African American English

Antonio, born of an affair between a beautiful actress and a notorious crime boss, lost his mother to drugs and was forced to navigate foster care and survive on the streets of the Bronx. He is ignored by his father, the infamous head of a powerful crime syndicate, and his half-brothers are living the life Antonio used to dream about. Antonio has turned his struggles into a career in the NBA, but when a devastating injury sidelines his basketball career and he finds out he has been duped out of millions by his best friend, Antonio is forced to turn to the father who never claimed him.

Since they were five years old, Jasmine Cox Larson Bush and Kyla Blake had a bond that could not be broken. They shared secrets, marked milestones, and held each other up through life's adversities. It was a friendship they both thought would last forever. But when Jasmine's jealousy led her to seduce Kyla's husband, Dr. Jefferson Blake, that bond was severed, and their friendship was damaged forever.... Now, 20 years later, a major tragedy brings the two together when Jefferson, in New York for a medical convention, is shot in an attempted robbery.

Jamison "Kango" Watts was once known as an invisible man, a quiet "fixer" who always got the job done with clean hands and cash in his pocket. Now, he's living the quiet life in DC, running a soul food restaurant. When he learns about an old friend's death, Kango returns to Brooklyn for the wake - and barely survives after a masked gunman puts two slugs in him. Someone has a score to settle, a beef Kango can't afford to bring back to his new life in DC.

Gabby and Mischelle are best friends. Mischelle is despondent, unable to get over the hurt and betrayal of finding out her husband cheated on her with a younger woman - and even worse, he walked out on her and their children. Meanwhile, Gabby's relationship has imploded, and her ex refuses to believe it's over and has started to stalk her. To get away from all the chaos, the women head to Tybee Island, Georgia, looking for a weekend of fun in the sun. Once they get there, they encounter two charismatic yet mysterious men who have the power to inexplicably change their lives forever.

Diamond, the sassy vixen that you love to hate, is back, and she has a few more tricks up her sleeve. After Kemp's death, she quickly moves on and shacks up with his best friend, Black. Unfortunately, things aren't running as smoothly as they expected. Diamond is quickly losing control of the situation - and her emotions - after multiple attempts on her life by one of the victims she believed she'd killed. To make matters worse, people from her past keep popping up and causing a ruckus, including the father that walked out on her 10 years earlier.

Sometimes going hard means sacrificing the very thing you love the most in order to be at the top. Gwen knows firsthand about this sacrifice as she struggles to get her son back from a heartless killer bent on revenge. Niya, on the other hand, is sitting at the top of the throne. Still, she will have to determine whether she’s willing to sacrifice her girls’ lives in order to make MHB a dominant force in North Carolina’s drug trade. She’s about to find out that playing with the big boys has its consequences, unless you are really about that life.

In Choosing Sides, Malek became affiliated with the North Side's biggest kingpin, and Halleigh was manipulated into the streets by his South Side adversary. North versus South, love versus loyalty, and lies versus truth. Now the saga continues in Working Girls, as we are introduced to the Manolo Mamis, the baddest chicks in the game. They're playin' for keeps, and their services come with a price - an expensive one.

Following in the footsteps of its successful predecessors, Around the Way Girls Seven showcases three popular Urban Books authors and their versions of some very tough, street-smart girls. Nina and Mouse are a couple just trying to survive the hater nation. Only problem is Nina's a little paranoid when it comes to other women, and Mouse is usually guilty as charged. Fed up with Mouse's cheating, Nina begins to creep a little herself, but will her revenge blow up in her face?

For three years of the War Between the States, Marlie Lynch has helped the cause in peace: with coded letters about anti-Rebel uprisings in her Carolina woods, tisanes and poultices for Union prisoners, and silent aid to fleeing slave and Freeman alike. Her formerly enslaved mother's traditions and the name of a white father she never knew have protected her - until the vicious Confederate Home Guard claims Marlie's home for their new base of operations in the guerilla war against Southern resistors of the Rebel cause.

What if you were raised to be a hooker and, worst of all, your father was your pimp? In "Keepin' It in the Family", this isn't just a nightmare for the Collins daughters, this is reality. Raised without the guidance of their mother, Diamond, Essence, and Chanel were forced onto the streets at a very young age. They were expected to make that money by any means necessary or face the wrath of their daddy, Dallas Collins. Can the girls band together to free themselves from Dallas?

Veteran authors Ashley and JaQuavis offer up their first solo efforts, and they're hotter than ever! Along with Ayana Ellis, they introduce listeners to some "real sistas" who know how to get what they want at all costs. For these women, if it's dangerous it just means the payout will be that much sweeter.

Newly sober Barbara Bentley, her womanizing husband, Bradford, and the other wealthy residents of Silver Lake are steering their lives in new directions. And then royalty arrives in the person of Baroness Veronique Valentine, who claims to be everyone's friend.

The untimely death of St. Louis kingpin King David has left a vacuum in the underworld. He leaves behind his vast empire to his surviving heirs, David Jr. and Davita. Born barely one year apart, they were raised in very different worlds. Will the family ties that bind keep the families together, or will sex, greed, drugs, and their mothers' divisive ways tear it all to hell, bringing St. Louis down with them? David Jr. and Davita have decisions to make!

Only the world's most beautiful models make the roster of Picture Perfect Modeling agency, and they only do shoots for the most elite photographers and magazines. They are fashionista royalty - and the owners, Bentley L. Dean and his beautiful partner Alexandra, know it. But even Picture Perfect isn't immune from hard times; so when Sterling Sneed, a rich, celebrity party planner promises to pay a ridiculously high fee for some models, Bentley finds he can't refuse.

For Black Americans, the food system is broken. When it comes to nutrition, Black consumers experience an unjust and inequitable distribution of resources. Black Food Matters examines these issues through in-depth essays that analyze how Blackness is contested through food, differing ideas of what makes our sustenance "healthy", and Black individuals' own beliefs about what their cuisine should be.

When Desiree Johnson receives an unexpected call from her brother, Ernest, Jr., about their father, she and her 16-year-old son, Tyree, pack up and rush to her family's summer home in Idlewild. Desiree hasn't been to Michigan in over 17 years, but when her family calls, she feels she has no choice but to answer. As the summer heats up, Desiree struggles to balance the joy of returning to the community that shaped her childhood with the overwhelming memories of the love and pain she suffered the last summer she spent there,

The era known as Reconstruction is one of the unhappiest times in American history. It succeeded in reuniting the nation politically after the Civil War but in little else. Conflict shifted from the battlefield to the Capitol as Congress warred with President Andrew Johnson over just what to do with the South. Johnson's plan of Presidential Reconstruction, which was sympathetic to the former Confederacy, would ultimately lead to his impeachment and the institution of Radical Reconstruction.

Two years after being released from Camp Green Lake, Armpit is home in Austin, Texas, trying to turn his life around. But it's hard when you have a record, and everyone expects the worst from you. The only person who believes in him is Ginny, his 10-year-old disabled neighbor. Together, they are learning to take small steps. And he seems to be on the right path, until X-Ray, a buddy from Camp Green Lake, comes up with a get-rich-quick scheme.

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.

In this suspenseful Southern tale, we are introduced to King, a Southern born and bred hustler who is determined to take the drug empire handed to him by his father into the legitimate world of the music industry. Little does he know that when the streets birth you, trying to leave can be deadly. King's life is looking good when he meets a beautiful, classy queen.