Showing titles in African American

Razor sharp, provocatively page-turning and surprisingly tender, Luster by Raven Leilani is a painfully funny debut. 'A taut, sharp, funny book about being young now. It's brutal–and brilliant.' - Zadie Smith, author of White Teeth 'A book of pure fineness, exceptional.' – Diana Evans...

Investigative reporter Rose Howard is exhausted from trying to manage her seemingly perfect life. With her marriage to the man she thought was her one true love collapsing, she desperately needs for one thing to go right. While striving for a promotion to senior reporter, her efforts are interrupted when she learns her former best friend and travel vlogger, Eve Castillo, isn't responding to attempts to contact her at the North Carolina cottage she's reviewing. Rose knows Eve can be flaky and irresponsible. 

I hate flowers… I hate small talk… I hate the male gaze… I hate feeling lonely… I hate feeling connected… And most of all, I hate the idea of losing control… It’s one luxury I couldn’t afford. As a handler, my job depends on my ability to control things. Everything. Every room. Every outcome. Every possibility. Every threat. Every scandal. Every principle. Every interest. Every dollar. Every deal. Every death. But one look into the dark, desolate orbs of Ishmael Grayson, mayor-hopeful of Berkeley City, and I quickly discerned there were some things I couldn’t control.

For Naomi Prescott, it's not just a cute little saying. It's a critical mantra, words to live by if she wants to retain her freedom, and, more importantly, her life. Impeccable planning is the only way to ensure she sets off the small flutters that will trigger the big ripple she needs to pull off the score of a lifetime - no matter the stakes. FBI Agent Marcus Calloway is a straight-shooter...if you overlook his sometimes unconventional, law-skirting, expensive ways of solving a case. A big arrest would do wonders to restore his reputation, and he has one woman in mind: Jolie Voleuse.

A retired employee of the Illinois Department of Motor Vehicles, Mrs. Washington runs the mean, cold streets of Chi-town messing with all types of young thugs with multiple felonies. A widow for some time now, Vernita is determined to make up for her stale marriage. However, when a major health scare sets her back, she finds herself losing everything. Reality sets in that her time on Earth is about to come to a close. Now faced with a death sentence, Vernita seeks to live out her remaining days being the biggest old super freak.

God is always with you. No matter what.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times Critic's Pick that served Broadway "raucous comedy and nonstop pleasure" has made its way home to Audible. Juicy is a queer, Southern college kid already grappling with some serious questions of identity when the ghost of his father shows up in their backyard, demanding that Juicy avenge his murder. But here’s the rub! Revenge doesn’t come easy to Juicy, a sensitive and self-aware young Black man in search of his own happiness and liberation.

In an age of confusion, fear, and loss, Hanif Abdurraqib's is a voice that matters. Whether he's attending a Bruce Springsteen concert the day after visiting Michael Brown's grave, or discussing public displays of affection at a Carly Rae Jepsen show, he writes with a poignancy that resonates profoundly. In essays that have been published by the New York Times, MTV, and Pitchfork, among others—Abdurraqib uses music and culture as a lens through which to view our world so that we might better understand ourselves, and in so doing proves himself a bellwether for our times.

It's 1933 in East Texas and the Depression lingers in the air like a slow-moving storm. When a young Harry Collins and his little sister stumble across the body of a black woman who has been savagely mutilated and left to die in the bottoms of the Sabine River, their small town is instantly charged with tension. When a second body turns up, this time of a white woman, there is little Harry can do from stopping his Klan neighbors from lynching an innocent black man. 

Chiara Franchesca Giovanni has spent her life protecting her family’s historic Vermont vineyard from debt, betrayal, and the dangerous reach of Aldo Marconi. When the business nears collapse, she turns to the one man she never expected to need—Troy Jackson, a former basketball star whose second career in finance is matched only by the strength of the family who raised him.

For years, young Mud and her family have roamed the high grasses, swamps, and deserts of the sub-Sahara. Now the earth is scorched by drought, and the mutilated bodies of family and friends lie scattered on the ground, shot down by ivory hunters. Nothing - not the once familiar terrain, or the age-old rhythms of life, or even memory itself - seems reliable anymore. Yet a slim prophecy of hope is passed on from water hole to water hole: the sacred white bone of legend will point the elephants toward the Safe Place.

A FINALIST for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the VCU/Cabell First Novelist Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the NYPL Young Lions Award, and the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award “A blistering coming of age story” —O: The Oprah Magazine...

No town is perfect, but East Cobb comes close. It's a wealthy all-Black Free Town—untouched by white oppression—where ambitious Thea Elliot and her husband plan to make good on their big dreams. Little do they know that the idyllic town teems with ghoulish, walking nightmares...that only the women can see.

From the moment forty-eight alien superheroes crash-landed on Earth, photographer Monika Neumann had a favorite. She’s been crushing on the literally electrifying Taranis ever since she saw the cutie crawling out of his pod. Unfortunately, his popularity isn’t exactly crackling these days. He could use an image boost. Monika is in. One right photo op and she’ll put her ridiculously hot lightning-bolt-wielding hero back in the public’s favor. The best part is, the mission will bring her closer to Taranis.

This remarkable novel begins in 1850s Louisiana, where Gilda escapes slavery and learns about freedom while working in a brothel. After being initiated into eternal life as one who "shares the blood" by two women there, Gilda spends the next 200 years searching for a place to call home. An instant lesbian classic when it was first published in 1991, The Gilda Stories has endured as an auspiciously prescient book in its explorations of blackness, radical ecology, re-definitions of family, and yes, the erotic potential of the vampire story.

Maryland gubernatorial candidate Caden Mitchell has achieved every goal he's ever set: West Point graduate, decorated Army war hero, mayor of Baltimore. That is, every goal but one: becoming a husband and father. That goal was dashed after his greatest love, Savannah Grace Vasquez, disappeared from his life without a trace more than a decade before. But during a fundraiser for his latest political bid, Caden spots a woman who looks just like Savannah. Can it be her?

When it comes to being a caregiver, Kym Knicely has been there, done that, and is ready to move on from that lifestyle. Then she meets Hamilton Cross and soon learns that every caregiver situation is not one size fits all. Where she was the caregiver of her elderly aunt, Hamilton is years older and is a full-time caregiver of his seven-year-old autistic granddaughter.

Publicly humiliated, Marisa Banks is blindsided by the news that the man she's been dating for months is married. Being called names she wouldn't wish on anyone in front of a room full of people by her boyfriend's wife is enough to shake her identity to its foundations. In an attempt to rebuild, she makes a few questionable decisions. Asher Blaine is one of them. He's intelligent and sexy, but the pedestal he's got himself up on is unshakeable. Or so he thinks. Marisa asks for the one thing he can't deny her, even if it's the craziest thing he's ever done.

Dr. Allison Hall is staring down the prospect of her first Christmas in a new town and her first without her son, who is spending the holiday with her ex. As the new doc on the block, she's on duty for the Christmas shift and glad of it. When one of her favorite patients lands back in the hospital, and it looks like this might be his last Christmas, she hopes she can help connect him to his estranged daughter. Dante Price thinks Allison should mind her own business. He's a nurse - and admittedly a bit of a Christmas Scrooge.

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER A “breathtaking space opera” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) about a young tea expert who is taken as a political prisoner and recruited to spy on government officials—a role that may empower her to win back her nation’s independence—perfect for fans of N.K...