Showing results by publisher "Blackstone Publishing" in African American

Bleu Levell is cautious with her heart these days. After unknowingly having children with a married man, she’s recovering from heartbreak and betrayal. With her children’s father locked up on gun charges, Bleu has thrown herself into work and motherhood. It wasn’t until she meets photographer O’Shea Boulware, her massage client, that she considers opening her heart to love again. Tables turn when her ex, Isaiah, is suddenly released and looking to get that old thing back. His possessive nature won’t allow him to let Bleu go so easily, even with his wife in his back pocket.

Exploring the diverse landscape of American life, the stories in Blues and Trouble: Twelve Stories capture the lives of people caught between circumstance and their own natures or on the run from fate. Tom Piazza’s debut short story collection, originally published in 1996, heralded the arrival of a startlingly original and vital presence in American fiction and letters. Set in Memphis, New Orleans, Florida, Texas, New York City, and elsewhere, the stories echo voices from Ernest Hemingway to Robert Johnson in their sharp eye for detail and their emotional impact.

One could argue the story begins the night Allegra Douglass is awarded Distinguished Chair in Philosophy at her top-tier university in New York—the same night her grandmother dies—or before that: the day Allie left Birmingham and never looked back. Or even before that: the day her mother disappeared. But for our purposes Allie’s story begins at the end, when she is finally ready to tell her version of what happened with a white supremacist named Matthew Strong.

Newly promoted expat Robin Johnson is ready to take London by storm! Her career blossoming, Rob soon tumbles headlong into the local dating scene…with disastrous results. When she confides her misadventures to her coworker’s understanding brother Craig, the last thing she expects is to find an elusive spark—with him! After so many false starts, can Rob find it in her heart to give Craig the chance that he deserves?

Someone is murdering the homeless in Detroit’s Cass Corridor―by immolation. These horrific crimes wouldn’t require an investigation by Charlie Mack and her crack team investigators, except that one of the burned bodies is her mother’s friend. There’s a lot wrong with this case: the police won’t admit a serial killer is on the loose, drug trafficking intersects with the deaths, and a rogue cop is involved. The timing also couldn’t be worse―Charlie and Mandy are finally moving in together.

When a guilt-ridden client has an unexpected change of heart, the Mack team’s careful preparation for his grand jury testimony is blown to smithereens. Now, Charlie and Gil must pull out all the stops to defend him from his new enemies and the estrangement of his father. Meanwhile, Charlie reports for jury duty and unwittingly begins to unravel a disturbing plan to alter the outcome of a crime lord’s conspiracy trial.

When private investigator Charlie Mack is hired by her ex-husband’s new wife, Pamela, things get awkward quickly. Her ex, Franklin, has been charged with his brother-in-law’s murder. Charlie and Pamela both believe he didn’t do it, but he has gone into hiding for some reason neither of them understands. To the police, it adds up to easy guilt, but to Charlie, it indicates that Franklin has stumbled onto something that likely comes with life-threatening complications.

A hate group operating in Oakland County, Michigan, has claimed responsibility for a six-month-long string of arson fires and robberies at mosques, temples, and Black churches around Detroit, eluding police and federal agencies. The most recent fire, at a mosque in Dearborn, kills a respected imam. His children—suspicious of law enforcement’s treatment of Muslims and afraid of reprisal—hire Charlie Mack and her team of investigators to find their father’s murderers.

Seventeenth-century northern Nigeria. A royal messenger has died under suspicious circumstances. Tasked with investigating the death, a Durbar warrior and his young apprentice must endure trials of loyalty, betrayal, and sacrifice to solve the mystery and prevent the bitter rivalry between two kingdoms from descending into a bloody war.

When Charlie and her team of investigators are asked to take on a seemingly impossible case―to identify and thwart an attack on the upcoming Detroit Auto Show―it takes a $100K incentive and the help of a dozen freelancers for Charlie and her crew to unravel a twisted plot that runs through several countries and many more bank accounts. But finding out who’s behind the intricate plot only solves half the problem. Charlie and her crew are drawn into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse as they try to locate dozens of hidden bombs before they can be detonated.

Eve Mann arrives in Ideal, Georgia, in 1972 looking for answers about the mother who died giving her life. A mother named Mercy. A mother who for all of Eve’s 22 years has been a mystery and a quest. Eve’s search for her mother, and the father she never knew, is a mission to discover her identity, her name, her people, and her home. Eve’s questions and longing launch a multigenerational story that sprawls back to the turn of the 20th century.

The summer of 1966 burned hot across America but nowhere hotter than the cotton fields of Mississippi. Finding herself in a precarious position as a black woman living alone, Bernice accepts her brother Floyd’s invitation to join him as a servant for a white family, and she enters the web of hostility and deception that is the Kern plantation household.

The streets have claimed two more victims in what seems like a typical gang shooting...or was it? Female gangster Fuzzy is heartsick over the loss of her two besties Jr. and Hadji. But she’s even more devastated at the possibility that their deaths might’ve been an unintended consequence of her dubious behavior. As a nervous Fuzzy ponders the possibility of the next body to drop being her own, another queenpin named B.B. arrives home.

Tragedy is a normal part of "the life". But when mid-level gangster Fuzzy loses her lover and partner in crime to it, the pain is far deeper than anything she’s ever felt before. But the hurt isn’t enough to take her out of the game completely. In fact, Fuzzy is determined to honor his memory by picking up right where her deceased sweetheart left off, aided by his apprentice Lil Man. As a duo, their first battle for gangland supremacy will come in the form of a powerful crime lord named B.B.

After a botched attempt on his life nearly kills his twin brother, crime kingpin Justice is out for blood. Seething about both the assassination attempt itself and its near-fatal result, he swears to hunt down and eliminate those responsible. A task easier said than done.

The Gomez syndicate is one of Milwaukee’s deadliest criminal organizations. When Cheez, one of its high-ranking members, is assassinated, his wife, Amilia, is left with tremendous grief...and little to no answers as to who’s responsible. Cheez’s death leaves a power vacuum within the gangland landscape, one that is quickly filled by a gangster named Secret, who later begins spending time with Amilia. Of course, Secret’s sudden close proximity to the grieving widow is no accident.

Juan continues to juggle three women - Deja, Melanie, and Dawn - and work their emotions with his smooth words so he can get the money he is owed, get released from prison early, and secure a happy future once he gets out. However, one of the women is making plans of her own. While the other two are suspicious of Juan’s intentions and loyalty, jealousy and emotions run high. Can Juan continue to keep all the women happy until he can get released from prison, or will his worlds finally collide and leave him empty-handed, broken-hearted, and locked up?

A sniper’s bullet strikes a target deep in the heart of Cleveland, Ohio, causing major disruption to an already disruptive city. The Secret Service, FBI, and other government agencies are deployed, and with time not on their side, two detectives are forced to collaborate with them to bring down this serial killer. Neither of them have any idea of where or when this killer will strike next.

After taking a slug to the crown, street hood Menace has been out of commission for two long years. Now fully healed, he aims to pick up where he and Speedy left off, and there’s no time like the present. With Menace on the disabled list, Speedy has grown the old gang into a force to be reckoned with. Their influence, firepower, and manpower are three times what they used to be. As Speedy and the boys help Menace regain his underworld footing, bringing him up to speed, an old foe resurfaces, with guns pointed directly at the two aptly named gang leaders.

After Flaco's betrayal led to the murder of Young Pablo by the Cubans he owed money to, his sister, Catrina "Kitty Cat" Alvarez, and her crew decide to exact revenge on the Cubans. What she doesn't know is that will mean she is accountable for the $20 million Manuel Colon, the head of the Cubans, owes his supplier, Don Renosa. What she also doesn't know is that her brother's murder is the least of her problems, as the betrayal she is about to face could cost her her life.