Showing titles in African American

How to Dodge a Cannonball is funnier than the Civil War should ever be. It follows Anders, a teenage idealist who enlists and reenlists to shape the American Future—as soon as he figures out what that is, who it includes, and why everyone wants him to die for it. Escaping his violently insane mother is a bonus. Anders finds honor as a proud Union flag twirler—until he’s captured. Then he tries life as a diehard Confederate—until fate asks him to die hard for the Confederacy at Gettysburg. Barely alive, Anders limps into a Black Union regiment in a stolen uniform.

Denali Peters was sure her life would never get any better. She had two children with a man who showed her with time just how impure his intentions were. At the top of her priority list was being a great mom, but working two jobs and raising her man along with their kids began to take a toll on Denali. Eventually, she realized the importance of self-care and her own happiness…but that happiness came with a hefty price.

The year is 1978. The Duncan brothers and their tough-as-nails women have vanquished their rivals and taken their place as the leaders of Waycross, Georgia's criminal enterprises. However, their rise to power has not gone unnoticed, and the family is rocked when their mother, Miss Bettie, is kidnapped and her body is found in a swamp. No one knows who the killers are, but instead of drawing closer, the family is split when their grief-stricken leader, LC, is offered membership in the South's most powerful black organization, the Council.

A friend's newspaper advertisement for a groom nets the most famous actor in London, Arthur Bex. Shy heiress Ester Croome proposes to elope with the handsome man, who she's secretly loved for two years, in order to escape an impending engagement arranged by her overbearing family. Trying to outlive the shadow of his villainous uncle, Bex needs to marry quickly - to a woman of good character. And smart, beautiful Ester fits the bill. But a harrowing trip to Gretna Green and dangerous abolition rallies prove to be a more treacherous stage than either imagined.

Joe King Oliver’s beloved Grandma B has found a tumor, and at her age, treatment is high-risk. She’s lived life fully and without regrets, and now has only a single, dying wish: to see her long-lost son. King has been estranged from his father, Chief Odin Oliver, since he was a young boy. He swore to never speak to the man again when he was taken away in handcuffs. But now, Grandma B’s pure ask has opened King’s heart, and through his hunt, he gains a deeper understanding of his father as a complicated, righteous man—a man defined by women, a man protected by women, a man he wants to know.

When Savvy Summers first opened Essie's soul food café, she never expected her customer-favorite sweet potato pie to become the center of a murder investigation. But when Grandy Jaspers, the 75-year-old neighborhood womanizer, drops dead at table two, she suddenly has more to worry about than just maintaining Essie's reputation for the finest soul food in the Chicagoland area.

Hayden is enjoying a much-needed girls’ trip in Vegas. While basking in the comforts of the plush suites at HAYDAR Resort & Casino, they eat exceptionally well, tour the town safely, and role-play—for fun only. On the last night, the group of ladies dress as sex workers. Separated from the group, Hayden is mistaken for a real prostitute by a brooding, remarkably handsome man. Playing along, Hayden sets her price to attend a dinner function with him. Her conduct at the event earns her a "john" for the night.

Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist for the PEN / Faulkner Award for Fiction Percival Everett by Virgil Russell is a story inside a story inside a story. A man visits his ageing father in a nursing home, where his father writes the novel he imagines his son would write. Or is...

Love that says something, instead of just looking like it. Love you can always trust to feel like home. For both of them, it’s something that has always been just outside of their peripheral, something to be observed rather than experienced. A depth of feeling reserved for people who were “into” that, those with a different outlook, those more...deserving. Until their paths cross.

Nataya is my world. My rock. My wife. Our marriage was perfect. Or so I thought. Reality hits me hard when I come home to an empty bedroom and a scribbled note on our bed. It’s over. Or so she thinks. I’d rather lose my sanity than lose her. I thought convincing Nataya to start again would be easy.

Curtis Wilson is a cello prodigy, growing up in the Southeast D.C. projects with a drug dealer for a father. But through determination and talent, and the loving support of his father’s girlfriend, Larissa, Curtis claws his way out of his challenging circumstances and rises to unimagined heights in the classical music world—even soloing with the New York Philharmonic. And then, suddenly, his life disintegrates. His father, Zippy, turns state’s evidence, implicating his old bosses. Now the family—Curtis included—must enter the witness protection program if they want to survive.

Iris Green is a woman with a plan. Between her role as the director of partnerships at a beauty company and raising her daughter alone, there’s no room in her life for spontaneity. One thing she hadn’t planned for is a certain singer walking into her office and taking her breath away. Angel Harrison has it made. He’s a successful musician and he’s just scored a brand ambassador deal with an emerging beauty company. But he’s still not fulfilled; there’s a gaping hole in his love life. That is, until he meets Iris at the company headquarters and feels like things might be about to change.

The dust may have just settled in the failed war of conquest between the Holy Vaalbaran Empire and the Ominirish Republic, but the last Emperor’s surrender means little to a lowly scribe like Enitan. All she wants is to quit her day job and expand her fledgling tea business. But when her lover is assassinated and her sibling is abducted by Imperial soldiers, Enitan abandons her idyllic plans and weaves her tea tray up through the heart of the Vaalbaran capital.

Their chemistry is undeniable. Their timing... might be inevitable. The Heights is on the brink of change, but not everyone’s ready for it—not without grabbing their piece of the pie first. Camille Monroe knows the Heights deserves more than the scraps it’s been given. She’s here to fight, to make sure its people finally get what they’re owed. Duke has spent years protecting the Heights, carving out a space where its community can survive and thrive. Outsiders? He doesn’t trust them—especially not ones with polished smiles and political connections. But Camille isn’t just anyone.

This program is read by award-winning narrator Dion Graham. "Devil Is Fine is self-deprecatingly tender, often bracingly hilarious, and at its heart is a runaway train through the haunted house of us. And I loved it. Don't miss it." —Dion Graham "Graham’s rich, inviting, sigh-inducing voice...

Welcome to the Northwestern Hemisphere, 2529. An equally exciting and terrifying world born from the ashes of our own, where almost half of people are born invisible, and thus relegated to second-class citizenship. Sweetmint, a young invisible woman, has done everything right her entire life, from excelling in school to landing a highly sought-after apprenticeship with a mysterious, powerful inventor.

In the fall of 1962, Jemma Barker is desperate to escape her life in Chicago--and the spirits she has always been able to see. When she receives an unexpected job offer from the Duchon family in New Orleans . . . But Jemma discovers that this family isn't what they seem. Their tenuous hold on reality extends to all the members of their eccentric clan. And soon, the shocking truth comes out: the Duchons are under a curse. And they think Jemma can break it.

Myomi Ford has been unlucky in love since she experienced her first crush. Although in a new relationship, she has an unsettling feeling that her current man Xion is just like the others. But without proof, she is left wondering, suspecting, and predicting, which has naturally caused a rift in her relationship. All the beauty has ever wished for was for someone to be about her and love her as deeply as she loved them. At the moment, however, that seems impossible to find.

When I envisioned the life that I wanted for myself, I pictured myself sitting in a rocking chair in the nursery me and my husband had spent months designing. I pictured looking down at a baby that resembled the both of us, and thanking God that he chose me to be their mother. My reality was that I was staring down at another negative pregnancy test and realizing the possibility that I had failed another cycle of IVF, alone. There was no husband here to comfort me, or a nursery that I could sit and sob in. Each time that one line appeared, a small piece of me always died inside.

Striking in their emotional immediacy, the stories in Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self are based in a world where inequality is reality but where the insecurities of adolescence and young adulthood, and the tensions within family and the community, are sometimes the biggest complicating forces in one's sense of identity and the choices one makes.