Showing results for "water,-water" in African American

In the dying days of the American Civil War, newly freed brothers Landry and Prentiss find themselves cast into the world without a penny to their names. Forced to hide out in the woods near their former Georgia plantation, they're soon discovered by the land's owner, George Walker, a man still reeling from the loss of his son in the war. When the brothers begin to live and work on George's farm, the tentative bonds of trust and union begin to blossom between the strangers.

In Wade in the Water, Tracy K. Smith boldly ties America's contemporary moment both to our nation's fraught founding history and to a sense of the spirit, the everlasting. These are poems of sliding scale: some capture a flicker of song or memory; some collage an array of documents and voices; and some push past the known world into the haunted, the holy. Smith's signature voice - inquisitive, lyrical, and wry - turns over what it means to be a citizen, a mother, and an artist in a culture arbitrated by wealth, men, and violence.

The world is burning, and Corinne will do anything to put out the flames. After her brother died aboard an oil boat on the Mississippi River in 2013, Corrine awakened to the realities of climate change and its perpetrators. Now, a year later, she finds herself trapped in a lonely cycle of mourning both her brother and the very planet she stands on. She's convinced that in order to save her future, she has to make sure that her brother's life meant something. But in the act of honoring her brother's spirit, she resurrects family ghosts she knows little about--ghosts her grandmother Cora knows intimately.

Deeply moving and illuminating, Trouble the Water reveals the little-known real-life story of Robert Smalls. Born enslaved before the Civil War, Smalls witnesses great privilege and immense suffering alongside his owner's daughter. When the war erupts and his cotton steamer becomes a confederate warship, Robert attempts a harrowing escape to freedom for himself and the people he loves. Robert Smalls is one of America's great unsung heroes, and Trouble the Water finally brings his story into the light.

As director of an award-winning investigative news radio show, Billie Jordan is used to dealing with trouble. But when the radio station is sold, she’s suddenly jobless and in need of money to help her son recover from an accident-related opioid addiction. When her husband gets a professorship at an HBCU in his hometown, Billie makes the best of their move South. All seems well—until severe storms cause massive destruction and contaminate the town’s water supply—making it unsafe to drink.

Most women would be grateful to have a smoking hot country boy rescue them from a raging inferno. But not Andi. Dylan broke her heart five years ago and the last thing she wants is to owe a debt to the shredded 6'7" firefighter who threw her over her shoulder like she was weightless. He has a past. A child. A baby mama on the loose. More drama than she can handle. And...he broke her heart.

Shallow Waters imagines Yemaya, an Orïsha—a deity in the religion of Africa’s Yoruba people—cast into mid-1800s America. We meet Yemaya as a young woman, still in the care of her mother and not yet fully aware of the spectacular power she possesses to protect herself and those she holds dear.

In Makoko, the floating slum off mainland Lagos, Nigeria, nineteen-year-old Baby yearns for an existence where she can escape the future her father has planned for her. With opportunities scarce, Baby jumps at the chance to join a newly launched drone-mapping project, aimed at broadening the visibility of her community. Then a video of her at work goes viral and Baby finds herself with options she could never have imagined - including the possibility of leaving her birthplace to represent Makoko on the world stage.

Must a young woman choose between her commitment to her marriage…and to God? Brianna was 10 years old when she first met 25 year old David R. Shepherd, a devout and gifted gospel recording artist who would ultimately become world renowned megastar, King d.Avid. He left an impression on Brianna she would never forget. And they were destined to meet again…

Having enemies was common for the Gachette witches, but they have always been able to conquer during adversity. When the demon of Gehenna rises after being locked away for a hundred years, the great sage of Black Water Bayou falls, leaving the legacy of her ancestors in the hands of her granddaughters, Merigold and Majesty.

Gathering of Waters is a deeply engrossing tale narrated by the town of Money, Mississippi - a site both significant and infamous in our collective story as a nation. Money is personified in this haunting story, which chronicles its troubled history following the arrival of the Hilson and Bryant families. Tass Hilson and Emmett Till were young and in love when Emmett was brutally murdered in 1955. Anxious to escape the town, Tass marries Maximillian May and relocates to Detroit

Asia's mother went missing 18 years ago and since then, Asia has feared the one thing she always dreamt of working with. The ocean. So instead, she's been living life as a lab tech. She doesn't exactly love her job, but it pays the bills and she has money to spend on nights out with her girls. However, her most recent night out ends up with her gaining markings on her skin and losing body parts....

There was no quiet homecoming for Nikki King. Not with a body discovered on her lakefront property and Terrence Sutton’s unexpected arrival. The police detective is convinced his sister’s disappearance and the threats Nikki has been receiving are connected. Nikki would rather avoid the man who once let a family feud tear them apart, but can she afford to refuse his protection? Not with danger lurking in the dark water just beyond her doorstep.

Chima is an outcast among outcasts. He's on the verge of giving up on life entirely when he encounters the sacred Biafran lion. Gifted with an incredible power and introduced to a world beyond belief, Chima thinks his life may finally be turning around. When a rival nation kidnaps Chima's father, his world is shattered. To save his family and the Biafran people, he must learn to believe in himself and his newfound power. As he fights back against a secret weapon, he wonders if his efforts to protect his adopted home could doom them all.

Houston Rockets' star player "Bad Boy" Joshua Keys and wife Bella Keys have weathered quite a few storms. Her childhood trauma and poor choices resulting from it. His fake paternity suits, fights on and off the basketball court, fights that always somehow seemed to center around Bella. Then there were the legal fees, the payouts, and the groupies. They made it through all of that. But when Bella brings home a child by another man, even one that Joshua truly adores, this couple can't quite seem to overcome that.

"Bath Water" is a salacious short story that delves into the past of its main character, Nanaya, as she reminisces about a time when she was exceptionally beautiful in her youth.

Men were so enamored with her that they would make extravagant offers, including drinking her bathwater, as a testament to her allure. Nanaya's recollections of this era are marked by a blend of nostalgia and a sense of the absurdity of the attention she received.

Elsie is a sexy, funny, and fiercely independent woman in south London. But, at just 28, she is also tired. Though she spends her days writing tender poetry in her journal, her nights are spent working long hours for minimum wage at a neighborhood dive bar. Not even sleeping with her alluring coworker, Bea, can quell her existential dread. The difficulty of being estranged from her family, struggle of being continually rejected from jobs, and fear of never making money doing what she loves is too great. But Elsie is determined to keep the faith, for a little longer at least.

Born in Cuba after her mother Yemaya’s adventures in the New World, Oya has inherited otherworldly powers from her Yoruba Orisha lineage. While Yemaya is known for her healing abilities, Oya’s influence over the storm proves to be destructive, posing a threat to her mother and the island’s safety. Sent to New Orleans to study under Marie Laveau, the Queen of Voodoo, Oya begins a journey across the still young America, encountering a myriad of historical figures, including Mary Ellen Pleasant, Jesse James, Lew Hing, and more.

The emotional equivalent of a Category Six hurricane is raging through the small Southern town of Barksdale in the form of a rumor that a provocative African American newcomer might be of supernatural origin.

The Goode-Brown family, led by matriarch and pillar of the community Minnie Mae, is plagued by old secrets and embarrassment over mental illness and illegitimacy. Meanwhile, single mother Francine Clark is haunted by her dead, lightning-struck husband and forced to fight against both the moral judgment of the community and her own rebellious daughter, Mona. The residents of Opulence struggle with vexing relationships to the land, to one another, and to their own sexuality.