fallen apart in the aftermath of losing her beloved mother, her marriage, and her prestigious job at an Atlanta law firm. She needs what the Geechee people of coastal Georgia call a "dayclean," a fresh start.She returns to her childhood home in Brunswick, Georgia, to heal. But her return is anything but the respite she thought it might be. To make peace with all her loss, she often drives through the city. One day, she unwittingly finds herself on the oceanfront property of a loner widower who is fighting to keep land that has been in his family since the end of the Civil War.
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9780063322219
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Hardcover
Ella
By Richards, Diane
In the vein of The Paris Wife and The Personal Librarian comes this debut novel, a magnificent work of "biographical fiction" that reimagines the turbulent and triumphant early years of Ella Fitzgerald, arguably the greatest singer of the twentieth century.When fifteen-year-old Ella Fitzgerald's mother dies at the height of the Depression in 1932, the teenager goes to work for the mob to support herself and her family. When the law finally catches up, the "ungovernable" adolescent is incarcerated in the New York Training School for Girls in upstate New York - a wicked prison infamous for its harsh treatment of inmates, especially Black ones. Determined to be free, Ella escapes and makes her way back to Harlem, where she is forced to dance for pennies on the street.
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9780063338654
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Hardcover
While We Were Burning
By Koffi, Sara
Parasite meets Such a Fun Age in a scorching debut that is as heartbreaking as it is thrilling, examining the intersection of race, class, and female friendship, and the devastating consequences of everyday actions.. After her best friend's mysterious death, Elizabeth Smith's picture-perfect life in the Memphis suburbs has spiraled out of control - so much so that she hires a personal assistant to keep her on track. Composed and elegant, Brianna is exactly who she needs and slides so neatly into Elizabeth's life, almost like she belonged there from the start. Soon, the assistant Elizabeth hired to distract her from her obsession with her friend's death is the same person working with her to uncover the truth behind it.. Because Brianna has questions too.
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9780593714959
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Hardcover
James
By Everett, Percival
A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. * From the "literary icon" (Oprah Daily) , Pulitzer Prize Finalist, and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.
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9780385550369
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Hardcover
Ours
By Williams, Phillip B.
"A beautifully-written and ambitious epic about the complexity of freedom." - Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half. An epic novel set in mid-nineteenth-century America about the spiritual costs of a freedom that demands fierce protection. In this ingenious, sweeping novel, Phillip B. Williams introduces us to an enigmatic woman named Saint, a fearsome conjuror who, in the 1830s, annihilates plantations all over Arkansas to rescue the people enslaved there. She brings those she has freed to a haven of her own creation: a town just north of St. Louis, magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours.. It is in this miraculous place that Saint's grand experiment - a truly secluded community where her people may flourish - takes root. But although Saint does her best to protect the inhabitants of Ours, over time, her conjuring and memories begin to betray her, leaving the town vulnerable to intrusions by newcomers with powers of their own.
Publisher: n/a
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9780593654828
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Hardcover
This Could Be Us
By Ryan, Kennedy
"Heart-searing, sensual, and life affirming." -- EMILY HENRY, #1 New York Times bestselling author. Soledad Barnes has her life all planned out. Because, of course, she does. She plans everything. She designs everything. She fixes everything. She's a domestic goddess who's never met a party she couldn't host or a charge she couldn't lead. The one with all the answers and the perfect vinaigrette for that summer salad. But none of her varied talents can save her when catastrophe strikes, and the life she built with the man who was supposed to be her forever, goes poof in a cloud of betrayal and disillusion. But there is no time to pout or sulk, or even grieve the life she lost. She's too busy keeping a roof over her daughters' heads and food on the table.
Publisher: n/a
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9781538767436
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Hardcover
Pride and Joy
By Onomé, Louisa
Black Cake meets Death at a Funeral in this heartwarming and hilarious novel about three generations of a Nigerian Canadian family grappling with their matriarch's sudden passing while their auntie insists that her sister is coming back - from an author with a "razor-sharp, smart, and tender" (Nafiza Azad, author of The Wild Ones) voice.. Joy Okafor is overwhelmed. Recently divorced, a life coach whose phone won't stop ringing, and ever the dutiful Nigerian daughter, Joy has planned every aspect of her mother's seventieth birthday weekend on her own. As the Okafors slowly begin to arrive, Mama Mary goes to take a nap. But when the grandkids go to wake her, they find that she isn't sleeping after all. Refusing to believe that her sister is gone-gone, Auntie Nancy declares that she has had a premonition that Mama Mary will rise again like Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday.
Publisher: n/a
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9781668012819
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Hardcover
Pardon My Frenchie
By Rochon, Farrah
The New York Times bestselling author of Almost There delivers the start of a new rom-com series with an enemies-to-lovers romance, perfect for readers of Abby Jimenez and Jasmine Guillory.. Ashanti Wright is thrilled over the success of her doggie daycare, Barkingham Palace. But handling the business and taking care of her teen twin sisters is a lot. And now that the antics of her adorable French bulldog and poodle bestie are blowing up on social media, things are even more chaotic than usual. And they only get worse when the world's worst dog hater shows up.. Thad Sims is not a dog person. He's barely a person's person. But after his grandmother is transferred to a senior living facility that doesn't accept pets, the former army officer agrees to care for her annoying standard poodle, and his first move is taking Puddin' out of daycare.
Publisher: n/a
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9781538739143
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Paperback
The Blueprint
By Rashad, Rae Giana
"The Blueprint is an astounding work, an unflinching portrait of misogyny and racism in a speculative world terrifyingly close to our own. Rae Giana Rashad chronicles the generational ghosts of womanhood, and how we understand ourselves through the stories of those we come from, in a way I've never read before. A remarkable new talent, and a timeless literary voice." - Ashley Audrain, New York Times bestselling author of The Push In the vein of Octavia E. Butler and Margaret Atwood, a harrowing novel set in an alternate United States - a world of injustice and bondage in which a young Black woman becomes the concubine of a powerful white government official and must face the dangerous consequences.Solenne Bonet lives in Texas where choice no longer exists.
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9780063330092
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Hardcover
The Only Black Girl in the Room
By Travis, Alex
An ambitious reporter stuck doing diversity checks for her white colleagues gets her big break in this compelling debut novel perfect for fans of Jayne Allen, Jasmine Guillory, and Zakiya Dalila Harris.. Genevieve Francis, a 25-year-old Black reporter, assumed she'd go into her fo
Publisher: n/a
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9781639106936
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Allow Me to Introduce Myself
By Nwabineli, Onyi
Ever since she was a child, Anuri's life was chronicled and monetized by her influencer stepmother. Now an adult, she's finally broken free. But when her stepmother starts preying on her young half sister, Anuri decides she must stop the cycle of abuse. Really Good, Actually meets
Publisher: n/a
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9781525896033
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The Sun Sets in Singapore
By Fadipe, Kehinde
Basking in Singapore's nonstop sunshine, Dara, Amaka, and Lillian are living the glamorous expat dream - until their carefully constructed lives are upended by a handsome and mysterious new arrival: "Wanderlust-inducing . . . A rich celebration of the nuanced complexities of Black womanhood" (Lola Akinmade Åkerstrom, international bestselling author) . Dara, a workaholic lawyer from the UK, is on the brink of partnership at her firm. Estranged from her mother, and perpetually uncomfortable around her hypercompetitive colleagues, her insecurities intensify when Lani, a new hire from Geneva, is assigned to work on what should have been her career-making case. Pitted against each other by their boss, Dara can't help but see Lani as a threat: a privileged man poised to take her place.
Publisher: n/a
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9781538741498
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Hardcover
Acts of Forgiveness
By Cheeks, Maura
In this stirring, tender-hearted debut about ambition and inheritance, a family grapples with how much of their lineage they're willing to unearth in order to participate in the nation's first federal reparations program.. Every American waits with bated breath to see whether or not the country's first female president will pass the Forgiveness Act. The bill would allow Black families to claim up to $175,000 if they can prove they are the descendants of slaves, and for ambitious single mother Willie Revel the bill could be a long-awaited form of redemption. A decade ago, Willie gave up her burgeoning journalism career to help run her father's struggling construction company in Philadelphia and she has reluctantly put family first, without being able to forget who she might have become.
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9780593598290
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Hardcover
The Good Ones Are Taken
By Mccoy, Taj
"If you haven't read Taj McCoy's books, you are missing out on some seriously stunning love stories!" - Jesse Sutanto, author of Dial A for Aunties. When Maggie's best friend admits he's in love with her, she'll have to decide whether it's worth giving up something good
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9780778305422
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Jewel Me Twice
By Reid, Charish
"Charish writes characters you can't help but fall in love with and stories you can't put down." - Denise Williams, author of Love and Other Flight Delays. Love can catch you red-handed.. He was her partner - both in crime and between the sheets. It's been five years si
Publisher: n/a
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9781335009463
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The American Daughters
By Ruffin, Maurice Carlos
A gripping historical novel about a spirited girl who joins a sisterhood working to undermine the Confederates - from the award-winning author of We Cast a Shadow. Ady, a curious, sharp-witted girl, and her fierce mother, Sanite, are inseparable. Enslaved to a businessman in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the pair spend their days dreaming of a loving future and reminiscing about their family's rebellious and storied history. When mother and daughter are separated, Ady is left hopeless and directionless until she stumbles into the Mockingbird Inn and meets Lenore, a free Black woman with whom she becomes fast friends. Lenore invites Ady to join a clandestine society of spies called the Daughters. With the courage instilled in her by Sanite - and with help from these strong women - Ady learns how to put herself first.
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9780593729397
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Hardcover
Neighbors and Other Stories
By Oliver, Diane
A bold and haunting debut story collection that follows various characters as they navigate the day-to-day perils of Jim Crow racism from Diane Oliver, a missing figure in the canon of twentieth-century African American literature, with an introduction by Tayari JonesA remarkable talent far ahead of her time, Diane Oliver died in 1966 at the age of 22, leaving behind these crisply told and often chilling tales that explore race and racism in 1950s and 60s America. In this first and only collection by a masterful storyteller finally taking her rightful place in the canon, Oliver's insightful stories reverberate into the present day.There's the nightmarish "The Closet on the Top Floor" in which Winifred, the first Black student at her newly integrated college, starts to physically disappear; "Mint Juleps not Served Here" where a couple living deep in a forest with their son go to bloody lengths to protect him; "Spiders Cry without Tears," in which a couple, Meg and Walt, are confronted by prejudices and strains of interracial and extramarital love; and the high tension titular story that follows a nervous older sister the night before her little brother is set to desegregate his school.
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9780802161314
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Hardcover
Fake Famous
By Davis, Dana L.
In this breezy novel from the author of Somebody That I Used to Know, one Iowa farm girl - a dead ringer for a global pop star - gets an unlikely shot at stardom. Will she choose fame ... or the family farm?Red Morgan is fresh out of high school. With signature red curls and a remarkable singing voice, the bubbly teenager is a devoted daughter and big sister. The world should be her oyster. But Red already knows exactly where her future lies: the family farm in Orange City, Iowa.Zay-Zay Waters is at the top of her game. The Brooklyn-born singer has it all - talent, fame, even a smokin' hot boyfriend. But life in the limelight isn't all it's cracked up to be. And when a video of Red singing in the mud - looking and sounding exactly like Zay-Zay herself - goes viral, the pop star begins to hatch a plan.
Publisher: n/a
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9781542038768
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Hardcover
Sounds Like a Plan
By Young, Pamela Samuels
Reluctantly joining forces after discovering they've both been hired on the same missing person case, two rival Black private investigators find their mutual dislike evolves into an undeniable attraction in this rollicking, romantic thrill ride told in alternate perspectives from
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9781668024294
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Where There's Smoke
By Swinson, Kiki
In her nationally-bestselling novels, Kiki Swinson ignites an unforgettable portrait of Dirty South scheming, greed, desire--and brutal dead ends. Now the stakes have never been more lethal as a compromised female firefighter starts burning down her all-too-corrupt past . . .. Kill your secrets . . . Volunteer Virginia Beach firefighter Alayna Curry used to pride herself on saving lives. But now, determined to conceal her part in an arson-for-insurance scam gone bad, she's using her skills to have the scheme's leader, Tim - her ex-lover - shot dead, claiming it was a robbery. She's carefully set him up to be the ultimate fall guy. And she's ruthlessly aiming to silence more witnesses - which will also get her beloved brother Alonzo out of prison . . .
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9781496739025
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Hardcover
The Partner Plot
By Forest, Kristina
Two former high school sweethearts get a second chance in this marriage of convenience romance by Kristina Forest, author of The Neighbor Favor.. To Violet Greene, fashion is everything. As a successful celebrity stylist, she travels all over the world, living out her dreams. Professionally, she's thriving, but her personal life is in shambles. After surviving a very public breakup with her ex-fiancé six months ago, Violet is now determined to focus on her career. But life hands her something - or rather, someone - that might derail everything ... . Xavier Wright did not expect to run into his high school girlfriend Violet - the girl he once thought he'd marry - on a birthday trip to Vegas. As a high school teacher and basketball coach, he rarely leaves his New Jersey hometown, so what were the chances? But when the initial shock wears off, they decide to celebrate together.
Publisher: n/a
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9780593546451
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Paperback
Between Friends and Lovers
By Obuobi, Shirlene
Talia Hibbert meets Carley Fortune in this swoon-worthy story of love and friendship in the age of social media - where what you see might not be all you get. To her countless Instagram followers Josephine Boateng is the dazzling Dr. Jojo - and her opinions on health, growth, and
Publisher: n/a
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9780063307315
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The Mayor of Maxwell Street
By Cunningham, Avery
"A debut novel everyone will be talking about," Avery Cunningham's epic love story is "a triumph" and "a tale of intrigue, racial tension, and class warfare, set against the glamorous and gritty backdrop of early 20th century Chicago.". When a rich Black debutante enlists the help of a low-level speakeasy manager to identify the head of an underground crime syndicate, the two are thrust into the dangerous world of Prohibition-era Chicago.. The year is 1921, and America is burning. A fire of vice and virtue rages on every shore with Chicago at its beating heart.. Twenty-year-old Nelly Sawyer is the daughter of the alleged "wealthiest Negro in America," whose wealth catapulted his family to the heights of Black society.
Publisher: n/a
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9781368093002
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Hardcover
When I Think of You
By Ariel, Myah
In this sweeping second chance romance from debut author Myah Ariel, the unexpected spark of two former flames may force them to choose between their dreams and each other.. Kaliya Wilson has paid her dues. But all the years behind the reception desk at a flashy film studio have o
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9780593640593
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The Kiss Countdown
By Easton, Etta
A struggling event planner and a sinfully hot astronaut must decide if their fake relationship is worth a shot at happily-ever-after, in this starry debut.. Risk-averse event planner Amerie Price is jobless, newly single, and about to lose her apartment. With no choice but to gamb
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9780593640227
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The Reformatory
By Due, Tananarive
A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he's sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.. Gracetown, Florida, summer 1950. Robert Stephens Jr. is sent to Gracetown School for Boys for kicking a white boy's leg. But the Gracetown School for Boys isn't just any reform school. As Robert finds, it's a segregated school that is haunted from the boys who have died there. The Reformatory is an eerie, frightening novel that explores the horrors of our history.
Publisher: n/a
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9781982188344
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Hardcover
Tremor
By Cole, Teju
A powerful, intimate novel that masterfully explores what constitutes a meaningful life in a violent world - from the award-winning author of Open City. Life is hopeless but it is not serious. We have to have danced while we could and, later, to have danced again in the telling.. A weekend spent antiquing is shadowed by the colonial atrocities that occurred on that land. A walk at dusk is interrupted by casual racism. A loving marriage is riven by mysterious tensions. And a remarkable cascade of voices speaks out from a pulsing metropolis.. We're invited to experience these events and others through the eyes and ears of Tunde, a West African man working as a teacher of photography on a renowned New England campus. He is a reader, a listener, a traveler, drawn to many different kinds of stories: stories from history and epic; stories of friends, family, and strangers; stories found in books and films.
Publisher: n/a
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9780812997118
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Hardcover
Black Cake
By Wilkerson, Charmaine
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY * Two estranged siblings delve into their mother's hidden past - and how it all connects to her traditional Caribbean black cake - in this immersive family saga, "a character-driven, multigenerational story that's meant to be savored" (Time) . "Wilkerson transports you across the decades and around the globe accompanied by complex, wonderfully drawn characters." - Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones & The Six, and Malibu Rising . In development as a Hulu original series produced by Marissa Jo Cerar, Oprah Winfrey (Harpo Films) , and Kapital Entertainment ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Oprah Daily, NPR, BuzzFeed, Glamour, PopSugar, Book Riot, She Reads.
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9780593726150
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Paperback
Crook Manifesto
By Whitehead, Colson
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning Colson Whitehead continues his Harlem saga in a powerful and hugely-entertaining novel that summons 1970s New York in all its seedy glory.. It's 1971. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is careening towards bankruptcy, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Amidst this collective nervous breakdown furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney tries to keep his head down and his business thriving. His days moving stolen goods around the city are over. It's strictly the straight-and-narrow for him - until he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May and he decides to hit up his old police contact Munson, fixer extraordinaire. But Munson has his own favors to ask of Carney and staying out of the game gets a lot more complicated - and deadly.
Publisher: n/a
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9780385545150
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Hardcover
Rebecca, Not Becky
By Platt, Christine
In the vein of Such a Fun Age, a whip-smart, compulsively readable novel about two upper-class stay-at-home mothers - one white, one Black - living in a "perfect" suburb that explores motherhood, friendship, and the true meaning of sisterhood amidst the backdrop of America's all-too-familiar racial reckoning.De'Andrea Whitman, her husband Malik, and their five-year-old daughter, Nina, are new to the upper-crust white suburb of Rolling Hills, Virginia - a move motivated by circumstance rather than choice. De'Andrea is heartbroken to leave her comfortable life in the Black oasis of Atlanta, and between her mother-in-law's Alzheimer's diagnosis, her daughter starting kindergarten, and the overwhelming whiteness of Rolling Hills, she finds herself struggling to adjust to her new community.
Publisher: n/a
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9780063213593
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Hardcover
Gaslight
By Kayode, Femi
In this follow-up to Kayode's "action-packed and spirited debut" Philip Taiwo returns to solve a missing-persons case, and in so doing, uncovers dark secrets the church has worked tirelessly to hide (Oyinkan Braithwaite, author of My Sister, the Serial Killer) .. A shadow has fallen over the megachurch in Ogun State, Nigeria: the beloved Bishop Dawodu has been arrested for the murder of his wife. Sade Dawodu has vanished without a trace and although no body has been found, the police have acted based on what they claim is damning evidence. Philip Taiwo, hot off the success of solving the Okriki Three case, is brought on to investigate. He quickly learns that Sade, young, impulsive, and outspoken, is no favorite of the congregants. She has also been known to disappear for long stretches of time.
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9780316536646
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Book
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
By Emezi, Akwaeke
A New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and "one of our greatest living writers" (Shondaland) reimagines the love story in this fresh and seductive novel about a young woman seeking joy while healing from loss.Feyi Adekola wants to learn how to be alive again. It's been five years since the accident that killed the love of her life and she's almost a new person now - an artist with her own studio, and sharing a brownstone apartment with her ride-or-die best friend, Joy, who insists it's time for Feyi to ease back into the dating scene. Feyi isn't ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she could have never imagined: a luxury trip to a tropical island, decadent meals in the glamorous home of a celebrity chef, and a major curator who wants to launch her art career.
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9781982188702
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Hardcover
Chain Gang All Stars
By Adjei-brenyah, Nana Kwame
The explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black, about two top women gladiators fighting for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America's own. * "A new and necessary American voice." - Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book ReviewLoretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates.
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9780593317334
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Hardcover
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde
By Williams, Tia
From the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Days in June, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is an epic love story one hundred years in the making ... Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing.Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn't one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she's the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they're long-stemmed roses, she's a dandelion: an adorable bloom that's actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her.When regal nonagenarian Ms. Della invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning.
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9781538726709
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Hardcover
Her Own Happiness
By Appiah-kubi, Eden
It's never too late to come of age in this compassionate and refreshing novel about friendship, self-discovery, and moving on by the author of The Bennet Women.Maya Davis is living in paradise until her apartment, her career, and her dreams fall away in a horrible and dramatic fashion. Suddenly she's packing her life into two suitcases and heading back to her parents' home in Maryland, scrambling for a plan B. Happy thirty-first birthday, Maya.Right beside her is Ant, Maya's best friend. While she's returning home, Ant's leaving his for the first time. Even though he moved away to start his own adventure, Ant can't seem to separate himself from Maya -- and he's not sure he wants to.Thinking practically for once, Maya makes her top priority finding a career -- or at least a job with health insurance.
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9781542030472
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Paperback
Women of the Post
By Sanders, Joshunda
"What a beautifully imagined and important narrative. Sanders' clear-eyed and powerful writing made this a hard one to stop reading!" - Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award-Winning Author"This is a novel to cherish and share. And this is a history to sing about and affirm -- to proclaim." - Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, New York Times Bestselling author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, an Oprah Book Club NovelInspired by true events, Women of the Post brings to life the heroines who proudly served in the all-Black battalion of the Women's Army Corps in WWII, finding purpose in their mission and lifelong friendship.1944, New York City. Judy Washington is tired of having to work at the Bronx Slave Market, cleaning white women's houses for next to nothing.
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9780778334071
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Paperback
Queen of Exiles
By Riley, Vanessa
"A sweeping look at the political, social, and romantic intrigue surrounding Haiti's first and only queen. Riley's depiction is richly imagined and wholly original." - Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Magnolia PalaceAcclaimed historical novelist Vanessa Riley is back with another novel based on the life of an extraordinary Black woman from history: Haiti's Queen Marie-Louise Coidavid, who escaped a coup in Haiti to set up her own royal court in Italy during the Regency era, where she became a popular member of royal European society. The Queen of Exiles is Marie-Louise Christophe, wife and then widow of Henry I, who ruled over the newly liberated Kingdom of Hayti in the wake of the brutal Haitian Revolution.In 1810 Louise is crowned queen as her husband begins his reign over the first and only free Black nation in the Western Hemisphere.
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9780063270992
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Hardcover
The Art of Scandal
By Black, Regina
A "Wildly steamy, utterly heartwarming" (Tia Williams) debut filled with romance, artistic ambitions, political scandal, and finding love where you least expect it. . "Love would be so much easier if it were perfect..." . On the night of her husband Matt's fortieth birthday, Rachel Abbott receives a sexy, explicit text from her husband that she quickly realizes was meant for another woman. Divorce is inevitable, and Rachel is determined not to leave her thirteen-year marriage empty handed. Meanwhile, Matt, a rising star mayor with his eye on the White House, can't afford a messy split in the middle of his reelection campaign. They strike a deal: Rachel gets one million dollars and their lavish house in the wealthy DC suburb of Oasis Springs, as long as she keeps playing the ideal Black trophy wife until the election.
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9781538722770
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Hardcover
Homebodies
By Denton-hurst, Tembe
Urgent, propulsive, and strikingly insightful, Homebodies is a thrilling debut novel about a young Black writer whose world is turned upside down when she loses her coveted job in media and her searing manifesto about racism in the industry goes viral.Mickey Hayward dreams of writing stories that matter. She has a flashy media job that makes her feel successful and a devoted girlfriend who takes care of her when she comes home exhausted and demoralized. It's not all A-list parties and steamy romance, but Mickey's on her way, and it's far from the messy life she left behind in Maryland. Despite being overlooked and mistreated at work, it seems like she might finally get the chance to prove herself - until she finds out she's being replaced.Distraught and enraged, Mickey fires back with a detailed letter outlining the racism and sexism she's endured as a Black woman in media, certain it will change the world for the better.
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9780063274280
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Hardcover
Let Us Descend
By Ward, Jesmyn
From Jesmyn Ward - the two-time National Book Award winner, youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for Fiction, and MacArthur Fellow - comes a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic, about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War.. "'Let us descend,' the poet now began, 'and enter this blind world.'" - Inferno, Dante Alighieri Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader's guide through this hellscape.
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9781982104498
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Hardcover
Maame
By George, Jessica
"An utterly charming and deeply moving portrait of the joys--and the guilt--of trying to find your own way in life." --Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author"Meeting Maame feels like falling in love for the first time: warm, awkward, joyous, a little bit h
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1250282527
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The Duchess Effect
By Livesay, Tracey
Tracey Livesay returns in this seriously sexy sequel to American Royalty, following Duchess and Prince Jameson as they strive to turn their romance into a relationship, beneath the relentless glare of the spotlight.Against all odds, sexy American rapper, Danielle "Duchess" Nelson and brilliant reclusive royal Prince Jameson have fallen in love! They've decided to take their relationship public and find a way to make their two worlds coexist. On their terms.Unfortunately, falling in love was the easy part. Jameson and Dani's love story has made them the most popular royals since Prince John, but that popularity comes with a price. Dani looks forward to signing the deal with a major cosmetics company that will make her skin care line, Mela-Skin, a force in the industry, and finally grant her the control over her life she's craved since childhood.
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9780063084568
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Paperback
What Never Happened
By Hall, Rachel Howzell
It's murder in paradise as a woman uncovers a host of secrets off the rocky California coast in a gripping novel of suspense by New York Times bestselling author Rachel Howzell Hall.Colette "Coco" Weber has relocated to her Catalina Island home, where, twenty years before, she was the sole survivor of a deadly home invasion. All Coco wants is to see her aunt Gwen, get as far away from her ex as possible, and get back to her craft - writing obituaries. Thankfully, her college best friend, Maddy, owns the local paper and has a job sure to keep Coco busy, considering the number of elderly folks who are dying on the island.But as Coco learns more about these deaths, she quickly realizes that the circumstances surrounding them are remarkably similar .
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9781662504150
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Hardcover
Intercepted
By Martin, Alexa
Marlee thought she scored the man of her dreams only to be scorched by a bad breakup. But there's a new player on the horizon, and he's in a league of his own...Marlee Harper is the perfect girlfriend. She's definitely had enough practice by dating her NFL-star boyfriend for the last ten years. But when she discovers he has been tackling other women on the sly, she vows to never date an athlete again. There's just one problem: Gavin Pope, the new hotshot quarterback and a fling from the past, has Marlee in his sights. Gavin fights to show Marlee he's nothing like her ex. Unfortunately, not everyone is ready to let her escape her past. The team's wives, who never led the welcome wagon, are not happy with Marlee's return. They have only one thing on their minds: taking her down. But when the gossip makes Marlee public enemy number one, she worries about more than just her reputation. Between their own fumbles and the wicked wives, it will take a Hail Mary for Marlee and Gavin's relationship to survive the season.
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9780451491954
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Paperback
The Neighbor Favor
By Forest, Kristina
A shy bookworm enlists her charming neighbor to help her score a date, not knowing he's the obscure author she's been corresponding with, in this sparkling and heart-fluttering romance by Kristina Forest.Shy, bookish, and admittedly awkward, Lily Greene has always felt inadequate compared to the rest of her accomplished family, who strive for Black excellence. She dreams of becoming a children's books editor, but she's been frustratingly stuck in the nonfiction division for years without a promotion in sight. Lily finds escapism in her correspondences with her favorite fantasy author, and what begins as two lonely people connecting over email turns into a tentative friendship and possibly something else Lily won't let herself entertain - until he ghosts her without a word.
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9780593546437
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Paperback
A Sweet Lowcountry Proposal
By Williams, Preslaysa
Preslaysa Williams, author of the "emotionally stirring debut" A Lowcountry Bride (Oprah Daily) , returns to the Lowcountry with a heartwarming story about a second chance romance.It was supposed to be the happiest day of Jaslene Simmons' life, the day she'd say "I do" to Marcus Clark. But when her sister dies in a tragic accident everything changes - including her once rosy future with Marcus. Jaslene instead pours all of her energy into caring for her now-motherless niece and running the wedding planning company she and her sister had built, wanting to honor her sister's dream even if she has to sacrifice her own.As an archivist at Charleston's Black history museum, Marcus shines a light on the stories of forgotten people. Researching history is better than dealing with his own heartache - and the guilt he has over the role he may have inadvertently played in the death of Jaslene's sister.
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9780063236981
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Paperback
Until I Met You
By Gill, Amber Rose
'Fresh, flirty and gloriously escapist.' Alex Brown, #1 bestselling author of A Postcard from ParisWill a tropical escape lead to a perfect romance?It was meant to be the holiday of a lifetime for Samantha: the launch of her travel blog, her best friend's wedding and - hopefully - her own marriage proposal. Until she finds herself on her way to Tobago - single.Disillusioned with his corporate job on Wall Street, Roman is starting afresh in Tobago. He doesn't need a distraction, especially in the form of a a free-spirited travel blogger. But something about Samantha intrigues him.As romance blossoms, Roman and Samantha must learn to risk their hearts. But when secrets are revealed, their new relationship is put in jeopardy. Now Samantha and Roman must decide what they really want.
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9780008608613
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Paperback
Black Cloud Rising
By Falade, David Wright
By fall of 1863, Union forces had taken control of Tidewater Virginia, and established a toehold in eastern North Carolina, including along the Outer Banks. Thousands of freed slaves and runaways flooded the Union lines, but Confederate irregulars still roamed the region. In December, the newly formed African Brigade, a unit of these former slaves led by General Edward Augustus Wild - a one-armed, impassioned Abolitionist - set out from Portsmouth to hunt down the rebel guerillas and extinguish the threat. From this little-known historical episode comes Black Cloud Rising, a dramatic, moving account of these soldiers - men who only weeks earlier had been enslaved, but were now Union infantrymen setting out to fight their former owners. At the heart of the narrative is Sergeant Richard Etheridge, the son of a slave and her master, raised with some privileges but constantly reminded of his place.
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9780802159199
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Hardcover
Token
By Kendall, Beverley
"This romance has it all - flirty banter, deep emotion, and a smart, sassy heroine." - JENNIFER PROBST, New York Times bestselling authorShe's brilliant, beautiful ... and tired of being the only Black woman in the room.Two years ago, Kennedy Mitchell was plucked from the reception desk and placed in the corporate boardroom in the name of diversity. Rather than play along, she and her best friend founded Token, a boutique PR agency that helps "diversity-challenged" companies and celebrities. With corporate America diversifying workplaces and famous people getting into reputation-damaging controversies, Token is in high demand.Kennedy quickly discovers there's a lot of on-the-job learning and some messes are not so easily fixed. When Kennedy's ex shows up needing help repairing his company's reputation, things get even more complicated.
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9781525899973
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Paperback
Memphis
By Stringfellow, Tara M.
Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.
As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork, painting portraits of the community in Memphis. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination, and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition. Joan begins to understand that her mother, her mother’s mother, and the mothers before them persevered, made impossible choices, and put their dreams on hold so that her life would not have to be defined by loss and anger—that the sole instrument she needs for healing is her paintbrush.
Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of unforgettable voices that move back and forth in time, Memphis paints an indelible portrait of inheritance, celebrating the full complexity of what we pass down, in a family and as a country: brutality and justice, faith and forgiveness, sacrifice and love.
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9780593230480
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Hardcover
On the Rooftop
By Sexton, Margaret Wilkerson
A stunning novel about a mother whose dream of musical stardom for her three daughters collides with the daughters' ambitions for their own lives - set against the backdrop of gentrifying 1950s San FranciscoAt home they are just sisters, but on stage, they are The Salvations. Ruth, Esther, and Chloe have been singing and dancing in harmony since they could speak. Thanks to the rigorous direction of their mother, Vivian, they've become a bona fide girl group whose shows are the talk of the Jazz-era Fillmore.Now Vivian has scored a once-in-a-lifetime offer from a talent manager, who promises to catapult The Salvations into the national spotlight. Vivian knows this is the big break she's been praying for. But sometime between the hours of rehearsal on their rooftop and the weekly gigs at the Champagne Supper Club, the girls have become women, women with dreams that their mother cannot imagine.
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9780063139961
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Hardcover
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
By Philyaw, Deesha
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church's double standards and their own needs and passions. There is fourteen-year-old Jael, who has a crush on the preacher's wife. At forty-two, Lyra realizes that her discomfort with her own body stands between her and a new love. As Y2K looms, Caroletta's "same time next year" arrangement with her childhood best friend is tenuous. A serial mistress lays down the ground rules for her married lovers. In the dark shadows of a hospice parking lot, grieving strangers find comfort in each other.
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9781949199734
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Paperback
The Bennet Women
By Appiah-kubi, Eden
Welcome to Bennet House, the only all-women's dorm at prestigious Longbourn University, home to three close friends who are about to have an eventful year. EJ is an ambitious Black engineering student. Her best friend, Jamie, is a newly out trans woman studying French and theatre. Tessa is a Filipina astronomy major with guy trouble. For them, Bennet House is more than a residence -- it's an oasis of feminism, femininity, and enlightenment. But as great as Longbourn is for academics, EJ knows it can be a wretched place to find love.Yet the fall season is young and brimming with surprising possibilities. Jamie's prospect is Lee Gregory, son of a Hollywood producer and a gentleman so charming he practically sparkles. That leaves EJ with Lee's arrogant best friend, Will.
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9781542029179
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Paperback
Long Past Summer
By Kirwan, Noué
"Noué Kirwan's exquisitely-written debut left me breathless." - Farrah Rochon, USA Today bestselling author of The Dating PlaybookIt's hard to move on from a broken heart--and harder to move on from a broken friendship.Mikaela Marchand is living the polished life she always planned for: a successful New York lawyer, with a promotion in her sights and a devoted boyfriend by her side. She's come a long way from the meek teen she was growing up in small town Georgia, but the memory of her adolescence isn't far - in fact, it's splashed across a massive billboard in Times Square. An old photograph of Mikaela and her former best friend, Julie, has landed on the cover of a high-profile fashion magazine advertised all over the city. And when Julie files a lawsuit, Mikaela is caught in the middle as defense lawyer for the magazine.
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9781335448828
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Paperback
The Many Dates of Indigo
By Samuel, Amber
Hair done. Nails too. Make-up flawless. Indigo Clark is an accomplished, independent woman. Now she wants a partner to share her fabulous life.. Standing on the sidelines of her sisters third baby shower with her thirtieth birthday around the corner, Indigo is feeling the pressure about one thing she hasnt yet mastered: a healthy, long-term relationship. As owner of Houstons hottest destination for luxury shoes and accessories, Indigo excels at finding clients the perfect shoe, but shes having a hard time finding a partner who is her perfect fit. . So she approaches her lackluster dating life the same way she does any challenge -- with determination -- and books her social calendar full of potential suitors. She needs a man who can handle her busy life, get along with her big and boisterous family, and mesh with her tight-knit friends, including Nate, her childhood bestie. . While one guy is great on paper, and another sets off sparks, neither are Mr. Right. And her drive to find him begins to interfere with the things and people she values most. Can Indigo let go of past hurts and unrealistic expectations and finally admit to herself that her perfect man has been in front of her the whole time?
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9781990259289
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Paperback
The Other Black Girl
By Harris, Zakiya Dalila
"A thrilling, edgier Devil Wears Prada that explores privilege and racism." - The Washington Post Urgent, propulsive, and sharp as a knife, The Other Black Girl is an electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing. Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she's thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They've only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust. Then the notes begin to appear on Nella's desk: LEAVE WAGNER.
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9781982160135
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Hardcover
Honey and Spice
By Babalola, Bolu
"Babalola's writing shines whether she's writing parry-riposte banter or fresh, evocative interiority." - New York Times Book Review"Babalola's hilarious romance debut will have you laughing out loud and reconsidering first impressions." - BuzzfeedBreakout author Bolu Babalola pens her vibrant debut novel, full of passion, humor, and heart, that centers on a young Black British woman who has no interest in love and unexpectedly finds herself caught up in a fake relationship with the man she warned her girls about.Sweet like plantain, hot like pepper. They taste the best when together...Sharp-tongued (and secretly soft-hearted) Kiki Banjo has just made a huge mistake. An expert in relationship-evasion and the host of the popular student radio show, Brown Sugar, she's made it her mission to make sure the women of the Afro-Caribbean Society at Whitewell University do not fall into the mess of "situationships", players, and heartbreak.
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9780063141483
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Hardcover
On Rotation
By Obuobi, Shirlene
ONE OF TEEN VOGUE'S "25 BOOKS BY BLACK AUTHORS THEY CAN'T WAIT TO READ THIS YEAR"ONE OF BETCHES' "22 BOOKS YOU NEED TO READ THIS YEAR""As a fan of Grey's Anatomy (and Chicago Med!) , I couldn't put down On Rotation, and you won't be able to, either. Shirlene Obuobi makes you feel as if you're actually right there with the lovable Angie, and I personally couldn't get enough." - Meg Cabot, New York Times bestselling author For fans of Grey's Anatomy and Seven Days in June, this dazzling debut novel by Shirlene Obuobi explores that time in your life when you must decide what you want, how to get it, & who you are, all while navigating love, friendship, and the realization that the path you're traveling is going to be a bumpy ride.
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9780063209145
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Hardcover
We Lie Here
By Hall, Rachel Howzell
A woman's trip home reveals frightening truths in a twisty novel of murder and family secrets by the New York Times bestselling author of And Now She's Gone and These Toxic Things.TV writer Yara Gibson's hometown of Palmdale, California, isn't her first choice for a vacation. But she's back to host her parents' twentieth-anniversary party and find the perfect family mementos for the celebration. Everything is going to plan until Yara receives a disturbing text: I have information that will change your life.The message is from Felicia Campbell, who claims to be a childhood friend of Yara's mother. But they've been estranged for years -- drama best ignored and forgotten. But Yara can't forget Felicia, who keeps texting, insisting that Yara talk to her "before it's too late.
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9781662500329
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Hardcover
Sisters in Arms
By Alderson, Kaia
Kaia Alderson's debut historical fiction novel reveals the untold, true story of the Six Triple Eight, the only all-Black battalion of the Women's Army Corps, who made the dangerous voyage to Europe to ensure American servicemen received word from their loved ones during World War II.Grace Steele and Eliza Jones may be from completely different backgrounds, but when it comes to the army, specifically the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) , they are both starting from the same level. Not only will they be among the first class of female officers the army has even seen, they are also the first Black women allowed to serve. As these courageous women help to form the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, they are dealing with more than just army bureaucracy - everyone is determined to see this experiment fail.
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9780062964588
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Paperback
The Two Lives of Sara
By West, Catherine Adel
"An utterly absorbing and dazzling novel about the stories we tell to stay alive and the secrets we keep to protect ourselves." - Nancy Jooyoun Kim, New York Times Bestselling author of The Last Story of Mina LeeA young mother finds refuge and friendship at a boardinghouse in 1960s Memphis, Tennessee, where family encompasses more than just blood and hidden truths can bury you or set you free.Sara King has nothing, save for her secrets and the baby in her belly, as she boards the bus to Memphis, hoping to outrun her past in Chicago. She is welcomed with open arms by Mama Sugar, a kindly matriarch and owner of the popular boardinghouse The Scarlet Poplar.Like many cities in early 1960s America, Memphis is still segregated, but change is in the air.
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9780778333227
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Hardcover
The Great Mrs. Elias
By Chase-riboud, Barbara
The author of the award-winning Sally Hemings now brings to life Hannah Elias, one of the richest black women in America in the early 1900s, in this mesmerizing novel swirling with atmosphere and steeped in history.
A murder and a case of mistaken identity brings the police to Hannah Elias’ glitzy, five-story, twenty-room mansion on Central Park West. This is the beginning of an odyssey that moves back and forth in time and reveals the dangerous secrets of a mysterious woman, the fortune she built, and her precipitous fall.
Born in Philadelphia in the late 1800s, Hannah Elias has done things she’s not proud of to survive. Shedding her past, Hannah slips on a new identity before relocating to New York City to become as rich as a robber baron. Hannah quietly invests in the stock market, growing her fortune with the help of businessmen. As the money pours in, Hannah hides her millions across 29 banks. Finally attaining the life she’s always dreamed, she buys a mansion on the Upper West Side and decorates it in gold and first-rate décor, inspired by her idol Cleopatra.
The unsolved murder turns Hannah’s world upside-down and threatens to destroy everything she’s built. When the truth of her identity is uncovered, thousands of protestors gather in front of her stately home. Hounded by the salacious press, the very private Mrs. Elias finds herself alone, ensnared in a scandalous trial, and accused of stealing her fortune from whites.
Packed with glamour, suspense, and drama, populated with real-life luminaries from the period, The Great Mrs. Elias brings a fascinating woman and the age she embodied to glorious, tragic life.
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9780063019904
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Book
Can't Resist Her
By State., Afdeling Bestuursrechtspraak Van De Raad Van
Two very determined women - in love, at odds, and risking a lot on a second chance.After years away from home, Summer Graves is back in Austin, Texas, to accept a new teaching position. Of all the changes to the old neighborhood, the most dispiriting one is the slated demolition of the high school her grandmother founded. There's no way she can let developers destroy her memories and her family legacy. But the challenge stirs memories of another kind.On the architectural team revitalizing the neighborhood, hometown girl Aiko Holt is all about progress. Then she sees Summer again. Some things never change.Neither can forget the kiss they shared at their senior-year dance. Neither can back down from her unwavering beliefs about what's right for the neighborhood.
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9781542034098
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Hardcover
Harlem Shuffle
By Whitehead, Colson
"Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked . . ."To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his faade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn't ask where it comes from.
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9780385545136
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Hardcover
Sister Friends Forever
By Roby, Kimberla Lawson
New York Times bestselling author, Kimberla Lawson Roby returns with the perfect story of friendship.Serena, Michelle, Kenya, and Lynette have known each other since they were small children. They grew up in different neighborhoods, but they also grew up in the same c
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1538708957
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The Personal Librarian
By Benedict, Marie
In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps build a world-class collection.
But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle's complexion isn't dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white--her complexion is dark because she is African American.
The Personal Librarian tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths to which she must go--for the protection of her family and her legacy--to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.
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9780593101537
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Hardcover
The Hookup Plan
By Rochon, Farrah
Strong female friendships and a snappy enemies-to-lovers theme take center stage in this highly anticipated romantic comedy from the USA Today bestselling author of The Dating Playbook.Successful pediatric surgeon London Kelley just needs to find some balance and de-stress. According to her friends Samiah and Taylor, what London really needs is a casual hookup. A night of fun with no strings. But no one - least of all London - expected it to go down at her high school reunion with Drew Sullivan, millionaire, owner of delicious abs, and oh yes, her archnemesis.Now London is certain the road to hell is paved with good sex. Because she's found out the real reason Drew's back in Austin: to decide whether her beloved hospital remains open. Worse, Drew is doing everything he can to show her that he's a decent guy who actually cares.
Publisher: n/a
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9781538716687
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Hardcover
Recitatif
By Morrison, Toni
In this 1983 short story--the only short story Morrison ever wrote--we meet Twyla and Roberta, who have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only later to find each other again at a diner, a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and at each other's throats each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them. Another work of genius by this masterly writer, Recitatif keeps Twyla's and Roberta's races ambiguous throughout the story. Morrison herself described Recitatif, a story which will keep readers thinking and discussing for years to come, as "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial.
Publisher: n/a
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9780593315033
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Hardcover
When Stars Rain Down
By Jackson-brown, Angela
This summer has the potential to change everything.The summer of 1936 in Parsons, Georgia, is unseasonably hot, and Opal Pruitt can sense a nameless storm coming. She hopes this foreboding feeling won't overshadow her upcoming eighteenth birthday or the annual Founder's Day celebration in just a few weeks. As hard as she works in the home of the widow Miss Peggy, Opal enjoys having something to look forward to.But when the Ku Klux Klan descends on Opal's neighborhood of Colored Town, the tight-knit community is shaken in every way. Parsons's residents - both Black and white - are forced to acknowledge the unspoken codes of conduct in their post-Reconstruction era town. To complicate matters, Opal finds herself torn between two unexpected romantic interests, awakening many new emotions.
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9780785240440
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Paperback
By the Book
By Guillory, Jasmine
Isabelle is completely lost. When she first began her career in publishing right out of college, she did not expect to be twenty-five, living at home, still an editorial assistant, and the only Black employee at her publishing house. Overworked and underpaid, constantly torn between speaking up or stifling herself, Izzy thinks there must be more to this publishing life. So when she overhears her boss complaining about a beastly high-profile author who has failed to deliver his long-awaited manuscript, Isabelle sees an opportunity to finally get the promotion she deserves. All she has to do is go to the author's Santa Barbara mansion and give him a quick pep talk or three. How hard could it be? But Izzy quickly finds out she is in over her head. Beau Towers is not some celebrity lightweight writing a tell-all memoir. He is jaded and withdrawn and--it turns out--just as lost as Izzy. But despite his standoffishness, Izzy needs Beau to deliver, and with her encouragement, his story begins to spill onto the page. They soon discover they have more in common than either of them expected, and as their deadline nears, Izzy and Beau begin to realize there may be something there that wasn't there before.
Publisher: n/a
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9781368050395
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Paperback
The Nickel Boys
By Whitehead, Colson
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERIn this bravura follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award-winning #1 New York Times bestseller The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as good as anyone." Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides "physical, intellectual and moral training" so the delinquent boys in their charge can become "honorable and honest men."In reality, the Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear "out back." Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold onto Dr. King's ringing assertion "Throw us in jail and we will still love you." His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. The tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades. Formed in the crucible of the evils Jim Crow wrought, the boys' fates will be determined by what they endured at the Nickel Academy.Based on the real story of a reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers.
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9780385537070
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Hardcover
The Vanishing Half
By Bennett, Brit
From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white.The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined.
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9780525536291
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Hardcover
Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen
By Bird, Sarah
The compelling, hidden story of Cathy Williams, a former slave and the only woman to ever serve with the legendary Buffalo Soldiers."Here's the first thing you need to know about Miss Cathy Williams: I am the daughter of a daughter of a queen and my Mama never let me forget it."Missouri, 1864Powerful, epic, and compelling, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen shines light on a nearly forgotten figure in history. Cathy Williams was born and lived a slave - until the Union army comes and destroys the only world she's known. Separated from her family, she makes the impossible decision - to fight in the army disguised as a man with the Buffalo Soldiers. With courage and wit, Cathy must not only fight for her survival and freedom in the ultimate man's world, but never give up on her mission to find her family, and the man she loves. Beautiful, strong, and impactful, Cathy's story is one that illustrates the force of hidden history come to light, the strength of women, and the power of love.Christina Baker Kline says Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen is "an epic page-turner" and "unforgettable."
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9781250193162
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Hardcover
An American Marriage
By Jones, Tayari
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION "Haunting . . . Beautifully written." --The New York Times Book Review "Brilliant and heartbreaking . . . Unforgettable." --USA Today "A tense and timely love story . . . Packed with brave questions about race and class." --People "Compelling." --The Washington Post "Epic . . . Transcendent . . . Triumphant." --Elle Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy's time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy's conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together. This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward--with hope and pain--into the future.
Publisher: n/a
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9781616208776
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Hardcover
Bad Men and Wicked Women
By Dickey, Eric Jerome
Affairs of the heart can be lethal in New York Times bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey's latest sensual novel.As a low-level enforcer in Los Angeles, Ken Swift knows danger, but nowhere does he feel it more than in his tangled romances. Divorced from one woman, in love with another, and wrestling with a strong desire to get to know a third, his life is far from perfect, and it becomes all the more complicated when his troubled daughter resurfaces. Marguax is pregnant, and when she demands $50,000 for her shotgun wedding, the tension-filled father/daughter reunion escalates into a clashing of wills and desires that spread far beyond their family. As raw emotions surface, they ignite revenge, love, longing, desperation, and despair . . . and the flames just might be deadly.With the strong characters, heart-pounding action, and intense passion he is known for, New York Times bestseller Eric Jerome Dickey lays bare a tale of lust and angst that will leave readers breathless.
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9781524742195
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Hardcover
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls
By Gray, Anissa
The Mothers meets An American Marriage in this dazzling debut novel about mothers and daughters, identity and family, and how the relationships that sustain you can also be the ones that consume you.The Butler family has had their share of trials - as sisters Althea, Viola, and Lillian can attest - but nothing prepared them for the literal trial that will upend their lives. Althea, the eldest sister and substitute matriarch, is a force to be reckoned with and her younger sisters have alternately appreciated and chafed at her strong will. They are as stunned as the rest of the small community when she and her husband Proctor are arrested, and in a heartbeat the family goes from one of the most respected in town to utter disgrace. The worst part is, not even her sisters are sure exactly what happened. As Althea awaits her fate, Lillian and Viola must come together in the house they grew up in to care for their sister's teenage daughters. What unfolds is a stunning portrait of the heart and core of an American family in a story that is as page-turning as it is important.
Publisher: n/a
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9781984802439
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Hardcover
No One Is Coming to Save Us
By Watts, Stephanie Powell
*THE INAUGURAL SARAH JESSICA PARKER PICK FOR BOOK CLUB CENTRAL*NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY The Washington Post * Refinery29 * St. Louis Post-Dispatch * Bookpage NAMED ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2017 BY Entertainment Weekly * Nylon * Elle * Redbook * W Magazine * The Chicago Review of BooksJJ Ferguson has returned home to Pinewood, North Carolina, to build his dream house and to pursue his high school sweetheart, Ava. But as he reenters his former world, where factories are in decline and the legacy of Jim Crow is still felt, he's startled to find that the people he once knew and loved have changed just as much as he has. Ava is now married and desperate for a baby, though she can't seem to carry one to term. Her husband, Henry, has grown distant, frustrated by the demise of the furniture industry, which has outsourced to China and stripped the area of jobs. Ava's mother, Sylvia, caters to and meddles with the lives of those around her, trying to fill the void left by her absent son. And Don, Sylvia's unworthy but charming husband, just won't stop hanging around. JJ's return - and his plans to build a huge mansion overlooking Pinewood and woo Ava - not only unsettles their family, but stirs up the entire town. The ostentatious wealth that JJ has attained forces everyone to consider the cards they've been dealt, what more they want and deserve, and how they might go about getting it. Can they reorient their lives to align with their wishes rather than their current realities? Or are they all already resigned to the rhythms of the particular lives they lead? No One Is Coming to Save Us is a revelatory debut from an insightful voice: with echoes of The Great Gatsby it is an arresting and powerful novel about an extended African American family and their colliding visions of the American Dream. In evocative prose, Stephanie Powell Watts has crafted a full and stunning portrait that combines a universally resonant story with an intimate glimpse into the hearts of one family.
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9780062472984
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Hardcover
Homegoing
By Gyasi, Yaa
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery. One of Oprahs Best Books of the Year and a PEN/Hemingway award winner, Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasis extraordinary novel illuminates slaverys troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed - and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.
Publisher: n/a
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9781101971062
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Paperback
The Mothers
By Bennett, Brit
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Ferociously moving ... despite Bennett's thrumming plot, despite the snap of her pacing, it's the always deepening complexity of her characters that provides the book's urgency." -The New York Times Book Review"Luminous ... engrossing and poignant, this is one not to miss." -People, Pick of the Week "Fantastic ... a book that feels alive on the page." -The Washington PostA dazzling debut novel from an exciting new voice, The Mothers is a surprising story about young love, a big secret in a small community - and the things that ultimately haunt us most. Set within a contemporary black community in Southern California, Brit Bennett's mesmerizing first novel is an emotionally perceptive story about community, love, and ambition. It begins with a secret."All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season."It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance - and the subsequent cover-up - will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. Soon, Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully maneuver, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: What if they had chosen differently? The possibilities of the road not taken are a relentless haunt.In entrancing, lyrical prose, The Mothers asks whether a "what if" can be more powerful than an experience itself. If, as time passes, we must always live in servitude to the decisions of our younger selves, to the communities that have parented us, and to the decisions we make that shape our lives forever.
Publisher: n/a
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9780399184512
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Hardcover
Cross Justice
By Patterson, James
The toughest cases hit closest to home. Alex Cross left his hometown, and some awful family tragedies, for a better life with Nana Mama in Washington, DC. He hasn't looked back. Now his cousin Stefan has been accused of a horrible, unthinkable murder, and Cross drives south with Bree, Nana Mama, Jannie, and Ali to Starksville, North Carolina, for the first time in thirty-five years. Back home, he discovers a once proud community down on its luck, and local residents who don't welcome him with open arms. As Cross steps into his family home, the horrors of his childhood flood back--and he learns that they're not really over. He brings all his skill to finding out the truth about his cousin's case. But truth is hard to come by in a town where no one feels safe to speak.Chasing his ghosts takes Cross all the way down to the sugarcane fields of Florida, where he gets pulled into a case that has local cops needing his kind of expertise: a string of socialite murders with ever more grisly settings. He's chasing too many loose ends--a brutal killer, the truth about his own past, and justice for his cousin--and any one of the answers might be fatal.In Cross Justice, Alex Cross confronts the deadliest--and most personal--case of his career. It's a propulsive, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride that proves you can go home again--but it just might kill you.
Publisher: n/a
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9780316407045
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Print book
I Almost Forgot About You
By Mcmillan, Terry
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Waiting To Exhale is back with the inspiring story of a woman who shakes things up in her life to find greater meaningIn I Almost Forgot About You, Dr. Georgia Young's wonderful life--great friends, family, and successful career--aren't enough to keep her from feeling stuck and restless. When she decides to make some major changes in her life, including quitting her job as an optometrist and moving house, she finds herself on a wild journey that may or may not include a second chance at love. Georgia's bravery reminds us that it's never too late to become the person you want to be, and that taking chances, with your life and your heart, are always worthwhile. Big-hearted, genuine, and universal, I Almost Forgot About You shows what can happen when you face your fears, take a chance, and open yourself up to life, love, and the possibility of a new direction.It's everything you've always loved about Terry McMillan.
Publisher: n/a
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9781101902578
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Print book
Balm
By Perkins-valdez, Dolen
The New York Times bestselling author of Wench returns to the Civil War era to explore the next chapter of history - the trauma of the War and the end of slavery - in this powerful story of love and healing about three people who struggle to overcome the pain of the past and define their own future.The Civil War has ended, and Madge, Sadie, and Hemp have each come to Chicago in search of a new life.Born with magical hands, Madge has the power to discern others' suffering, but she cannot heal her own damaged heart. To mend herself and help those in need, she must return to Tennessee to face the women healers who rejected her as a child.Sadie can commune with the dead, but until she makes peace with her father, she, too, cannot fully engage her gift.Searching for his missing family, Hemp arrives in this northern city that shimmers with possibility.
Publisher: n/a
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9780062318657
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Hardcover
Lavina
By Marcus, Mary
Mary Jacob grew up as an anomaly. A child of Louisiana in the early sixties, she found little in common with most of the people in her community and in her household, and her best friend was Lavina, the black woman who cooked and cleaned for her family. Now, in the early nineties, Mary Jacob has escaped her history and established a fresh, if imperfect, life for herself in New York. But when she learns of her father's critical illness, she needs to go back home. To a disapproving father and a spiteful sister. To a town decades out of alignment with Mary Jacob's new world. To the memories of Billy Ray, Lavina's son who grew up to be a musical legend whose star burned much too bright.And to the echoes of a fateful day three decades earlier when three lives changed forever.
Publisher: n/a
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9781611882018
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Hardcover
God Help the Child
By Morrison, Toni
Spare and unsparing, God Help the Child - the first novel by Toni Morrison to be set in our current moment - weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult. At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger. Rain, the mysterious white child with whom she crosses paths. And finally, Bride's mother herself, Sweetness, who takes a lifetime to come to understand that "what you do to children matters. And they might never forget."A fierce and provocative novel that adds a new dimension to the matchless oeuvre of Toni Morrison.
Publisher: n/a
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9780307594174
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Hardcover
The Underground Railroad
By Whitehead, Colson
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, the #1 New York Times bestseller from Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood - where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned - Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor - engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey - hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.
Publisher: n/a
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9780385542364
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Paperback
Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule
By Chiaverini, Jennifer
The New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker and Mrs. Lincoln's Rival imagines the inner life of Julia Grant, beloved as a Civil War general's wife and the First Lady, yet who grappled with a profound and complex relationship with the slave who was her namesake - until she forged a proud identity of her own.In 1844, Missouri belle Julia Dent met dazzling horseman Lieutenant Ulysses S Grant. Four years passed before their parents permitted them to wed, and the groom's abolitionist family refused to attend the ceremony.Since childhood, Julia owned as a slave another Julia, known as Jule. Jule guarded her mistress's closely held twin secrets: She had perilously poor vision but was gifted with prophetic sight. So it was that Jule became Julia's eyes to the world.
Publisher: n/a
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9780525954293
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Hardcover
The Scribe
By Guinn, Matthew
"It's a whodunit with a twist ... a heady mix of history, sizzle, punch, and danger. A definite keeper." -- Steve Berry, New York Times best-selling author of The Patriot ThreatAfter leaving Atlanta in disgrace three years before, detective Thomas Canby is called back to the city on the eve of Atlanta's 1881 International Cotton Exposition to partner with Atlanta's first African American police officer, Cyrus Underwood. The case they're assigned is chilling: a serial murderer who seems to be violently targeting Atlanta's wealthiest black entrepreneurs. The killer's method is both strange and unusually gruesome. On each victim's mutilated body is inscribed a letter of the alphabet, beginning with "M." The oligarchy of Atlanta's most prominent white businessmen -- the same men who ran Canby out of town, known more openly before Reconstruction as "the Ring" -- is anxious to solve the murders before they lose the money they've invested in both the exposition and the city's industrialization, even if resolution comes at the expense of justice.After Canby's arrival the murders become increasingly disturbing and unpredictable, and his interference threatens to send the investigation spinning off in the wrong direction. As the toll of innocent victims rises, Canby must face down enduring racism, and his own prejudices, to see clearly the source of these bloody crimes. Meanwhile, if he can restore his reputation, he might win back the woman he loves.With scrupulous attention to historical detail, Edgar Award finalist Matthew Guinn draws readers into a vortex of tense, atmospheric storytelling, confronting the sins and fears of both old South and new. ---
Publisher: n/a
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9780393239294
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Hardcover
Fumbled
By Martin, Alexa
A second chance doesn't guarantee a touchdown in this new contemporary romance from the author of Intercepted.Single-mother Poppy Patterson moved across the country when she was sixteen and pregnant to find a new normal. After years of hard work, she's built a life she loves. It may include a job at a nightclub, weekend soccer games, and more stretch marks than she anticipated, but it's all hers, and nobody can take that away. Well, except for one person.T.K. Moore, the starting wide receiver for the Denver Mustangs, dreamt his entire life about being in the NFL. His world is football, parties, and women. Maybe at one point he thought his future would play out with his high school sweetheart by his side, but Poppy is long gone and he's moved on. When Poppy and TK cross paths in the most unlikely of places, emotions they've suppressed for years come rushing back. But with all the secrets they never told each other lying between them, they'll need more than a dating playbook to help them navigate their relationship.
Publisher: n/a
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9780451491978
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Paperback
Ruby
By Bond, Cynthia
The newest Oprah's Book Club 2.0 selectionThe epic, unforgettable story of a man determined to protect the woman he loves from the town desperate to destroy her - this beautiful and devastating debut heralds the arrival of a major new voice in fiction. Ephram Jennings has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. Young Ruby, "the kind of pretty it hurt to look at," has suffered beyond imagining, so as soon as she can, she flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York. Ruby quickly winds her way into the ripe center of the city--the darkened piano bars and hidden alleyways of the Village--all the while hoping for a glimpse of the red hair and green eyes of her mother. When a telegram from her cousin forces her to return home, thirty-year-old Ruby Bell finds herself reliving the devastating violence of her girlhood. With the terrifying realization that she might not be strong enough to fight her way back out again, Ruby struggles to survive her memories of the town's dark past. Meanwhile, Ephram must choose between loyalty to the sister who raised him and the chance for a life with the woman he has loved since he was a boy. Full of life, exquisitely written, and suffused with the pastoral beauty of the rural South, Ruby is a transcendent novel of passion and courage. This wondrous page-turner rushes through the red dust and gossip of Main Street, to the pit fire where men swill bootleg outside Bloom's Juke, to Celia Jennings's kitchen where a cake is being made, yolk by yolk, that Ephram will use to try to begin again with Ruby. Utterly transfixing, with unforgettable characters, riveting suspense, and breathtaking, luminous prose, Ruby offers an unflinching portrait of man's dark acts and the promise of the redemptive power of love.
Publisher: n/a
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9780804139090
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Print book
The Replacement Wife
By Warren, Tiffany L.
"I just love her work." --Victoria Christopher MurrayIn this page-turning new novel from Essence® bestselling author Tiffany L. Warren, Atlanta's most eligible widower isn't looking to remarry--but for one woman, that's a mere detail. . .Five years after his beloved wife's death, wealthy Quentin Chambers still hasn't returned to the church or his music ministry. Even his home is now devoid of music, and without his attention, Quentin's five children are getting out of control--until his mother steps in and hires him a live-in nanny. Montana is pretty, compassionate, church-going, and even has a beautiful singing voice. The children take to her right away, and soon enough Quentin finds his heart opening to faith--and love--once more. But not everyone loves Montana.
Publisher: n/a
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9780758280602
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Print book
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
By Mathis, Ayana
The newest Oprah's Book Club 2.0 selection The arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction. A debut of extraordinary distinction: Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one unforgettable family. In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother's monumental courage and the journey of a nation. Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis's The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last - glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life. An emotionally transfixing page-turner, a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity, an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream. Ayana Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is her first novel.
Publisher: n/a
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9780385350280
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Hardcover
The Eternal Engagement
By Morrison, Mary B.
From New York Times bestselling author Mary B. Morrison comes a moving, unforgettable story of lives at a crossroads, love lost and found, and the price of secrets. . .After her high school sweetheart proposed and joined the military, Mona Lisa Ellington thought she'd never feel love again. So she settled, making a new life for herself with a man who cherished her…and made his living hurting others. Despite her reality, she prayed her fiancé would one day return.Before becoming a television reporter, Katherine Clinton knew she'd marry her high school sweetheart and live happily ever after. But when he left for the military, she had to make new plans for her and their son. Despite his long absence, Katherine dreamed of the day her fiancé would return and make her family complete.
Publisher: n/a
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9780758222640
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Paperback
The Kid
By Sapphire,
Fifteen years after the publication of Push one year after the Academy Award-winning film adaptation Sapphire gives voice to Preciouss son Abdul In The Kid bestselling author Sapphire tells the electrifying story of Abdul Jones the son of Pushs unforgettable heroine PreciousA story of body and spirit rooted in the hungers of flesh and of the soul The Kid brings us deep into the interior life of Abdul Jones We meet him at age nine on the day of his mothers funeral Left alone to navigate a world in which love and hate sometimes hideously masquerade forced to confront unspeakable violence his history and the dark corners of his own heart Abdul claws his way toward adulthood and toward an identity he can stand behindIn a generational story that moves with the speed of thought from a Mississippi dirt farm to Harlem in its heyday from a troubled Catholic orphanage to downtown artists lofts The Kid tells of a twenty- first-century young mans fight to find a way toward the future A testament to the ferocity of the human spirit and the deep nourishing power of love and of art The Kid chronicles a young man about to take flight In the intimate terrifying and deeply alive story of Abduls journey we are witness to an artists birth by fire.
Publisher: n/a
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9781594203046
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Hardcover
The Wedding Date
By Guillory, Jasmine
THE USA TODAY BESTSELLER#5 LibraryReads PickOne of...Entertainment Weekly's "12 Romances for V-Day"Cosmopolitan's "2018 Anticipated Reads"Elle's "2018 Must Reads"Harpers Bazaar's "New January Must Reads"The Fug Girls' "Best Books of the Year"Elle UK's "Books to Get You Through 2018"Nylon's "January Must Reads"Hello Giggles' "New Release Recs"Electric Lit's "Books by WoC to Read in 2018"Bitch Media's "2018 Must Reads"BookBub's "2018 Romance Must Reads"Bookriot's "Must Read 2018 January Releases"RetailMeNot's "2018 Must Reads""A swoony rom-com brimming with humor and charm."--Entertainment Weekly (The Must List) "What a charming, warm, sexy gem of a novel....One of the best books I've read in a while."--Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of HungerA groomsman and his last-minute guest are about to discover if a fake date can go the distance in this fun and flirty multicultural romance debut.Agreeing to go to a wedding with a guy she gets stuck with in an elevator is something Alexa Monroe wouldn't normally do. But there's something about Drew Nichols that's too hard to resist.On the eve of his ex's wedding festivities, Drew is minus a plus one. Until a power outage strands him with the perfect candidate for a fake girlfriend...After Alexa and Drew have more fun than they ever thought possible, Drew has to fly back to Los Angeles and his job as a pediatric surgeon, and Alexa heads home to Berkeley, where she's the mayor's chief of staff. Too bad they can't stop thinking about the other... They're just two high-powered professionals on a collision course toward the long distance dating disaster of the century--or closing the gap between what they think they need and what they truly want...
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9780399587665
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Paperback
Red River
By Tademy, Lalita
Hailed as "powerful,""accomplished," and "spellbinding," Lalita Tademy's first novel Cane River was a New York Times bestseller and the 2001 Oprah Book Club Summer Selection. Now with her evocative, luminous style and painstaking research, she takes her family's story even further, back to a little-chronicled, deliberately-forgotten time...and the struggle of three extraordinary generations of African-American men to forge brutal injustice and shattered promise into a limitless future for their children... RED RIVERFor the newly-freed black residents of Colfax, Louisiana, the beginning of Reconstruction promised them the right to vote, own property-and at last control their own lives.Tademy saw a chance to start a school for his children and neighbors. His friend Israel Smith was determined to start a community business and gain economic freedom. But in the space of a day, marauding whites would "take back" Colfax in one of the deadliest cases of racial violence in the South. In the bitter aftermath, Sam and Israel's fight to recover and build their dreams will draw on the best they and their families have to give-and the worst they couldn't have foreseen. Sam's hidden resilience will make him an unexpected leader, even as it puts his conscience and life on the line. Israel finds ironic success-and the bitterest of betrayals. And their greatest challenge will be to pass on to their sons and grandsons a proud heritage never forgotten-and the strength to meet the demands of the past and future in their own unique ways. An unforgettable achievement, a history brought to vibrant life through one of the most memorable families in fiction, RED RIVER is about fathers and sons, husbands and wives-and the hopeful, heartbreaking choices we all must make to claim the legacy that is ours.
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9780446578981
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Hardcover
Americanah
By Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
The bestselling novel - a love story of race and identity - from the award-winning author of We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele.Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American ReadIfemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion - for each other and for their homeland.
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9780307455925
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Paperback
Things Fall Apart
By Achebe, Chinua
"A true classic of world literature . . . A masterpiece that has inspired generations of writers in Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world." - Barack Obama Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American ReadThings Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Chinua Achebe's critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic narrative about Africa's cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man's futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political andreligious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order. With more than 20 million copies sold and translated into fifty-seven languages, Things Fall Apart provides one of the most illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary realities.
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9780385474542
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Paperback
Swing Time
By Smith, Zadie
An ambitious, exuberant new novel moving from North West London to West Africa, from the multi-award-winning author of White Teeth and On BeautyTwo brown girls dream of being dancers - but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either.Tracey makes it to the chorus line but struggles with adult life, while her friend leaves the old neighborhood behind, traveling the world as an assistant to a famous singer, Aimee, observing close up how the one percent live.But when Aimee develops grand philanthropic ambitions, the story moves from London to West Africa, where diaspora tourists travel back in time to find their roots, young men risk their lives to escape into a different future, the women dance just like Tracey - the same twists, the same shakes - and the origins of a profound inequality are not a matter of distant history, but a present dance to the music of time.
The Unicorn Woman
By Jones, Gayl
Marking a dramatic new direction for Jones, a riveting tale set in the Post WWII South, narrated by a Black soldier who returns to Jim Crow and searches for a mythical ideal. Set in the early 1950s, this latest novel from Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Gayl Jones follows the witty but perplexing army veteran Buddy Ray Guy as he embodies the fate of Black soldiers who return, not in glory, but into their Jim Crow communities.. A cook and tractor repairman, Buddy was known as Budweiser to his army pals because he's a wise guy. But underneath that surface, he is a true self-educated intellectual and a classic seeker: looking for religion, looking for meaning, looking for love.. As he moves around the south, from his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky, primarily, to his second home of Memphis, Tennessee, he recalls his love affairs in post-war France and encounters with a variety of colorful characters and mythical prototypes: circus barkers, topiary trimmers, landladies who provide shelter and plenty of advice for their all-Black clientele, proto feminists, and bigots.
The Road to the Country
By Obioma, Chigozie
A sweeping, heart-racing, mystical novel about a university student in Lagos trying to save his brother, and himself, amid the chaos of Nigeria's civil war - a story of love, friendship, and brotherhood by the two-time Booker Prize finalist and "the heir to Chinua Achebe" (New York Times) . "Chigozie Obioma is that rare thing: an original. His world is a mix of the real and the folkloric, and his writing sounds like no one else's." - The Wall Street Journal. The first images of the vision are grainy - like something seen through wet glass. But slowly it clears, and there appears the figure of a man.. Set in Nigeria in the late 1960s, The Road to the Country is the epic story of a shy, bookish student haunted by long-held guilt and shame who must go to war to free himself.
Between Friends & Lovers
By Obuobi, Shirlene
Talia Hibbert meets Carley Fortune in this swoon-worthy story of love and friendship in the age of social media - where what you see might not be all you get. To her countless Instagram followers Josephine Boateng is the dazzling Dr. Jojo - and her opinions on health, growth, and self-love matter. Her message: be smart (she has a medical degree after all) , be significant, and do not put up with foolish men.But behind the camera, Jo's story is more complicated - she finds her influencer career underwhelming; her potential career in medicine overwhelming, and she's hung up on her best friend, nepo-baby and romcom heartthrob Ezra Adelman. When Ezra shows up to his thirtieth birthday party with her childhood bully on his arm, however, Josephine realizes that it's time to take her own advice and prioritize herself for once.
Let the Games Begin
By Mazarura, Rufaro Faith
Set against a sizzling-hot Greek summer filled with sunshine and souvlaki, Rufaro Faith Mazarura's Let the Games Begin is a page-turning debut rom-com about two strangers at the top of their game.. Athens, 2024. Olivia Nkomo has always been ambitious, smart, and an overall go-getter. Now that she's graduated from university, she's willing to do whatever it takes to land her dream job at the Summer Games. The first step? Securing her new internship, which will put her in the center of all the action, where she hopes to run into some of her favorite athletes.. Ezekiel "Zeke" Moyo, the heartthrob star runner of Team Great Britain, is more than ready to claim his title as the fastest man in the world, following in the footsteps of the greatest athletes of all time.
Grown Women
By Johnson, Sarai
In this stunning debut novel, four generations of complex Black women contend with motherhood and daughterhood, generational trauma and the deeply ingrained tensions and wounds that divide them as they redefine happiness and healing for themselves.Erudite Evelyn, her cynical daughter Charlotte, and Charlotte's optimistic daughter Corinna see the world very differently. Though they love each other deeply, it's no wonder that their personalities often clash. But their conflicts go deeper than run-of-the-mill disagreements. Here, there is deep, dark resentment for past and present hurt. When Corinna gives birth to her own daughter, Camille, the beautiful, intelligent little girl offers this trio of mothers something they all need: hope, joy, and an opportunity to reconcile.
A Gamble at Sunset
By Riley, Vanessa
Award-winning author Vanessa Riley turns all convention on its head for the first in an enchanting, dazzlingly diverse new Regency romance trilogy featuring a duke, three sisters, and a tantalizing bet with a most desirable reward.... When a duke discovers the woman he loves was tricked into marrying another, the master chess player makes the now-widowed Viscountess the highest-stakes wager of his life in a last-ditch effort to win her affection: he will find husbands for her two sisters - or depart forever. Thus begins a sparkling new series from acclaimed author Vanessa Riley.. Georgina Wilcox, a wallflower with hidden musical talents, is furious when her reclusive older sister - the recently widowed Viscountess - refuses sorely needed help from the Duke of Torrance, the only gentleman who has shown kindness to the bereft Wilcox sisters.
Curvy Girl Summer
By Allen, Danielle
Bridget Jones meets Insecure in CURVY GIRL SUMMER, a smoking-hot, hilarious novel about the perils of online dating.. Aaliyah is determined to celebrate her thirtieth birthday with a boyfriend. And after a failed blind date, the local bartender, Ahmad, suggests she joins a dating app.. Filled with lies, catfish, and fetishizing, the wild world of online dating makes Aaliyah think she's in over her head.. And she is. But with her two best friends and a protective bartender by her side, what could go wrong?. Everything.. Everything could go wrong.. And that's the problem.. Because as Aaliyah is set on finding exactly what she's looking for, she ends up finding something she never expects.
They Dream in Gold
By Sennaar, Mai
For fans of Tara M. Stringfellow's Memphis and Abi Daré's The Girl with the Louding Voice comes a stunning literary debut about one intercultural family's search for home and the power of a lifelong dream.. It is summer 1969 in the Swiss countryside, and the house on the hill is busy. In the kitchen, Mama Eva and her sisters sing along to Congolese rumba, season fish, and pound garlic in preparation for the realization of a childhood dream: the grand opening of her Senegalese restaurant. Upstairs, African American daughter-in-law Bonnie paces across the floorboards, hopelessly waiting for news from the father of her unborn child. . Mansour has been gone for three months. His tour was only meant to last three weeks, but he and his band have yet to return.
The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye
By Cameron, Briony
This epic, dazzling tale based on true events illuminates a woman of color's rise to power as one of the few purported female pirate captains to sail the Caribbean, and the forbidden love story that will shape the course of history.. In the tumultuous town of Yáquimo, Santo Domingo, Jacquotte Delahaye is an unknown but up-and-coming shipwright. Her dreams are bold but her ambitions are bound by the confines of her life with her self-seeking French father. When her way of life and the delicate balance of power in the town are threatened, she is forced to flee her home and become a woman on the run along with a motley crew of refugees, including a mysterious young woman named Teresa. Jacquotte and her band become indentured servants to the infamous Blackhand, a ruthless pirate captain who rules his ship with an iron fist.
What You Leave Behind
By Morris, Wanda M.
Award-winning author Wanda Morris returns with a powerful, haunting thriller following a lawyer who after the mysterious disappearance of a local landowner and the death of his sister just months before, uncovers a conspiracy that dates back to Reconstruction and persists in half the United States today.Deena Wood's life has fallen apart in the aftermath of losing her beloved mother, her marriage, and her prestigious job at an Atlanta law firm. She needs what the Geechee people of coastal Georgia call a "dayclean," a fresh start.She returns to her childhood home in Brunswick, Georgia, to heal. But her return is anything but the respite she thought it might be. To make peace with all her loss, she often drives through the city. One day, she unwittingly finds herself on the oceanfront property of a loner widower who is fighting to keep land that has been in his family since the end of the Civil War.
Ella
By Richards, Diane
In the vein of The Paris Wife and The Personal Librarian comes this debut novel, a magnificent work of "biographical fiction" that reimagines the turbulent and triumphant early years of Ella Fitzgerald, arguably the greatest singer of the twentieth century.When fifteen-year-old Ella Fitzgerald's mother dies at the height of the Depression in 1932, the teenager goes to work for the mob to support herself and her family. When the law finally catches up, the "ungovernable" adolescent is incarcerated in the New York Training School for Girls in upstate New York - a wicked prison infamous for its harsh treatment of inmates, especially Black ones. Determined to be free, Ella escapes and makes her way back to Harlem, where she is forced to dance for pennies on the street.
While We Were Burning
By Koffi, Sara
Parasite meets Such a Fun Age in a scorching debut that is as heartbreaking as it is thrilling, examining the intersection of race, class, and female friendship, and the devastating consequences of everyday actions.. After her best friend's mysterious death, Elizabeth Smith's picture-perfect life in the Memphis suburbs has spiraled out of control - so much so that she hires a personal assistant to keep her on track. Composed and elegant, Brianna is exactly who she needs and slides so neatly into Elizabeth's life, almost like she belonged there from the start. Soon, the assistant Elizabeth hired to distract her from her obsession with her friend's death is the same person working with her to uncover the truth behind it.. Because Brianna has questions too.
James
By Everett, Percival
A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. * From the "literary icon" (Oprah Daily) , Pulitzer Prize Finalist, and one of the most decorated writers of our lifetime. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.
Ours
By Williams, Phillip B.
"A beautifully-written and ambitious epic about the complexity of freedom." - Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half. An epic novel set in mid-nineteenth-century America about the spiritual costs of a freedom that demands fierce protection. In this ingenious, sweeping novel, Phillip B. Williams introduces us to an enigmatic woman named Saint, a fearsome conjuror who, in the 1830s, annihilates plantations all over Arkansas to rescue the people enslaved there. She brings those she has freed to a haven of her own creation: a town just north of St. Louis, magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours.. It is in this miraculous place that Saint's grand experiment - a truly secluded community where her people may flourish - takes root. But although Saint does her best to protect the inhabitants of Ours, over time, her conjuring and memories begin to betray her, leaving the town vulnerable to intrusions by newcomers with powers of their own.
This Could Be Us
By Ryan, Kennedy
"Heart-searing, sensual, and life affirming." -- EMILY HENRY, #1 New York Times bestselling author. Soledad Barnes has her life all planned out. Because, of course, she does. She plans everything. She designs everything. She fixes everything. She's a domestic goddess who's never met a party she couldn't host or a charge she couldn't lead. The one with all the answers and the perfect vinaigrette for that summer salad. But none of her varied talents can save her when catastrophe strikes, and the life she built with the man who was supposed to be her forever, goes poof in a cloud of betrayal and disillusion. But there is no time to pout or sulk, or even grieve the life she lost. She's too busy keeping a roof over her daughters' heads and food on the table.
Pride and Joy
By Onomé, Louisa
Black Cake meets Death at a Funeral in this heartwarming and hilarious novel about three generations of a Nigerian Canadian family grappling with their matriarch's sudden passing while their auntie insists that her sister is coming back - from an author with a "razor-sharp, smart, and tender" (Nafiza Azad, author of The Wild Ones) voice.. Joy Okafor is overwhelmed. Recently divorced, a life coach whose phone won't stop ringing, and ever the dutiful Nigerian daughter, Joy has planned every aspect of her mother's seventieth birthday weekend on her own. As the Okafors slowly begin to arrive, Mama Mary goes to take a nap. But when the grandkids go to wake her, they find that she isn't sleeping after all. Refusing to believe that her sister is gone-gone, Auntie Nancy declares that she has had a premonition that Mama Mary will rise again like Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday.
Pardon My Frenchie
By Rochon, Farrah
The New York Times bestselling author of Almost There delivers the start of a new rom-com series with an enemies-to-lovers romance, perfect for readers of Abby Jimenez and Jasmine Guillory.. Ashanti Wright is thrilled over the success of her doggie daycare, Barkingham Palace. But handling the business and taking care of her teen twin sisters is a lot. And now that the antics of her adorable French bulldog and poodle bestie are blowing up on social media, things are even more chaotic than usual. And they only get worse when the world's worst dog hater shows up.. Thad Sims is not a dog person. He's barely a person's person. But after his grandmother is transferred to a senior living facility that doesn't accept pets, the former army officer agrees to care for her annoying standard poodle, and his first move is taking Puddin' out of daycare.
The Blueprint
By Rashad, Rae Giana
"The Blueprint is an astounding work, an unflinching portrait of misogyny and racism in a speculative world terrifyingly close to our own. Rae Giana Rashad chronicles the generational ghosts of womanhood, and how we understand ourselves through the stories of those we come from, in a way I've never read before. A remarkable new talent, and a timeless literary voice." - Ashley Audrain, New York Times bestselling author of The Push In the vein of Octavia E. Butler and Margaret Atwood, a harrowing novel set in an alternate United States - a world of injustice and bondage in which a young Black woman becomes the concubine of a powerful white government official and must face the dangerous consequences.Solenne Bonet lives in Texas where choice no longer exists.
The Only Black Girl in the Room
By Travis, Alex
An ambitious reporter stuck doing diversity checks for her white colleagues gets her big break in this compelling debut novel perfect for fans of Jayne Allen, Jasmine Guillory, and Zakiya Dalila Harris.. Genevieve Francis, a 25-year-old Black reporter, assumed she'd go into her fo
Allow Me to Introduce Myself
By Nwabineli, Onyi
Ever since she was a child, Anuri's life was chronicled and monetized by her influencer stepmother. Now an adult, she's finally broken free. But when her stepmother starts preying on her young half sister, Anuri decides she must stop the cycle of abuse. Really Good, Actually meets
The Sun Sets in Singapore
By Fadipe, Kehinde
Basking in Singapore's nonstop sunshine, Dara, Amaka, and Lillian are living the glamorous expat dream - until their carefully constructed lives are upended by a handsome and mysterious new arrival: "Wanderlust-inducing . . . A rich celebration of the nuanced complexities of Black womanhood" (Lola Akinmade Åkerstrom, international bestselling author) . Dara, a workaholic lawyer from the UK, is on the brink of partnership at her firm. Estranged from her mother, and perpetually uncomfortable around her hypercompetitive colleagues, her insecurities intensify when Lani, a new hire from Geneva, is assigned to work on what should have been her career-making case. Pitted against each other by their boss, Dara can't help but see Lani as a threat: a privileged man poised to take her place.
Acts of Forgiveness
By Cheeks, Maura
In this stirring, tender-hearted debut about ambition and inheritance, a family grapples with how much of their lineage they're willing to unearth in order to participate in the nation's first federal reparations program.. Every American waits with bated breath to see whether or not the country's first female president will pass the Forgiveness Act. The bill would allow Black families to claim up to $175,000 if they can prove they are the descendants of slaves, and for ambitious single mother Willie Revel the bill could be a long-awaited form of redemption. A decade ago, Willie gave up her burgeoning journalism career to help run her father's struggling construction company in Philadelphia and she has reluctantly put family first, without being able to forget who she might have become.
The Good Ones Are Taken
By Mccoy, Taj
"If you haven't read Taj McCoy's books, you are missing out on some seriously stunning love stories!" - Jesse Sutanto, author of Dial A for Aunties. When Maggie's best friend admits he's in love with her, she'll have to decide whether it's worth giving up something good
Jewel Me Twice
By Reid, Charish
"Charish writes characters you can't help but fall in love with and stories you can't put down." - Denise Williams, author of Love and Other Flight Delays. Love can catch you red-handed.. He was her partner - both in crime and between the sheets. It's been five years si
The American Daughters
By Ruffin, Maurice Carlos
A gripping historical novel about a spirited girl who joins a sisterhood working to undermine the Confederates - from the award-winning author of We Cast a Shadow. Ady, a curious, sharp-witted girl, and her fierce mother, Sanite, are inseparable. Enslaved to a businessman in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the pair spend their days dreaming of a loving future and reminiscing about their family's rebellious and storied history. When mother and daughter are separated, Ady is left hopeless and directionless until she stumbles into the Mockingbird Inn and meets Lenore, a free Black woman with whom she becomes fast friends. Lenore invites Ady to join a clandestine society of spies called the Daughters. With the courage instilled in her by Sanite - and with help from these strong women - Ady learns how to put herself first.
Neighbors and Other Stories
By Oliver, Diane
A bold and haunting debut story collection that follows various characters as they navigate the day-to-day perils of Jim Crow racism from Diane Oliver, a missing figure in the canon of twentieth-century African American literature, with an introduction by Tayari JonesA remarkable talent far ahead of her time, Diane Oliver died in 1966 at the age of 22, leaving behind these crisply told and often chilling tales that explore race and racism in 1950s and 60s America. In this first and only collection by a masterful storyteller finally taking her rightful place in the canon, Oliver's insightful stories reverberate into the present day.There's the nightmarish "The Closet on the Top Floor" in which Winifred, the first Black student at her newly integrated college, starts to physically disappear; "Mint Juleps not Served Here" where a couple living deep in a forest with their son go to bloody lengths to protect him; "Spiders Cry without Tears," in which a couple, Meg and Walt, are confronted by prejudices and strains of interracial and extramarital love; and the high tension titular story that follows a nervous older sister the night before her little brother is set to desegregate his school.
Fake Famous
By Davis, Dana L.
In this breezy novel from the author of Somebody That I Used to Know, one Iowa farm girl - a dead ringer for a global pop star - gets an unlikely shot at stardom. Will she choose fame ... or the family farm?Red Morgan is fresh out of high school. With signature red curls and a remarkable singing voice, the bubbly teenager is a devoted daughter and big sister. The world should be her oyster. But Red already knows exactly where her future lies: the family farm in Orange City, Iowa.Zay-Zay Waters is at the top of her game. The Brooklyn-born singer has it all - talent, fame, even a smokin' hot boyfriend. But life in the limelight isn't all it's cracked up to be. And when a video of Red singing in the mud - looking and sounding exactly like Zay-Zay herself - goes viral, the pop star begins to hatch a plan.
Sounds Like a Plan
By Young, Pamela Samuels
Reluctantly joining forces after discovering they've both been hired on the same missing person case, two rival Black private investigators find their mutual dislike evolves into an undeniable attraction in this rollicking, romantic thrill ride told in alternate perspectives from
Where There's Smoke
By Swinson, Kiki
In her nationally-bestselling novels, Kiki Swinson ignites an unforgettable portrait of Dirty South scheming, greed, desire--and brutal dead ends. Now the stakes have never been more lethal as a compromised female firefighter starts burning down her all-too-corrupt past . . .. Kill your secrets . . . Volunteer Virginia Beach firefighter Alayna Curry used to pride herself on saving lives. But now, determined to conceal her part in an arson-for-insurance scam gone bad, she's using her skills to have the scheme's leader, Tim - her ex-lover - shot dead, claiming it was a robbery. She's carefully set him up to be the ultimate fall guy. And she's ruthlessly aiming to silence more witnesses - which will also get her beloved brother Alonzo out of prison . . .
The Partner Plot
By Forest, Kristina
Two former high school sweethearts get a second chance in this marriage of convenience romance by Kristina Forest, author of The Neighbor Favor.. To Violet Greene, fashion is everything. As a successful celebrity stylist, she travels all over the world, living out her dreams. Professionally, she's thriving, but her personal life is in shambles. After surviving a very public breakup with her ex-fiancé six months ago, Violet is now determined to focus on her career. But life hands her something - or rather, someone - that might derail everything ... . Xavier Wright did not expect to run into his high school girlfriend Violet - the girl he once thought he'd marry - on a birthday trip to Vegas. As a high school teacher and basketball coach, he rarely leaves his New Jersey hometown, so what were the chances? But when the initial shock wears off, they decide to celebrate together.
Between Friends and Lovers
By Obuobi, Shirlene
Talia Hibbert meets Carley Fortune in this swoon-worthy story of love and friendship in the age of social media - where what you see might not be all you get. To her countless Instagram followers Josephine Boateng is the dazzling Dr. Jojo - and her opinions on health, growth, and
The Mayor of Maxwell Street
By Cunningham, Avery
"A debut novel everyone will be talking about," Avery Cunningham's epic love story is "a triumph" and "a tale of intrigue, racial tension, and class warfare, set against the glamorous and gritty backdrop of early 20th century Chicago.". When a rich Black debutante enlists the help of a low-level speakeasy manager to identify the head of an underground crime syndicate, the two are thrust into the dangerous world of Prohibition-era Chicago.. The year is 1921, and America is burning. A fire of vice and virtue rages on every shore with Chicago at its beating heart.. Twenty-year-old Nelly Sawyer is the daughter of the alleged "wealthiest Negro in America," whose wealth catapulted his family to the heights of Black society.
When I Think of You
By Ariel, Myah
In this sweeping second chance romance from debut author Myah Ariel, the unexpected spark of two former flames may force them to choose between their dreams and each other.. Kaliya Wilson has paid her dues. But all the years behind the reception desk at a flashy film studio have o
The Kiss Countdown
By Easton, Etta
A struggling event planner and a sinfully hot astronaut must decide if their fake relationship is worth a shot at happily-ever-after, in this starry debut.. Risk-averse event planner Amerie Price is jobless, newly single, and about to lose her apartment. With no choice but to gamb
The Reformatory
By Due, Tananarive
A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he's sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.. Gracetown, Florida, summer 1950. Robert Stephens Jr. is sent to Gracetown School for Boys for kicking a white boy's leg. But the Gracetown School for Boys isn't just any reform school. As Robert finds, it's a segregated school that is haunted from the boys who have died there. The Reformatory is an eerie, frightening novel that explores the horrors of our history.
Tremor
By Cole, Teju
A powerful, intimate novel that masterfully explores what constitutes a meaningful life in a violent world - from the award-winning author of Open City. Life is hopeless but it is not serious. We have to have danced while we could and, later, to have danced again in the telling.. A weekend spent antiquing is shadowed by the colonial atrocities that occurred on that land. A walk at dusk is interrupted by casual racism. A loving marriage is riven by mysterious tensions. And a remarkable cascade of voices speaks out from a pulsing metropolis.. We're invited to experience these events and others through the eyes and ears of Tunde, a West African man working as a teacher of photography on a renowned New England campus. He is a reader, a listener, a traveler, drawn to many different kinds of stories: stories from history and epic; stories of friends, family, and strangers; stories found in books and films.
Black Cake
By Wilkerson, Charmaine
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY * Two estranged siblings delve into their mother's hidden past - and how it all connects to her traditional Caribbean black cake - in this immersive family saga, "a character-driven, multigenerational story that's meant to be savored" (Time) . "Wilkerson transports you across the decades and around the globe accompanied by complex, wonderfully drawn characters." - Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones & The Six, and Malibu Rising . In development as a Hulu original series produced by Marissa Jo Cerar, Oprah Winfrey (Harpo Films) , and Kapital Entertainment ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Oprah Daily, NPR, BuzzFeed, Glamour, PopSugar, Book Riot, She Reads.
Crook Manifesto
By Whitehead, Colson
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning Colson Whitehead continues his Harlem saga in a powerful and hugely-entertaining novel that summons 1970s New York in all its seedy glory.. It's 1971. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is careening towards bankruptcy, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Amidst this collective nervous breakdown furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney tries to keep his head down and his business thriving. His days moving stolen goods around the city are over. It's strictly the straight-and-narrow for him - until he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May and he decides to hit up his old police contact Munson, fixer extraordinaire. But Munson has his own favors to ask of Carney and staying out of the game gets a lot more complicated - and deadly.
Rebecca, Not Becky
By Platt, Christine
In the vein of Such a Fun Age, a whip-smart, compulsively readable novel about two upper-class stay-at-home mothers - one white, one Black - living in a "perfect" suburb that explores motherhood, friendship, and the true meaning of sisterhood amidst the backdrop of America's all-too-familiar racial reckoning.De'Andrea Whitman, her husband Malik, and their five-year-old daughter, Nina, are new to the upper-crust white suburb of Rolling Hills, Virginia - a move motivated by circumstance rather than choice. De'Andrea is heartbroken to leave her comfortable life in the Black oasis of Atlanta, and between her mother-in-law's Alzheimer's diagnosis, her daughter starting kindergarten, and the overwhelming whiteness of Rolling Hills, she finds herself struggling to adjust to her new community.
Gaslight
By Kayode, Femi
In this follow-up to Kayode's "action-packed and spirited debut" Philip Taiwo returns to solve a missing-persons case, and in so doing, uncovers dark secrets the church has worked tirelessly to hide (Oyinkan Braithwaite, author of My Sister, the Serial Killer) .. A shadow has fallen over the megachurch in Ogun State, Nigeria: the beloved Bishop Dawodu has been arrested for the murder of his wife. Sade Dawodu has vanished without a trace and although no body has been found, the police have acted based on what they claim is damning evidence. Philip Taiwo, hot off the success of solving the Okriki Three case, is brought on to investigate. He quickly learns that Sade, young, impulsive, and outspoken, is no favorite of the congregants. She has also been known to disappear for long stretches of time.
You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
By Emezi, Akwaeke
A New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and "one of our greatest living writers" (Shondaland) reimagines the love story in this fresh and seductive novel about a young woman seeking joy while healing from loss.Feyi Adekola wants to learn how to be alive again. It's been five years since the accident that killed the love of her life and she's almost a new person now - an artist with her own studio, and sharing a brownstone apartment with her ride-or-die best friend, Joy, who insists it's time for Feyi to ease back into the dating scene. Feyi isn't ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she could have never imagined: a luxury trip to a tropical island, decadent meals in the glamorous home of a celebrity chef, and a major curator who wants to launch her art career.
Chain Gang All Stars
By Adjei-brenyah, Nana Kwame
The explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black, about two top women gladiators fighting for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America's own. * "A new and necessary American voice." - Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book ReviewLoretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America's increasingly dominant private prison industry. It's the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates.
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde
By Williams, Tia
From the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Days in June, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is an epic love story one hundred years in the making ... Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing.Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn't one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she's the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they're long-stemmed roses, she's a dandelion: an adorable bloom that's actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her.When regal nonagenarian Ms. Della invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning.
Her Own Happiness
By Appiah-kubi, Eden
It's never too late to come of age in this compassionate and refreshing novel about friendship, self-discovery, and moving on by the author of The Bennet Women.Maya Davis is living in paradise until her apartment, her career, and her dreams fall away in a horrible and dramatic fashion. Suddenly she's packing her life into two suitcases and heading back to her parents' home in Maryland, scrambling for a plan B. Happy thirty-first birthday, Maya.Right beside her is Ant, Maya's best friend. While she's returning home, Ant's leaving his for the first time. Even though he moved away to start his own adventure, Ant can't seem to separate himself from Maya -- and he's not sure he wants to.Thinking practically for once, Maya makes her top priority finding a career -- or at least a job with health insurance.
Women of the Post
By Sanders, Joshunda
"What a beautifully imagined and important narrative. Sanders' clear-eyed and powerful writing made this a hard one to stop reading!" - Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award-Winning Author"This is a novel to cherish and share. And this is a history to sing about and affirm -- to proclaim." - Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, New York Times Bestselling author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, an Oprah Book Club NovelInspired by true events, Women of the Post brings to life the heroines who proudly served in the all-Black battalion of the Women's Army Corps in WWII, finding purpose in their mission and lifelong friendship.1944, New York City. Judy Washington is tired of having to work at the Bronx Slave Market, cleaning white women's houses for next to nothing.
Queen of Exiles
By Riley, Vanessa
"A sweeping look at the political, social, and romantic intrigue surrounding Haiti's first and only queen. Riley's depiction is richly imagined and wholly original." - Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Magnolia PalaceAcclaimed historical novelist Vanessa Riley is back with another novel based on the life of an extraordinary Black woman from history: Haiti's Queen Marie-Louise Coidavid, who escaped a coup in Haiti to set up her own royal court in Italy during the Regency era, where she became a popular member of royal European society. The Queen of Exiles is Marie-Louise Christophe, wife and then widow of Henry I, who ruled over the newly liberated Kingdom of Hayti in the wake of the brutal Haitian Revolution.In 1810 Louise is crowned queen as her husband begins his reign over the first and only free Black nation in the Western Hemisphere.
The Art of Scandal
By Black, Regina
A "Wildly steamy, utterly heartwarming" (Tia Williams) debut filled with romance, artistic ambitions, political scandal, and finding love where you least expect it. . "Love would be so much easier if it were perfect..." . On the night of her husband Matt's fortieth birthday, Rachel Abbott receives a sexy, explicit text from her husband that she quickly realizes was meant for another woman. Divorce is inevitable, and Rachel is determined not to leave her thirteen-year marriage empty handed. Meanwhile, Matt, a rising star mayor with his eye on the White House, can't afford a messy split in the middle of his reelection campaign. They strike a deal: Rachel gets one million dollars and their lavish house in the wealthy DC suburb of Oasis Springs, as long as she keeps playing the ideal Black trophy wife until the election.
Homebodies
By Denton-hurst, Tembe
Urgent, propulsive, and strikingly insightful, Homebodies is a thrilling debut novel about a young Black writer whose world is turned upside down when she loses her coveted job in media and her searing manifesto about racism in the industry goes viral.Mickey Hayward dreams of writing stories that matter. She has a flashy media job that makes her feel successful and a devoted girlfriend who takes care of her when she comes home exhausted and demoralized. It's not all A-list parties and steamy romance, but Mickey's on her way, and it's far from the messy life she left behind in Maryland. Despite being overlooked and mistreated at work, it seems like she might finally get the chance to prove herself - until she finds out she's being replaced.Distraught and enraged, Mickey fires back with a detailed letter outlining the racism and sexism she's endured as a Black woman in media, certain it will change the world for the better.
Let Us Descend
By Ward, Jesmyn
From Jesmyn Ward - the two-time National Book Award winner, youngest winner of the Library of Congress Prize for Fiction, and MacArthur Fellow - comes a haunting masterpiece, sure to be an instant classic, about an enslaved girl in the years before the Civil War.. "'Let us descend,' the poet now began, 'and enter this blind world.'" - Inferno, Dante Alighieri Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader's guide through this hellscape.
Maame
By George, Jessica
"An utterly charming and deeply moving portrait of the joys--and the guilt--of trying to find your own way in life." --Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author"Meeting Maame feels like falling in love for the first time: warm, awkward, joyous, a little bit h
The Duchess Effect
By Livesay, Tracey
Tracey Livesay returns in this seriously sexy sequel to American Royalty, following Duchess and Prince Jameson as they strive to turn their romance into a relationship, beneath the relentless glare of the spotlight.Against all odds, sexy American rapper, Danielle "Duchess" Nelson and brilliant reclusive royal Prince Jameson have fallen in love! They've decided to take their relationship public and find a way to make their two worlds coexist. On their terms.Unfortunately, falling in love was the easy part. Jameson and Dani's love story has made them the most popular royals since Prince John, but that popularity comes with a price. Dani looks forward to signing the deal with a major cosmetics company that will make her skin care line, Mela-Skin, a force in the industry, and finally grant her the control over her life she's craved since childhood.
What Never Happened
By Hall, Rachel Howzell
It's murder in paradise as a woman uncovers a host of secrets off the rocky California coast in a gripping novel of suspense by New York Times bestselling author Rachel Howzell Hall.Colette "Coco" Weber has relocated to her Catalina Island home, where, twenty years before, she was the sole survivor of a deadly home invasion. All Coco wants is to see her aunt Gwen, get as far away from her ex as possible, and get back to her craft - writing obituaries. Thankfully, her college best friend, Maddy, owns the local paper and has a job sure to keep Coco busy, considering the number of elderly folks who are dying on the island.But as Coco learns more about these deaths, she quickly realizes that the circumstances surrounding them are remarkably similar .
Intercepted
By Martin, Alexa
Marlee thought she scored the man of her dreams only to be scorched by a bad breakup. But there's a new player on the horizon, and he's in a league of his own...Marlee Harper is the perfect girlfriend. She's definitely had enough practice by dating her NFL-star boyfriend for the last ten years. But when she discovers he has been tackling other women on the sly, she vows to never date an athlete again. There's just one problem: Gavin Pope, the new hotshot quarterback and a fling from the past, has Marlee in his sights. Gavin fights to show Marlee he's nothing like her ex. Unfortunately, not everyone is ready to let her escape her past. The team's wives, who never led the welcome wagon, are not happy with Marlee's return. They have only one thing on their minds: taking her down. But when the gossip makes Marlee public enemy number one, she worries about more than just her reputation. Between their own fumbles and the wicked wives, it will take a Hail Mary for Marlee and Gavin's relationship to survive the season.
The Neighbor Favor
By Forest, Kristina
A shy bookworm enlists her charming neighbor to help her score a date, not knowing he's the obscure author she's been corresponding with, in this sparkling and heart-fluttering romance by Kristina Forest.Shy, bookish, and admittedly awkward, Lily Greene has always felt inadequate compared to the rest of her accomplished family, who strive for Black excellence. She dreams of becoming a children's books editor, but she's been frustratingly stuck in the nonfiction division for years without a promotion in sight. Lily finds escapism in her correspondences with her favorite fantasy author, and what begins as two lonely people connecting over email turns into a tentative friendship and possibly something else Lily won't let herself entertain - until he ghosts her without a word.
A Sweet Lowcountry Proposal
By Williams, Preslaysa
Preslaysa Williams, author of the "emotionally stirring debut" A Lowcountry Bride (Oprah Daily) , returns to the Lowcountry with a heartwarming story about a second chance romance.It was supposed to be the happiest day of Jaslene Simmons' life, the day she'd say "I do" to Marcus Clark. But when her sister dies in a tragic accident everything changes - including her once rosy future with Marcus. Jaslene instead pours all of her energy into caring for her now-motherless niece and running the wedding planning company she and her sister had built, wanting to honor her sister's dream even if she has to sacrifice her own.As an archivist at Charleston's Black history museum, Marcus shines a light on the stories of forgotten people. Researching history is better than dealing with his own heartache - and the guilt he has over the role he may have inadvertently played in the death of Jaslene's sister.
Until I Met You
By Gill, Amber Rose
'Fresh, flirty and gloriously escapist.' Alex Brown, #1 bestselling author of A Postcard from ParisWill a tropical escape lead to a perfect romance?It was meant to be the holiday of a lifetime for Samantha: the launch of her travel blog, her best friend's wedding and - hopefully - her own marriage proposal. Until she finds herself on her way to Tobago - single.Disillusioned with his corporate job on Wall Street, Roman is starting afresh in Tobago. He doesn't need a distraction, especially in the form of a a free-spirited travel blogger. But something about Samantha intrigues him.As romance blossoms, Roman and Samantha must learn to risk their hearts. But when secrets are revealed, their new relationship is put in jeopardy. Now Samantha and Roman must decide what they really want.
Black Cloud Rising
By Falade, David Wright
By fall of 1863, Union forces had taken control of Tidewater Virginia, and established a toehold in eastern North Carolina, including along the Outer Banks. Thousands of freed slaves and runaways flooded the Union lines, but Confederate irregulars still roamed the region. In December, the newly formed African Brigade, a unit of these former slaves led by General Edward Augustus Wild - a one-armed, impassioned Abolitionist - set out from Portsmouth to hunt down the rebel guerillas and extinguish the threat. From this little-known historical episode comes Black Cloud Rising, a dramatic, moving account of these soldiers - men who only weeks earlier had been enslaved, but were now Union infantrymen setting out to fight their former owners. At the heart of the narrative is Sergeant Richard Etheridge, the son of a slave and her master, raised with some privileges but constantly reminded of his place.
Token
By Kendall, Beverley
"This romance has it all - flirty banter, deep emotion, and a smart, sassy heroine." - JENNIFER PROBST, New York Times bestselling authorShe's brilliant, beautiful ... and tired of being the only Black woman in the room.Two years ago, Kennedy Mitchell was plucked from the reception desk and placed in the corporate boardroom in the name of diversity. Rather than play along, she and her best friend founded Token, a boutique PR agency that helps "diversity-challenged" companies and celebrities. With corporate America diversifying workplaces and famous people getting into reputation-damaging controversies, Token is in high demand.Kennedy quickly discovers there's a lot of on-the-job learning and some messes are not so easily fixed. When Kennedy's ex shows up needing help repairing his company's reputation, things get even more complicated.
Memphis
By Stringfellow, Tara M.
Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.
As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork, painting portraits of the community in Memphis. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination, and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition. Joan begins to understand that her mother, her mother’s mother, and the mothers before them persevered, made impossible choices, and put their dreams on hold so that her life would not have to be defined by loss and anger—that the sole instrument she needs for healing is her paintbrush.
Unfolding over seventy years through a chorus of unforgettable voices that move back and forth in time, Memphis paints an indelible portrait of inheritance, celebrating the full complexity of what we pass down, in a family and as a country: brutality and justice, faith and forgiveness, sacrifice and love.
On the Rooftop
By Sexton, Margaret Wilkerson
A stunning novel about a mother whose dream of musical stardom for her three daughters collides with the daughters' ambitions for their own lives - set against the backdrop of gentrifying 1950s San FranciscoAt home they are just sisters, but on stage, they are The Salvations. Ruth, Esther, and Chloe have been singing and dancing in harmony since they could speak. Thanks to the rigorous direction of their mother, Vivian, they've become a bona fide girl group whose shows are the talk of the Jazz-era Fillmore.Now Vivian has scored a once-in-a-lifetime offer from a talent manager, who promises to catapult The Salvations into the national spotlight. Vivian knows this is the big break she's been praying for. But sometime between the hours of rehearsal on their rooftop and the weekly gigs at the Champagne Supper Club, the girls have become women, women with dreams that their mother cannot imagine.
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
By Philyaw, Deesha
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church's double standards and their own needs and passions. There is fourteen-year-old Jael, who has a crush on the preacher's wife. At forty-two, Lyra realizes that her discomfort with her own body stands between her and a new love. As Y2K looms, Caroletta's "same time next year" arrangement with her childhood best friend is tenuous. A serial mistress lays down the ground rules for her married lovers. In the dark shadows of a hospice parking lot, grieving strangers find comfort in each other.
The Bennet Women
By Appiah-kubi, Eden
Welcome to Bennet House, the only all-women's dorm at prestigious Longbourn University, home to three close friends who are about to have an eventful year. EJ is an ambitious Black engineering student. Her best friend, Jamie, is a newly out trans woman studying French and theatre. Tessa is a Filipina astronomy major with guy trouble. For them, Bennet House is more than a residence -- it's an oasis of feminism, femininity, and enlightenment. But as great as Longbourn is for academics, EJ knows it can be a wretched place to find love.Yet the fall season is young and brimming with surprising possibilities. Jamie's prospect is Lee Gregory, son of a Hollywood producer and a gentleman so charming he practically sparkles. That leaves EJ with Lee's arrogant best friend, Will.
Long Past Summer
By Kirwan, Noué
"Noué Kirwan's exquisitely-written debut left me breathless." - Farrah Rochon, USA Today bestselling author of The Dating PlaybookIt's hard to move on from a broken heart--and harder to move on from a broken friendship.Mikaela Marchand is living the polished life she always planned for: a successful New York lawyer, with a promotion in her sights and a devoted boyfriend by her side. She's come a long way from the meek teen she was growing up in small town Georgia, but the memory of her adolescence isn't far - in fact, it's splashed across a massive billboard in Times Square. An old photograph of Mikaela and her former best friend, Julie, has landed on the cover of a high-profile fashion magazine advertised all over the city. And when Julie files a lawsuit, Mikaela is caught in the middle as defense lawyer for the magazine.
The Many Dates of Indigo
By Samuel, Amber
Hair done. Nails too. Make-up flawless. Indigo Clark is an accomplished, independent woman. Now she wants a partner to share her fabulous life.. Standing on the sidelines of her sisters third baby shower with her thirtieth birthday around the corner, Indigo is feeling the pressure about one thing she hasnt yet mastered: a healthy, long-term relationship. As owner of Houstons hottest destination for luxury shoes and accessories, Indigo excels at finding clients the perfect shoe, but shes having a hard time finding a partner who is her perfect fit. . So she approaches her lackluster dating life the same way she does any challenge -- with determination -- and books her social calendar full of potential suitors. She needs a man who can handle her busy life, get along with her big and boisterous family, and mesh with her tight-knit friends, including Nate, her childhood bestie. . While one guy is great on paper, and another sets off sparks, neither are Mr. Right. And her drive to find him begins to interfere with the things and people she values most. Can Indigo let go of past hurts and unrealistic expectations and finally admit to herself that her perfect man has been in front of her the whole time?
The Other Black Girl
By Harris, Zakiya Dalila
"A thrilling, edgier Devil Wears Prada that explores privilege and racism." - The Washington Post Urgent, propulsive, and sharp as a knife, The Other Black Girl is an electric debut about the tension that unfurls when two young Black women meet against the starkly white backdrop of New York City book publishing. Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she's thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They've only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust. Then the notes begin to appear on Nella's desk: LEAVE WAGNER.
Honey and Spice
By Babalola, Bolu
"Babalola's writing shines whether she's writing parry-riposte banter or fresh, evocative interiority." - New York Times Book Review"Babalola's hilarious romance debut will have you laughing out loud and reconsidering first impressions." - BuzzfeedBreakout author Bolu Babalola pens her vibrant debut novel, full of passion, humor, and heart, that centers on a young Black British woman who has no interest in love and unexpectedly finds herself caught up in a fake relationship with the man she warned her girls about.Sweet like plantain, hot like pepper. They taste the best when together...Sharp-tongued (and secretly soft-hearted) Kiki Banjo has just made a huge mistake. An expert in relationship-evasion and the host of the popular student radio show, Brown Sugar, she's made it her mission to make sure the women of the Afro-Caribbean Society at Whitewell University do not fall into the mess of "situationships", players, and heartbreak.
On Rotation
By Obuobi, Shirlene
ONE OF TEEN VOGUE'S "25 BOOKS BY BLACK AUTHORS THEY CAN'T WAIT TO READ THIS YEAR"ONE OF BETCHES' "22 BOOKS YOU NEED TO READ THIS YEAR""As a fan of Grey's Anatomy (and Chicago Med!) , I couldn't put down On Rotation, and you won't be able to, either. Shirlene Obuobi makes you feel as if you're actually right there with the lovable Angie, and I personally couldn't get enough." - Meg Cabot, New York Times bestselling author For fans of Grey's Anatomy and Seven Days in June, this dazzling debut novel by Shirlene Obuobi explores that time in your life when you must decide what you want, how to get it, & who you are, all while navigating love, friendship, and the realization that the path you're traveling is going to be a bumpy ride.
We Lie Here
By Hall, Rachel Howzell
A woman's trip home reveals frightening truths in a twisty novel of murder and family secrets by the New York Times bestselling author of And Now She's Gone and These Toxic Things.TV writer Yara Gibson's hometown of Palmdale, California, isn't her first choice for a vacation. But she's back to host her parents' twentieth-anniversary party and find the perfect family mementos for the celebration. Everything is going to plan until Yara receives a disturbing text: I have information that will change your life.The message is from Felicia Campbell, who claims to be a childhood friend of Yara's mother. But they've been estranged for years -- drama best ignored and forgotten. But Yara can't forget Felicia, who keeps texting, insisting that Yara talk to her "before it's too late.
Sisters in Arms
By Alderson, Kaia
Kaia Alderson's debut historical fiction novel reveals the untold, true story of the Six Triple Eight, the only all-Black battalion of the Women's Army Corps, who made the dangerous voyage to Europe to ensure American servicemen received word from their loved ones during World War II.Grace Steele and Eliza Jones may be from completely different backgrounds, but when it comes to the army, specifically the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) , they are both starting from the same level. Not only will they be among the first class of female officers the army has even seen, they are also the first Black women allowed to serve. As these courageous women help to form the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, they are dealing with more than just army bureaucracy - everyone is determined to see this experiment fail.
The Two Lives of Sara
By West, Catherine Adel
"An utterly absorbing and dazzling novel about the stories we tell to stay alive and the secrets we keep to protect ourselves." - Nancy Jooyoun Kim, New York Times Bestselling author of The Last Story of Mina LeeA young mother finds refuge and friendship at a boardinghouse in 1960s Memphis, Tennessee, where family encompasses more than just blood and hidden truths can bury you or set you free.Sara King has nothing, save for her secrets and the baby in her belly, as she boards the bus to Memphis, hoping to outrun her past in Chicago. She is welcomed with open arms by Mama Sugar, a kindly matriarch and owner of the popular boardinghouse The Scarlet Poplar.Like many cities in early 1960s America, Memphis is still segregated, but change is in the air.
The Great Mrs. Elias
By Chase-riboud, Barbara
The author of the award-winning Sally Hemings now brings to life Hannah Elias, one of the richest black women in America in the early 1900s, in this mesmerizing novel swirling with atmosphere and steeped in history.
A murder and a case of mistaken identity brings the police to Hannah Elias’ glitzy, five-story, twenty-room mansion on Central Park West. This is the beginning of an odyssey that moves back and forth in time and reveals the dangerous secrets of a mysterious woman, the fortune she built, and her precipitous fall.
Born in Philadelphia in the late 1800s, Hannah Elias has done things she’s not proud of to survive. Shedding her past, Hannah slips on a new identity before relocating to New York City to become as rich as a robber baron. Hannah quietly invests in the stock market, growing her fortune with the help of businessmen. As the money pours in, Hannah hides her millions across 29 banks. Finally attaining the life she’s always dreamed, she buys a mansion on the Upper West Side and decorates it in gold and first-rate décor, inspired by her idol Cleopatra.
The unsolved murder turns Hannah’s world upside-down and threatens to destroy everything she’s built. When the truth of her identity is uncovered, thousands of protestors gather in front of her stately home. Hounded by the salacious press, the very private Mrs. Elias finds herself alone, ensnared in a scandalous trial, and accused of stealing her fortune from whites.
Packed with glamour, suspense, and drama, populated with real-life luminaries from the period, The Great Mrs. Elias brings a fascinating woman and the age she embodied to glorious, tragic life.
Can't Resist Her
By State., Afdeling Bestuursrechtspraak Van De Raad Van
Two very determined women - in love, at odds, and risking a lot on a second chance.After years away from home, Summer Graves is back in Austin, Texas, to accept a new teaching position. Of all the changes to the old neighborhood, the most dispiriting one is the slated demolition of the high school her grandmother founded. There's no way she can let developers destroy her memories and her family legacy. But the challenge stirs memories of another kind.On the architectural team revitalizing the neighborhood, hometown girl Aiko Holt is all about progress. Then she sees Summer again. Some things never change.Neither can forget the kiss they shared at their senior-year dance. Neither can back down from her unwavering beliefs about what's right for the neighborhood.
Harlem Shuffle
By Whitehead, Colson
"Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked . . ."To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his faade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn't ask where it comes from.
Sister Friends Forever
By Roby, Kimberla Lawson
New York Times bestselling author, Kimberla Lawson Roby returns with the perfect story of friendship.Serena, Michelle, Kenya, and Lynette have known each other since they were small children. They grew up in different neighborhoods, but they also grew up in the same c
The Personal Librarian
By Benedict, Marie
In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps build a world-class collection.
But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle's complexion isn't dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white--her complexion is dark because she is African American.
The Personal Librarian tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths to which she must go--for the protection of her family and her legacy--to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.
The Hookup Plan
By Rochon, Farrah
Strong female friendships and a snappy enemies-to-lovers theme take center stage in this highly anticipated romantic comedy from the USA Today bestselling author of The Dating Playbook.Successful pediatric surgeon London Kelley just needs to find some balance and de-stress. According to her friends Samiah and Taylor, what London really needs is a casual hookup. A night of fun with no strings. But no one - least of all London - expected it to go down at her high school reunion with Drew Sullivan, millionaire, owner of delicious abs, and oh yes, her archnemesis.Now London is certain the road to hell is paved with good sex. Because she's found out the real reason Drew's back in Austin: to decide whether her beloved hospital remains open. Worse, Drew is doing everything he can to show her that he's a decent guy who actually cares.
Recitatif
By Morrison, Toni
In this 1983 short story--the only short story Morrison ever wrote--we meet Twyla and Roberta, who have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only later to find each other again at a diner, a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and at each other's throats each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them. Another work of genius by this masterly writer, Recitatif keeps Twyla's and Roberta's races ambiguous throughout the story. Morrison herself described Recitatif, a story which will keep readers thinking and discussing for years to come, as "an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial.
When Stars Rain Down
By Jackson-brown, Angela
This summer has the potential to change everything.The summer of 1936 in Parsons, Georgia, is unseasonably hot, and Opal Pruitt can sense a nameless storm coming. She hopes this foreboding feeling won't overshadow her upcoming eighteenth birthday or the annual Founder's Day celebration in just a few weeks. As hard as she works in the home of the widow Miss Peggy, Opal enjoys having something to look forward to.But when the Ku Klux Klan descends on Opal's neighborhood of Colored Town, the tight-knit community is shaken in every way. Parsons's residents - both Black and white - are forced to acknowledge the unspoken codes of conduct in their post-Reconstruction era town. To complicate matters, Opal finds herself torn between two unexpected romantic interests, awakening many new emotions.
By the Book
By Guillory, Jasmine
Isabelle is completely lost. When she first began her career in publishing right out of college, she did not expect to be twenty-five, living at home, still an editorial assistant, and the only Black employee at her publishing house. Overworked and underpaid, constantly torn between speaking up or stifling herself, Izzy thinks there must be more to this publishing life. So when she overhears her boss complaining about a beastly high-profile author who has failed to deliver his long-awaited manuscript, Isabelle sees an opportunity to finally get the promotion she deserves. All she has to do is go to the author's Santa Barbara mansion and give him a quick pep talk or three. How hard could it be? But Izzy quickly finds out she is in over her head. Beau Towers is not some celebrity lightweight writing a tell-all memoir. He is jaded and withdrawn and--it turns out--just as lost as Izzy. But despite his standoffishness, Izzy needs Beau to deliver, and with her encouragement, his story begins to spill onto the page. They soon discover they have more in common than either of them expected, and as their deadline nears, Izzy and Beau begin to realize there may be something there that wasn't there before.
The Nickel Boys
By Whitehead, Colson
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERIn this bravura follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award-winning #1 New York Times bestseller The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as good as anyone." Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future. Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides "physical, intellectual and moral training" so the delinquent boys in their charge can become "honorable and honest men."In reality, the Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear "out back." Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold onto Dr. King's ringing assertion "Throw us in jail and we will still love you." His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. The tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades. Formed in the crucible of the evils Jim Crow wrought, the boys' fates will be determined by what they endured at the Nickel Academy.Based on the real story of a reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers.
The Vanishing Half
By Bennett, Brit
From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white.The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined.
Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen
By Bird, Sarah
The compelling, hidden story of Cathy Williams, a former slave and the only woman to ever serve with the legendary Buffalo Soldiers."Here's the first thing you need to know about Miss Cathy Williams: I am the daughter of a daughter of a queen and my Mama never let me forget it."Missouri, 1864Powerful, epic, and compelling, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen shines light on a nearly forgotten figure in history. Cathy Williams was born and lived a slave - until the Union army comes and destroys the only world she's known. Separated from her family, she makes the impossible decision - to fight in the army disguised as a man with the Buffalo Soldiers. With courage and wit, Cathy must not only fight for her survival and freedom in the ultimate man's world, but never give up on her mission to find her family, and the man she loves. Beautiful, strong, and impactful, Cathy's story is one that illustrates the force of hidden history come to light, the strength of women, and the power of love.Christina Baker Kline says Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen is "an epic page-turner" and "unforgettable."
An American Marriage
By Jones, Tayari
THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION "Haunting . . . Beautifully written." --The New York Times Book Review "Brilliant and heartbreaking . . . Unforgettable." --USA Today "A tense and timely love story . . . Packed with brave questions about race and class." --People "Compelling." --The Washington Post "Epic . . . Transcendent . . . Triumphant." --Elle Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy's time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy's conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together. This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward--with hope and pain--into the future.
Bad Men and Wicked Women
By Dickey, Eric Jerome
Affairs of the heart can be lethal in New York Times bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey's latest sensual novel.As a low-level enforcer in Los Angeles, Ken Swift knows danger, but nowhere does he feel it more than in his tangled romances. Divorced from one woman, in love with another, and wrestling with a strong desire to get to know a third, his life is far from perfect, and it becomes all the more complicated when his troubled daughter resurfaces. Marguax is pregnant, and when she demands $50,000 for her shotgun wedding, the tension-filled father/daughter reunion escalates into a clashing of wills and desires that spread far beyond their family. As raw emotions surface, they ignite revenge, love, longing, desperation, and despair . . . and the flames just might be deadly.With the strong characters, heart-pounding action, and intense passion he is known for, New York Times bestseller Eric Jerome Dickey lays bare a tale of lust and angst that will leave readers breathless.
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls
By Gray, Anissa
The Mothers meets An American Marriage in this dazzling debut novel about mothers and daughters, identity and family, and how the relationships that sustain you can also be the ones that consume you.The Butler family has had their share of trials - as sisters Althea, Viola, and Lillian can attest - but nothing prepared them for the literal trial that will upend their lives. Althea, the eldest sister and substitute matriarch, is a force to be reckoned with and her younger sisters have alternately appreciated and chafed at her strong will. They are as stunned as the rest of the small community when she and her husband Proctor are arrested, and in a heartbeat the family goes from one of the most respected in town to utter disgrace. The worst part is, not even her sisters are sure exactly what happened. As Althea awaits her fate, Lillian and Viola must come together in the house they grew up in to care for their sister's teenage daughters. What unfolds is a stunning portrait of the heart and core of an American family in a story that is as page-turning as it is important.
No One Is Coming to Save Us
By Watts, Stephanie Powell
*THE INAUGURAL SARAH JESSICA PARKER PICK FOR BOOK CLUB CENTRAL*NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY The Washington Post * Refinery29 * St. Louis Post-Dispatch * Bookpage NAMED ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2017 BY Entertainment Weekly * Nylon * Elle * Redbook * W Magazine * The Chicago Review of BooksJJ Ferguson has returned home to Pinewood, North Carolina, to build his dream house and to pursue his high school sweetheart, Ava. But as he reenters his former world, where factories are in decline and the legacy of Jim Crow is still felt, he's startled to find that the people he once knew and loved have changed just as much as he has. Ava is now married and desperate for a baby, though she can't seem to carry one to term. Her husband, Henry, has grown distant, frustrated by the demise of the furniture industry, which has outsourced to China and stripped the area of jobs. Ava's mother, Sylvia, caters to and meddles with the lives of those around her, trying to fill the void left by her absent son. And Don, Sylvia's unworthy but charming husband, just won't stop hanging around. JJ's return - and his plans to build a huge mansion overlooking Pinewood and woo Ava - not only unsettles their family, but stirs up the entire town. The ostentatious wealth that JJ has attained forces everyone to consider the cards they've been dealt, what more they want and deserve, and how they might go about getting it. Can they reorient their lives to align with their wishes rather than their current realities? Or are they all already resigned to the rhythms of the particular lives they lead? No One Is Coming to Save Us is a revelatory debut from an insightful voice: with echoes of The Great Gatsby it is an arresting and powerful novel about an extended African American family and their colliding visions of the American Dream. In evocative prose, Stephanie Powell Watts has crafted a full and stunning portrait that combines a universally resonant story with an intimate glimpse into the hearts of one family.
Homegoing
By Gyasi, Yaa
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * Ghana, eighteenth century: two half sisters are born into different villages, each unaware of the other. One will marry an Englishman and lead a life of comfort in the palatial rooms of the Cape Coast Castle. The other will be captured in a raid on her village, imprisoned in the very same castle, and sold into slavery. One of Oprahs Best Books of the Year and a PEN/Hemingway award winner, Homegoing follows the parallel paths of these sisters and their descendants through eight generations: from the Gold Coast to the plantations of Mississippi, from the American Civil War to Jazz Age Harlem. Yaa Gyasis extraordinary novel illuminates slaverys troubled legacy both for those who were taken and those who stayed - and shows how the memory of captivity has been inscribed on the soul of our nation.
The Mothers
By Bennett, Brit
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Ferociously moving ... despite Bennett's thrumming plot, despite the snap of her pacing, it's the always deepening complexity of her characters that provides the book's urgency." -The New York Times Book Review"Luminous ... engrossing and poignant, this is one not to miss." -People, Pick of the Week "Fantastic ... a book that feels alive on the page." -The Washington PostA dazzling debut novel from an exciting new voice, The Mothers is a surprising story about young love, a big secret in a small community - and the things that ultimately haunt us most. Set within a contemporary black community in Southern California, Brit Bennett's mesmerizing first novel is an emotionally perceptive story about community, love, and ambition. It begins with a secret."All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season."It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance - and the subsequent cover-up - will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. Soon, Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully maneuver, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: What if they had chosen differently? The possibilities of the road not taken are a relentless haunt.In entrancing, lyrical prose, The Mothers asks whether a "what if" can be more powerful than an experience itself. If, as time passes, we must always live in servitude to the decisions of our younger selves, to the communities that have parented us, and to the decisions we make that shape our lives forever.
Cross Justice
By Patterson, James
The toughest cases hit closest to home. Alex Cross left his hometown, and some awful family tragedies, for a better life with Nana Mama in Washington, DC. He hasn't looked back. Now his cousin Stefan has been accused of a horrible, unthinkable murder, and Cross drives south with Bree, Nana Mama, Jannie, and Ali to Starksville, North Carolina, for the first time in thirty-five years. Back home, he discovers a once proud community down on its luck, and local residents who don't welcome him with open arms. As Cross steps into his family home, the horrors of his childhood flood back--and he learns that they're not really over. He brings all his skill to finding out the truth about his cousin's case. But truth is hard to come by in a town where no one feels safe to speak.Chasing his ghosts takes Cross all the way down to the sugarcane fields of Florida, where he gets pulled into a case that has local cops needing his kind of expertise: a string of socialite murders with ever more grisly settings. He's chasing too many loose ends--a brutal killer, the truth about his own past, and justice for his cousin--and any one of the answers might be fatal.In Cross Justice, Alex Cross confronts the deadliest--and most personal--case of his career. It's a propulsive, edge-of-your-seat thrill ride that proves you can go home again--but it just might kill you.
I Almost Forgot About You
By Mcmillan, Terry
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Waiting To Exhale is back with the inspiring story of a woman who shakes things up in her life to find greater meaningIn I Almost Forgot About You, Dr. Georgia Young's wonderful life--great friends, family, and successful career--aren't enough to keep her from feeling stuck and restless. When she decides to make some major changes in her life, including quitting her job as an optometrist and moving house, she finds herself on a wild journey that may or may not include a second chance at love. Georgia's bravery reminds us that it's never too late to become the person you want to be, and that taking chances, with your life and your heart, are always worthwhile. Big-hearted, genuine, and universal, I Almost Forgot About You shows what can happen when you face your fears, take a chance, and open yourself up to life, love, and the possibility of a new direction. It's everything you've always loved about Terry McMillan.
Balm
By Perkins-valdez, Dolen
The New York Times bestselling author of Wench returns to the Civil War era to explore the next chapter of history - the trauma of the War and the end of slavery - in this powerful story of love and healing about three people who struggle to overcome the pain of the past and define their own future.The Civil War has ended, and Madge, Sadie, and Hemp have each come to Chicago in search of a new life.Born with magical hands, Madge has the power to discern others' suffering, but she cannot heal her own damaged heart. To mend herself and help those in need, she must return to Tennessee to face the women healers who rejected her as a child.Sadie can commune with the dead, but until she makes peace with her father, she, too, cannot fully engage her gift.Searching for his missing family, Hemp arrives in this northern city that shimmers with possibility.
Lavina
By Marcus, Mary
Mary Jacob grew up as an anomaly. A child of Louisiana in the early sixties, she found little in common with most of the people in her community and in her household, and her best friend was Lavina, the black woman who cooked and cleaned for her family. Now, in the early nineties, Mary Jacob has escaped her history and established a fresh, if imperfect, life for herself in New York. But when she learns of her father's critical illness, she needs to go back home. To a disapproving father and a spiteful sister. To a town decades out of alignment with Mary Jacob's new world. To the memories of Billy Ray, Lavina's son who grew up to be a musical legend whose star burned much too bright.And to the echoes of a fateful day three decades earlier when three lives changed forever.
God Help the Child
By Morrison, Toni
Spare and unsparing, God Help the Child - the first novel by Toni Morrison to be set in our current moment - weaves a tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult. At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger. Rain, the mysterious white child with whom she crosses paths. And finally, Bride's mother herself, Sweetness, who takes a lifetime to come to understand that "what you do to children matters. And they might never forget."A fierce and provocative novel that adds a new dimension to the matchless oeuvre of Toni Morrison.
The Underground Railroad
By Whitehead, Colson
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, the #1 New York Times bestseller from Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood - where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned - Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted. In Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor - engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city's placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. Like the protagonist of Gulliver's Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey - hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.
Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule
By Chiaverini, Jennifer
The New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker and Mrs. Lincoln's Rival imagines the inner life of Julia Grant, beloved as a Civil War general's wife and the First Lady, yet who grappled with a profound and complex relationship with the slave who was her namesake - until she forged a proud identity of her own.In 1844, Missouri belle Julia Dent met dazzling horseman Lieutenant Ulysses S Grant. Four years passed before their parents permitted them to wed, and the groom's abolitionist family refused to attend the ceremony.Since childhood, Julia owned as a slave another Julia, known as Jule. Jule guarded her mistress's closely held twin secrets: She had perilously poor vision but was gifted with prophetic sight. So it was that Jule became Julia's eyes to the world.
The Scribe
By Guinn, Matthew
"It's a whodunit with a twist ... a heady mix of history, sizzle, punch, and danger. A definite keeper." -- Steve Berry, New York Times best-selling author of The Patriot ThreatAfter leaving Atlanta in disgrace three years before, detective Thomas Canby is called back to the city on the eve of Atlanta's 1881 International Cotton Exposition to partner with Atlanta's first African American police officer, Cyrus Underwood. The case they're assigned is chilling: a serial murderer who seems to be violently targeting Atlanta's wealthiest black entrepreneurs. The killer's method is both strange and unusually gruesome. On each victim's mutilated body is inscribed a letter of the alphabet, beginning with "M." The oligarchy of Atlanta's most prominent white businessmen -- the same men who ran Canby out of town, known more openly before Reconstruction as "the Ring" -- is anxious to solve the murders before they lose the money they've invested in both the exposition and the city's industrialization, even if resolution comes at the expense of justice.After Canby's arrival the murders become increasingly disturbing and unpredictable, and his interference threatens to send the investigation spinning off in the wrong direction. As the toll of innocent victims rises, Canby must face down enduring racism, and his own prejudices, to see clearly the source of these bloody crimes. Meanwhile, if he can restore his reputation, he might win back the woman he loves.With scrupulous attention to historical detail, Edgar Award finalist Matthew Guinn draws readers into a vortex of tense, atmospheric storytelling, confronting the sins and fears of both old South and new. ---
Fumbled
By Martin, Alexa
A second chance doesn't guarantee a touchdown in this new contemporary romance from the author of Intercepted.Single-mother Poppy Patterson moved across the country when she was sixteen and pregnant to find a new normal. After years of hard work, she's built a life she loves. It may include a job at a nightclub, weekend soccer games, and more stretch marks than she anticipated, but it's all hers, and nobody can take that away. Well, except for one person.T.K. Moore, the starting wide receiver for the Denver Mustangs, dreamt his entire life about being in the NFL. His world is football, parties, and women. Maybe at one point he thought his future would play out with his high school sweetheart by his side, but Poppy is long gone and he's moved on. When Poppy and TK cross paths in the most unlikely of places, emotions they've suppressed for years come rushing back. But with all the secrets they never told each other lying between them, they'll need more than a dating playbook to help them navigate their relationship.
Ruby
By Bond, Cynthia
The newest Oprah's Book Club 2.0 selectionThe epic, unforgettable story of a man determined to protect the woman he loves from the town desperate to destroy her - this beautiful and devastating debut heralds the arrival of a major new voice in fiction. Ephram Jennings has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. Young Ruby, "the kind of pretty it hurt to look at," has suffered beyond imagining, so as soon as she can, she flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York. Ruby quickly winds her way into the ripe center of the city--the darkened piano bars and hidden alleyways of the Village--all the while hoping for a glimpse of the red hair and green eyes of her mother. When a telegram from her cousin forces her to return home, thirty-year-old Ruby Bell finds herself reliving the devastating violence of her girlhood. With the terrifying realization that she might not be strong enough to fight her way back out again, Ruby struggles to survive her memories of the town's dark past. Meanwhile, Ephram must choose between loyalty to the sister who raised him and the chance for a life with the woman he has loved since he was a boy. Full of life, exquisitely written, and suffused with the pastoral beauty of the rural South, Ruby is a transcendent novel of passion and courage. This wondrous page-turner rushes through the red dust and gossip of Main Street, to the pit fire where men swill bootleg outside Bloom's Juke, to Celia Jennings's kitchen where a cake is being made, yolk by yolk, that Ephram will use to try to begin again with Ruby. Utterly transfixing, with unforgettable characters, riveting suspense, and breathtaking, luminous prose, Ruby offers an unflinching portrait of man's dark acts and the promise of the redemptive power of love.
The Replacement Wife
By Warren, Tiffany L.
"I just love her work." --Victoria Christopher MurrayIn this page-turning new novel from Essence® bestselling author Tiffany L. Warren, Atlanta's most eligible widower isn't looking to remarry--but for one woman, that's a mere detail. . .Five years after his beloved wife's death, wealthy Quentin Chambers still hasn't returned to the church or his music ministry. Even his home is now devoid of music, and without his attention, Quentin's five children are getting out of control--until his mother steps in and hires him a live-in nanny. Montana is pretty, compassionate, church-going, and even has a beautiful singing voice. The children take to her right away, and soon enough Quentin finds his heart opening to faith--and love--once more. But not everyone loves Montana.
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
By Mathis, Ayana
The newest Oprah's Book Club 2.0 selection The arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction. A debut of extraordinary distinction: Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one unforgettable family. In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave. She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother's monumental courage and the journey of a nation. Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis's The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last - glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life. An emotionally transfixing page-turner, a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity, an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream. Ayana Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is her first novel.
The Eternal Engagement
By Morrison, Mary B.
From New York Times bestselling author Mary B. Morrison comes a moving, unforgettable story of lives at a crossroads, love lost and found, and the price of secrets. . .After her high school sweetheart proposed and joined the military, Mona Lisa Ellington thought she'd never feel love again. So she settled, making a new life for herself with a man who cherished her…and made his living hurting others. Despite her reality, she prayed her fiancé would one day return.Before becoming a television reporter, Katherine Clinton knew she'd marry her high school sweetheart and live happily ever after. But when he left for the military, she had to make new plans for her and their son. Despite his long absence, Katherine dreamed of the day her fiancé would return and make her family complete.
The Kid
By Sapphire,
Fifteen years after the publication of Push one year after the Academy Award-winning film adaptation Sapphire gives voice to Preciouss son Abdul In The Kid bestselling author Sapphire tells the electrifying story of Abdul Jones the son of Pushs unforgettable heroine PreciousA story of body and spirit rooted in the hungers of flesh and of the soul The Kid brings us deep into the interior life of Abdul Jones We meet him at age nine on the day of his mothers funeral Left alone to navigate a world in which love and hate sometimes hideously masquerade forced to confront unspeakable violence his history and the dark corners of his own heart Abdul claws his way toward adulthood and toward an identity he can stand behindIn a generational story that moves with the speed of thought from a Mississippi dirt farm to Harlem in its heyday from a troubled Catholic orphanage to downtown artists lofts The Kid tells of a twenty- first-century young mans fight to find a way toward the future A testament to the ferocity of the human spirit and the deep nourishing power of love and of art The Kid chronicles a young man about to take flight In the intimate terrifying and deeply alive story of Abduls journey we are witness to an artists birth by fire.
The Wedding Date
By Guillory, Jasmine
THE USA TODAY BESTSELLER#5 LibraryReads PickOne of...Entertainment Weekly's "12 Romances for V-Day"Cosmopolitan's "2018 Anticipated Reads"Elle's "2018 Must Reads"Harpers Bazaar's "New January Must Reads"The Fug Girls' "Best Books of the Year"Elle UK's "Books to Get You Through 2018"Nylon's "January Must Reads"Hello Giggles' "New Release Recs"Electric Lit's "Books by WoC to Read in 2018"Bitch Media's "2018 Must Reads"BookBub's "2018 Romance Must Reads"Bookriot's "Must Read 2018 January Releases"RetailMeNot's "2018 Must Reads""A swoony rom-com brimming with humor and charm."--Entertainment Weekly (The Must List) "What a charming, warm, sexy gem of a novel....One of the best books I've read in a while."--Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of HungerA groomsman and his last-minute guest are about to discover if a fake date can go the distance in this fun and flirty multicultural romance debut.Agreeing to go to a wedding with a guy she gets stuck with in an elevator is something Alexa Monroe wouldn't normally do. But there's something about Drew Nichols that's too hard to resist.On the eve of his ex's wedding festivities, Drew is minus a plus one. Until a power outage strands him with the perfect candidate for a fake girlfriend...After Alexa and Drew have more fun than they ever thought possible, Drew has to fly back to Los Angeles and his job as a pediatric surgeon, and Alexa heads home to Berkeley, where she's the mayor's chief of staff. Too bad they can't stop thinking about the other... They're just two high-powered professionals on a collision course toward the long distance dating disaster of the century--or closing the gap between what they think they need and what they truly want...
Red River
By Tademy, Lalita
Hailed as "powerful,""accomplished," and "spellbinding," Lalita Tademy's first novel Cane River was a New York Times bestseller and the 2001 Oprah Book Club Summer Selection. Now with her evocative, luminous style and painstaking research, she takes her family's story even further, back to a little-chronicled, deliberately-forgotten time...and the struggle of three extraordinary generations of African-American men to forge brutal injustice and shattered promise into a limitless future for their children... RED RIVERFor the newly-freed black residents of Colfax, Louisiana, the beginning of Reconstruction promised them the right to vote, own property-and at last control their own lives.Tademy saw a chance to start a school for his children and neighbors. His friend Israel Smith was determined to start a community business and gain economic freedom. But in the space of a day, marauding whites would "take back" Colfax in one of the deadliest cases of racial violence in the South. In the bitter aftermath, Sam and Israel's fight to recover and build their dreams will draw on the best they and their families have to give-and the worst they couldn't have foreseen. Sam's hidden resilience will make him an unexpected leader, even as it puts his conscience and life on the line. Israel finds ironic success-and the bitterest of betrayals. And their greatest challenge will be to pass on to their sons and grandsons a proud heritage never forgotten-and the strength to meet the demands of the past and future in their own unique ways. An unforgettable achievement, a history brought to vibrant life through one of the most memorable families in fiction, RED RIVER is about fathers and sons, husbands and wives-and the hopeful, heartbreaking choices we all must make to claim the legacy that is ours.
Americanah
By Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
The bestselling novel - a love story of race and identity - from the award-winning author of We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele.Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American ReadIfemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion - for each other and for their homeland.
Things Fall Apart
By Achebe, Chinua
"A true classic of world literature . . . A masterpiece that has inspired generations of writers in Nigeria, across Africa, and around the world." - Barack Obama Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American ReadThings Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Chinua Achebe's critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic narrative about Africa's cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man's futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political andreligious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order. With more than 20 million copies sold and translated into fifty-seven languages, Things Fall Apart provides one of the most illuminating and permanent monuments to African experience. Achebe does not only capture life in a pre-colonial African village, he conveys the tragedy of the loss of that world while broadening our understanding of our contemporary realities.
Swing Time
By Smith, Zadie
An ambitious, exuberant new novel moving from North West London to West Africa, from the multi-award-winning author of White Teeth and On BeautyTwo brown girls dream of being dancers - but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either.Tracey makes it to the chorus line but struggles with adult life, while her friend leaves the old neighborhood behind, traveling the world as an assistant to a famous singer, Aimee, observing close up how the one percent live.But when Aimee develops grand philanthropic ambitions, the story moves from London to West Africa, where diaspora tourists travel back in time to find their roots, young men risk their lives to escape into a different future, the women dance just like Tracey - the same twists, the same shakes - and the origins of a profound inequality are not a matter of distant history, but a present dance to the music of time.