African American Contemporary

It’s the summer of 2019, and Professor Pi Suleman is a Black man from Memphis with a lot to endure - not only as a Black man in Trump’s America but in his hard-earned career as an adjunct professor. Pi is constantly forced to bite his tongue in the face of one of his tenured colleague’s prejudices and microaggressions. At the same time, he’s being blackmailed by a powerful professor who threatens to claim he has assaulted her, when in fact the truth is just the opposite, trapping him in a he-said-she-said with a white woman that, in this society, Pi knows he will never win.

For Simone, the only thing she cares about is looking out for the people she loves, maintaining a great reputation as a massage therapist, and building a family with the only man she's ever been with. When she overhears her longtime boyfriend talking about wanting a hall pass, she's furious, and what starts as a one-sided request soon becomes the opportunity she never knew she needed.

Some secrets will kill you. No one knows that better than Jada, Alex, Miranda, and Candace, who’ve previously lost one of their friends, Stephanie, following a heartbreaking betrayal. Now Stephanie’s boyfriend, Corey, is hitting the streets of Atlanta with a vengeance in an effort to get the haters that took his girlfriend’s life, all while trying to take back his title as the king of the hood. Stephanie may be dead now, but the secrets lingering between the rest of the crew seem to just keep piling up and coming to the forefront.

You ever wonder what events led up to an individual’s inability to trust in love? Rayna Brimm survives a series of betrayals and loss, only to forge ahead into self-preservation. After receiving her degree, she finds herself in California and tries to build a self-contained life. Enter Azmir Jacobs. A tall, dark, handsome, and very wealthy man, whose street credibility and executive power in the corporate world has beautiful women at his beck and call. However, only one woman has caught his eye: the resilient Rayna Brimm, who turns out to be more than he bargained for.

Eric Jerome Dickey's boldly sensual new novel centers on what his fans love best - steamy romance and shocking betrayal. This is an edge-of-your-seat novel about a good man who loves his wife, Genevieve, but finds himself drawn against his best intentions into an affair - with his wife's sister. Both women have a mysterious and tragic past that raises the stakes in this fast-paced novel.

Ojasvi "Sin" Sinclair. Fast-forwarding three years after it was finally revealed, what's in a name? Ashira now knows the man she once thought of as a felon laborer is far more than the task she'd bargained for. Yes, he's a convicted felon who works in home-building. He's also convicted in his spiritual walk, a savvy entrepreneur, laboriously supportive, a tad insane, and has possibly run out of patience for her. He's also the father of her three-year-old child.

The day Christopher Johnson decided to kill me, I already knew what it was like to die. I had already experienced it once. Having the life leeched from my body, blood stolen from my veins, oxygen pulled from my lungs. When he decided to walk back into my life, I was in the middle of my third resurrection, healing from the loss of my brother when I was still raw from losing him.

Thalia, a 25-year-old wild girl gone good, moves back to her old neighborhood after a failed engagement and manages to catch the eye of the town's most wanted man - the incredibly sexy, single, devoted, and charismatic Reverend Isaac. Not only is there a large age difference between Thalia and the middle-aged pastor, but he also happens to be the father of Madison, her best friend since junior high school. Madison isn't trying to deal with her father dating anyone after her mother's death.

She's smart, gorgeous, and mysterious. For business executive Nathan Carver, a man with everything, Jessica Bolton is the first woman he can't simply charm, buy, or seduce. And even before Jessica gets a taste of his luxurious lifestyle and irresistible moves, she's determined to eliminate the competition and become this handsome bachelor's one and only. But Jessica's deceptive allure is just the beginning.

Happy in marriage and motherhood, Sherise is back at work and ready for a big promotion to White House press secretary - until an incompetent rival gets the job instead. Something's dirty and Sherise is going to get to the bottom of it... Billie's law career is thriving, and she's newly engaged. But between her fiancé's disapproving mother and his angry ex-girlfriend, Billie's plans for the future may be put on hold - permanently...

Mary Monroe is the author of Essence best-sellers including The Upper Room. Here, she examines the emotional webs that are woven between friends, lovers, and families. Carmen Taylor is absolutely dependable; she feels responsible for everyone she knows. It will take one reckless night to make Carmen realize that she might be able to lay her burdens down and take a chance on real happiness.

Essence best-selling author Daaimah S. Poole delivers the scandalous and sexy goods her fans can’t get enough of in this sizzling tale of women trying to score. Adrienne Sheppard isn’t raking it in as an NFL star’s baby mama, so she’s looking to get wifed. Zakiya Lee is pregnant by the NBA’s hottest new player, but fame is wearing her out. And sports reporter Cherise Long has a pro athlete picked out too—but he happens to be Adrienne’s man.

Debut novelist Michele Grant pens a juicy tale in Heard It All Before. Best friends Jewellen and Renee think they know Dallas men like the backs of their hands. But that’s before Jewellen unexpectedly falls for a guy from the wrong side of the tracks, and Renee gets lured away from her own man by a hard-bodied hottie.

It's been years since their parents were murdered. Twin sisters Shia and Leigh are trying to readjust to life while caring for their baby sister, Remi. With the exception of Leigh's angry, dramatic mood swings every now and then, everything seems to be going great. That is until Demetri, a mysterious stranger, enters their midst and falls right in the path of the newly single Shia. After dating Trent for so long, she is looking for a man to treat her like a queen, and Demetri is heaven sent...until inexplicable things begin to happen.

Evan Murdoch hoped things had finally settled down in his life. But now he's caught between two feuding women: his pregnant fiancée and his recovering alcoholic wife, who's fighting their divorce with every dirty, seductive trick she's got. But even that doesn't compare to the dangerous secret Evan's harboring - one that could send a Murdoch to jail for a very long time.

Leticia Langley is used to fighting for what she wants. That's how she wound up being the first in her family to graduate from college. So what if she's never had a date? All that's about to change when she gets herself a job as a food columnist for The Journal - and treats herself to a makeover that will transform her life. With her hot weave and a dazzling new wardrobe that shows off her curves, the opposite sex suddenly takes a shine to Leticia.

Nationally best-selling author Mary Monroe penned the widely acclaimed novels God Don't Like Ugly and God Still Don't Like Ugly. Red Light Wives is a sassy and scandalous novel of six women who engage in the world's oldest profession. They have something else in common too, their "manager," Clyde Brooks - a charismatic but hard man who fills many roles in each woman's life. But soon, an act of rebellion may change their relationship forever.

Lutishia Lovely writes tales of church life that are positively scandalous - in all the right ways. Side-splittingly funny, bawdy, and chock-full of oh-no- you-did-not moments, A Preacher's Passion stars Passion Perkins, who despite her name hasn't had a man in her inner sanctum for five long years. But things are about to change.

The Company We Keep follows successful record executive Teri Stewart as she scours L.A. for love. Just when she's ready to give up on men altogether, into her life strolls charming DJ Harrison Starr. He's got it going on - obviously - but he's also hiding a dark secret that could destroy their budding romance.

In the hood, every day is about struggle and survival, and no one understands that daily grind more than 22-year-old Kaeyla “Goldie” Dennis. She’s been the “wifey” of an older, wealthy man since she was 15, but the discovery of their longtime affair by his real wife brings to a crushing end her hood-fabulous lifestyle in their low-rise project in Newark.