Showing results by narrator "J. D. Jackson" in All Categories

Nine-year-old "Skid" Beaumont's family is stuck in the Louisiana swamps. His father’s vision of New Orleans spreading out into the swamps during the oil boom has brought them there, but the constructions stop short, the dream fizzles out, and the Beaumonts find themselves sinking in a soggy corner of 1980s America. This is the story of Skid’s family, his black mother and white father and his 3 brothers.

Prayer changes everything. Yet so many things get in the way of communicating with our powerful and loving Creator: distraction, hardship, doubt, anger, busyness, unforgiveness, and more. In 10 Prayer Secrets, Hakeem Collins reveals 10 keys to life-changing results that come through the art of prayer. 

God has a plan for your life. More often than not, it's a detour - one that can leave you feeling temporarily stalled and slowed down. Which nobody likes. But detours are necessary if any improvements are going to be made on the paths we travel. Or if any wreck is going to be cleaned up or a hazard avoided. Detours are designed for our own good, regardless of how we view or feel about them. Detours are a good thing that often feels bad. Tony knows a thing or two about detours.

Tim Scott, an African-American US senator, and Trey Gowdy, a white US congressman, won’t allow racial lines to divide them. They work together, eat meals together, campaign together, and make decisions together. Yet in the fall of 2010 - as two brand-new members of the US House of Representatives - they did not even know each other. Their story as politicians and friends began the moment they met and is a model for others seeking true reconciliation.

From the award-winning author of Parable of the Sower: After the near-extinction of the human race, one young man with extraordinary gifts will reveal whether the human race can learn from its past and rebuild their future ... or is doomed to self-destruction. In the future, nuclear war has...

A "heartbreakingly resonant" thriller about the explosive intersection of love, race, and justice from a writer and producer of the Emmy-winning Fox TV show Empire (USA Today). "In Bluebird, Bluebird Attica Locke had both mastered the thriller and exceeded it."-Ann Patchett When it comes to law...

Author-illustrator Vashti Harrison shines a bold, joyous light on black men through history in this #1 New York Times bestseller. An important book for readers of all ages, this beautifully illustrated and engagingly written volume brings to life true stories of black men in history. Among these...

Zelda is stuck in a dream, a very strange dream where people can fly, bears sneeze money, and her childhood cat, Patches, is somehow alive—despite being run over years ago. Things only get stranger when Zelda meets Langston, a sweet if overly timid guy who feels more real to her than anyone she’s ever met. As Zelda and Langston explore the far reaches of the dreamscape together, they find themselves growing closer and closer. But what they uncover along the way pushes them towards a truth neither of them wants to face.

Diana Wolf likes to think she has it all: a rock-god husband, an empty nest, a wine cellar, and a dream home in the woods. Life is good. It has to be. But when she hires a cartographer, Kerry Perkins, to survey and map her estate in rural Tennessee, she pulls back a frayed corner of the lie that is her fairytale life. On his first night at Wolf Hollow, Kerry stumbles across a young girl's skeleton buried in the woods. But what really scares Diana is a familiar symbol carved into the girl’s skull: two wolves. 

We are here at home now, watching the world through our windows. Outside we see the city we know, but not as we’ve seen it before. The once hustling and bustling streets are empty—well, almost empty. Around the city there are still some people out and about. These are the people keeping us safe, keeping us healthy, keeping our mail and our food delivered, keeping our grocery stores stocked, keeping the whole city going. 

Imagine a world devoid of violence - a world where fists can’t hit, guns don’t kill, and bombs can’t destroy. In this tantalizing novel of possibility, this has - suddenly and inexplicably - become our new reality. The US president must find a new way to wage war. The pope ponders whether the Commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill” is still relevant.

Langston Brown is running out of time and options for clearing his name and escaping death row. Wrongfully convicted of the gruesome Mother's Day Massacre, he prepares to face his death. His final hope for salvation lies with his daughter, Liza, an artist who dreamed of a life of music and song but left the prestigious Juilliard School to pursue a law degree with the intention of clearing her father's name.

This anthology edited by the American writer, philosopher, and patron of the arts Alain Locke brings together some of the most influential pieces of African American works from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Featuring the voices of Zora Neale Thurston, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Langston Hughes, Locke included commentary on the emergence of the New Negro Movement, also known as the Harlem Renaissance. The New Negro is considered to be the definitive text on the movement.

The last scion of a once-powerful political family, Worcester mayor John O'Toole has his sights set on vastly higher aspirations. When night-shift paramedic Thomas Archer uncovers a secret that could upend the mayor's career, O'Toole is set on silencing him and sends Eamon Conroy, a brutal former cop, to ensure the truth remains under wraps.

To ex-detective John Barnes, the machine is a dangerous and abhorrent addiction. The criminal thoughts it embedded in his brain helped him stop a serial killer, but they left him dazed - with pounding, murderous impulses. Having turned in his badge to salvage what’s left of his psyche, Barnes must return to the darkness at the request of his former partner. A little girl has gone missing. So has Adrian Flaherty, the detective in the kidnapper’s shadow. And only Barnes can hear the clues. But the trail is more dizzying and more personal than he feared.

On a hot day in July 1919, five black youths went swimming in Lake Michigan, unintentionally floating close to the white beach. An angry white man began throwing stones at the boys, striking and killing one. Racial conflict on the beach erupted into days of urban violence that shook the city of Chicago to its foundations. This mesmerizing narrative draws on contemporary accounts as it traces the roots of the explosion that had been building for decades in race relations, politics, business, and clashes of culture.

You know the Super Soaker. It's one of the top 20 toys of all time. And it was an accidental discovery that brought it into being. Trying to create a new cooling system for refrigerators and air conditioners, inventor Lonnie Johnson instead created the mechanics for the iconic toy. A love of rockets, robots, and inventions and a mind for creativity were present in Lonnie Johnson's early life.

Born a slave in 1776, Gabriel grows up capable and literate only to be taken from his mother and sent to the capital city as a blacksmith’s apprentice. There in the forge, a meeting point for many travelers and news bearers, his work awakens him to the sparks of resistance that are igniting into rebellion around the globe. When he is unable to both defend the love of his life and earn the money to buy her freedom, Gabriel makes a decision: freedom for just his own family would not be enough.

The Civil War is over, though for Jupiter Smith, a former slave and Union soldier, many battles still lie ahead. He returns to the plantation he worked on before the war in search of his woman but rather finds his old master gone mad, haunting the ruins like a ghost. Out of pity for the now mentally ill colonel, Jupiter strangles him and heads west to seek a new life in San Francisco.

A stunning debut historical noir novel about a worker in the civil rights movement who became an informant for the FBI during the months leading up to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Feeling underappreciated and overlooked, John Estem, a bookkeeper for Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), steals ten thousand dollars from the organization. Originally planning to use the money to seed a new civil rights initiative in Chicago, he squanders the stolen funds.