Showing titles in African American

More than a decade ago, Mira fled her small, segregated hometown in the south to forget. With every mile she traveled, she distanced herself from her past: from her best friend Celine, mocked by their town as the only white girl with black friends; from her old neighborhood; from the eerie Woodsman plantation rumored to be haunted by the spirits of slaves; from the terrifying memory of a ghost she saw that terrible day when a dare-gone-wrong almost got Jesse—the boy she secretly loved—arrested for murder. But now Mira is back to attend Celine's wedding at the plantation.

Fifteen years ago, Lęina’s mother, Yuliana, went searching for a mythical place called the Garden and never returned. Determined to learn the truth about what happened, Lęina travels to Brazil to search for the hidden realm, with Yuliana’s journal and a local tour guide leading the way. But Lęina soon begins to wonder if she’s looking for answers—or if what she truly wants to find is herself.

In 1985, police bombed a West Philadelphia row house owned by the Afrocentric cult known as Move, killing 11 people and starting a fire that destroyed 60 other houses. At the heart of Philadelphia Fire is Cudjoe, a writer and exile who returns to his old neighborhood after spending a decade fleeing from his past and who becomes obsessed with the search for a lone survivor of the event: a young boy seen running from the flames.

When Ruby Lamont’s young son Jake starts telling tall tales about the dad who walked out on them six years ago, it’s time to find out the truth. It’s not that she wants Kenny back in her life—her charming commitment-phobe Griffin, has always been more of a father-figure to Jake—but if she can understand why Kenny broke her heart, perhaps she can finally move on.

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.

You Don’t Know Us Negroes is the quintessential gathering of provocative essays from one of the world’s most celebrated writers, Zora Neale Hurston. Spanning more than three decades and penned during the backdrop of the birth of the Harlem Renaissance, Montgomery bus boycott, desegregation of the military, and school integration, Hurston’s writing articulates the beauty and authenticity of Black life as only she could.

Entering Harvard by passing as white, medical student Reuel Briggs is considered a genius in the unconventional science of the occult. Though ignorant of his own very relevant lineage, Reuel finds himself on a lucrative archaeological expedition to Ethiopia. There, he hopes to raid the treasures of Meroe. Instead, traversing the ruins of a hidden city and beset by maddening visions and escalating dangers, he is forced to confront his own bloodline. What Reuel unearths is beyond anything he imagined.

No man enraptured Martha Jean Richards. Not since her scoundrel of a late ex-husband left. Men came with problems, and she didn't believe in happily ever afters. But even Martha Jean's hard exterior couldn't hold after meeting Christopher Lee Rose, a multimillionaire mogul. He was the father of her recently acquired son-in-law, and Christopher wooed Martha Jean every time he entered a room. Now with a change of heart, Martha Jean decides it's time she marries a gentleman, but there is one person who stands in her way: Adeline Stevens.

Tasha and Trae, the hood's favorite couple, are still together following the events of Thug Matrimony. Even with their relocation to sunny Los Angeles, the drama of New York cannot be escaped. From running a nightclub to dealing with models, shady lawyers, big money, new kinds of temptations, seductions, and drugs - not to mention new love interests - can this infamous couple weather all the storms and keep it together?

In this scorching, mournful, often explicit, and never less than moving literary novel by the famed creator of the Easy Rawlins series, Debbie Dare, a black porn queen, has to come to terms with her sordid life in the adult entertainment industry after her tomcatting husband dies in a hot tub. Electrocuted. With another woman in there with him. Debbie decides she just isn't going to "do it anymore". But executing her exit strategy from the porn world is a wrenching and far from simple process.

Jean Toomer's Cane is one of the most significant works to come out of the Harlem Renaissance, and is considered to be a masterpiece in American modernist literature because of its distinct structure and style. First published in 1923 and told through a series of vignettes, Cane uses poetry, prose, and play-like dialogue to create a window into the varied lives of African Americans living in the rural South and urban North during a time when Jim Crow laws pervaded and racism reigned.

For a year, Kazimir’s cousin Misha has been obsessed with Ava - the only black ballerina in the Mariinsky theater company. When the opportunity arises to spend time with Ava, Misha seizes it. But over and over distractions appear - a psycho here and there, a devil, stolen nukes, and even a missing corpse. Over and over, obstacles arise. Can Misha battle them all as he fights for Ava’s love? Or will he never get his ballerina?

As America recovers from the Second World War, two families’ journeys begin. James Vincent, born in 1942 to an Irish American family, escapes his parents’ turbulent marriage and attends law school in New York, where he moves up the social ladder as a prosperous and bright attorney. Meanwhile, Agnes Miller, a beautiful black woman on a date with a handsome suitor, is pulled over by the police on a rural road in Georgia. The terrible moments that follow make her question her future and pivot her into a hasty marriage and new life in the Bronx.

They say the first love is the truest. If you can hold on to it, do. For the others after will be different. Watered down versions tainted with your insecurities, their fears, each other's pride. Promises not to make the same mistakes twice, entering as a slightly altered version of yourself. Because that first love, you dive deep with no restrictions. You are you and they are them, fully. And you hit bumps, and turbulence, and at times think you'll crash headfirst until that love saves you . . . like a parachute. That first love. That true love.

Veycosi, in training as a griot (an historian and musician), hopes to sail off to examine the rare Alamat Book of Light and thus secure a spot for himself on Chynchin’s Colloquium of scholars. However, unexpected events prevent that from happening. Fifteen Ymisen galleons arrive in the harbor to force a trade agreement on Chynchin. Veycosi tries to help, hoping to prove himself with a bold move, but quickly finds himself in way over his head.

August Hanson was the silent type, the kind who spoke through his actions and not his words. He possessed enough power to make me feel safe and secure. I was ready to open up and share the parts of myself I’d never shared with another, and then I got hit with a truth that changed everything. There was a slight chance he’d still want me, only he had to accept our baby, too.

Following an unsuspected night of passion with a series of men, Seven is left reeling and quickly discovers that everyone’s actions have lasting consequences. She finds herself attempting to navigate what a life intertwined with three men looks like and with Kenji’s strained familial relationships, Gael’s daunting past and Tryp’s long term girlfriend, their effortless night of fun is quickly forgotten as they all grapple with if their one night stand can truly lead to a happily ever after.

Resident playboy, Samson Morgan, thinks he can beat me at my own game. The hockey captain truly believes he can stop playing the field for longer than I can start having one-night stands. Okay, sure, historically I'm known for being an all-in, ask-to-be-your-girlfriend-on-the-first-date romantic. But being a player isn't that hard. And I came to Mendell University to win. Whether that's on the ice or off. Morgan doesn't realize it yet but he's finally met an opponent who can take him down.

Two people, ten years apart, both messed up from trauma and ruined for relationships. Rain tries to blackmail a superstar to save her ass from trouble she got into with her ex. The rock star in question, a 28 year old bassist with a drinking problem, doesn’t take too kindly to betrayal… After tying his new personal assistant to his bed and making some unhinged threats of his own, Mickey forces Rain into an alliance. Enemies thrown together in a gothic Southern mansion reach a compromise… keep each other satisfied, stay loyal — and never fall in love.

Still reeling from a messy divorce, kindergarten teacher Venus Thibodeaux is on a self-proclaimed healing journey and adamant that she's done with love. She's determined to move on from her toxic past with a fresh start in a new city, but starting over isn't as easy as it sounds. Anthony "Nuney" Nunez is young. He's unpolished, unpredictable, and according to his daughter's kindergarten teacher—a lousy parent. In fact, the two can't see eye to eye on anything except the strange attraction they have for each other every time their paths cross.