African American Families

Roux is a novel that brims with family, secrets, and love. Award-winning author Tamika Christy writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of relationships, and the family ties that bond. Written in the vein of Steel Magnolias, the story takes us into the lives of African American families with their unique hardships, triumphs in relationships, culture, and values. It is relatable, comforting, and challenging.

When Julie hears her favorite cousin is in town, she's ready for girly nights, glamor, and gossip. But when she learns her distant cousin Melina is also around, things don't seem as exciting. Melina is a conniving gold digger, and not the kind of woman you'd want to leave around your man! So how will the "too kind for his own good" Steven hold up?

In 1791, Thomas Jefferson hired a Black man to help survey Washington, DC. That man was Benjamin Banneker, an African American mathematician, a writer of almanacs, and one of the greatest astronomers of his generation. Banneker then wrote what would become a famous letter to Jefferson, imploring the new president to examine his hypocrisy, as someone who claimed to love liberty yet was an enslaver. More than two centuries later, Rachel Jamison Webster, an ostensibly white woman, learns that this groundbreaking Black forefather is also her distant relative.

Grandma BB, the unofficial matriarch of the Jamieson clan, is getting her house in order for the perfect homegoing celebration. After all, she’s eighty-something. She summons Parke Jamieson VI, his brothers, cousins, and their families to play a part in the practice funeral program—only if they follow her instructions to the letter. Since the Jamiesons are at her house with bodyguards Chip and Dale, they might have an impromptu family game night. The evening is full of surprises, especially when an unexpected visitor shows up to steal the show.

Countless Black Americans descended from slavery are related to the enslavers who bought and sold their ancestors. Among them is Dionne Ford, whose great grandmother was the last of six children born to a Louisiana cotton broker and the enslaved woman he received as a wedding gift. What shapes does this kind of intergenerational trauma take? In this book, which move between her inner life and deep research, Ford tells us.

Cris Burks won widespread acclaim for her engaging first novel, SilkyDreamGirl. Burks' second offering follows the life of a determined girl struggling toward adulthood in 1950s Chicago. The devastating discovery that "Daddy" is not her real father opens a great chasm in Neecey's world and leads to Neecey's abusive mother bringing a succession of no-good men into the home. Nevertheless, as she grows into a woman, the resilient Neecey strives to overcome despair and forge a new life for herself.

A fun listen-aloud written in upbeat rhyming verse, Girl Dad is a book that honors the strong men who raise, love, and uplift strong girls.

Isaiah ""Ice"" Abernathy has always worshiped his older brother, Seth. For years they’ve been not just brothers but best friends—and as Seth starts his senior year, Ice is eager to spend as much time with his brother as he can, making memories before Seth goes to college.

Sicily Jordan’s worst nightmare has come true! She’s been enrolled in a new school, with zero of her friends and stuck wearing a fashion catastrophe of a uniform. But however bad Sicily thought sixth grade was going to be, it only gets worse when she does her class presentation.

Sophomore Kalvin Shmelton has finally perfected his underground candy-selling hustle at school. He keeps his prices reasonable, his inventory fresh, and himself out of the drama. But when a heartbroken Sterling Glistern—Kal’s longtime crush—barges into the storage closet where he keeps his candy supply, a new source of income unexpectedly presents itself: relationship therapist. He only meant to help Sterling realize she’s dating a jerk—and maybe win her over—but news spreads fast that Kalvin’s not just the master of sweets…but hearts, too!

This story was told to Anthony Weathers years ago. Upon hearing it, he felt compelled to write a story based on these true events. Why Ruin Another Life is set in the 1950s in Black Mississippi. It is a generational journey about how lives can be altered by an event or person. Hattie sets in motion a chain of events that unravel, that induced a domino effect. This single event had a profound and lasting impact, triggering a thunderstorm for years to come, and the lessons learned came at a high cost.

Brady Bledsoe and his mother, Carmyn, have a strong relationship. A single mother, faithful churchgoer, and the owner of several successful Atlanta beauty salons, Carmyn has devoted herself to her son and his dream of becoming a professional football player. Brady has always followed her lead, including becoming a member of the church's "Celibacy Circle".

In the early 1900s an important ship sinks into the Caribbean Sea, just as the Virgin Islands are transferred from Danish to American rule. Orphaned by the sunk vessel are two sisters and their half-brother, now faced with an uncertain identity and future. Each of them is unusually beautiful, and each is in possession of a particular magic that will either sink or save them. Chronicling three generations of an island family from 1916 to the 1970s, Land of Love and Drowning is a novel of love and magic.

Blamed as a child for her baby sister's death, Dianne Rucker swore she'd never come back to Dentonville, Texas. But the kind aunt who took her in after her mother abandoned her is getting remarried, and she misses the cousins who came to be sisters, Yolanda and Regina. Going back to Dentonville also means facing her drug-addicted mother, now slipping even farther into schizophrenia. But Dianne isn't the only one struggling, and Aunt Gloria may have the most life-altering secret of all.

In this deeply researched, movingly narrated portrait of the extended Townsend family, R. Isabela Morales reconstructs the migration of this mixed-race family across the American West and South over the second half of the nineteenth century. Searching for communities where they could exercise their newfound freedom and wealth to the fullest, members of the family homesteaded and attended college in Ohio and Kansas; fought for the Union Army in Mississippi; mined for silver in the Colorado Rockies; and, in the case of one son, returned to Alabama.

Professional basketball player Nate Guillory has a good life. He enjoyed his childhood as the only child in a single-parent home. There is only one thing he feels he missed out on: knowing his father. Although he had a great upbringing, he feels that it is his right to know the identity of his father and why they weren’t afforded the opportunity to have a relationship. Because his mother isn’t as forthcoming with information, Nate seeks out rapper, Noah Brooks, who is the bonus son of his now deceased father.

A grieving Hector Peterson and his estranged father Winston Telemacque arrive on the lush island of Dominica in 2017 to spread his mother’s ashes when Hurricane Maria strikes. Amid the devastation, the fragile peace between father and son is tested as long-buried family secrets at the heart of Hector’s identity are unearthed. Hector faces down his failed marriage, shipwrecked career, and his own failures as a father, while Winston, after three decades of striving as an immigrant in Boston, seeks to reclaim the losses from a painful childhood and the bloody betrayal by his one true love.

After World War II, Needham family members migrated north to Philadelphia from South Carolina, leaving behind the tragic injustice surrounding the violent death of their patriarch, King. His devoted widow, Selma, remains on the old home place. Over the years, she raises King's children, including his great-grandson, Rayne, on whom falls the responsibility to bring the family together to save the family land and mend the rift between him and his mother.

In cosmopolitan Johannesburg, three high-flying couples form the core of the elite Khula Society: part investment group, part social club, with meetings where the champagne flows, the dresses are designer and the one-upmanship is off the scale. Noma, Moshidi, Lerato and their husbands are living the dream—or so it appears from the outside. In reality, the cut and thrust of ‘keeping up with the Khulas’ is taking its toll on all three couples.

Ein Mann, dessen Welt plötzlich zusammenbricht. Der Paläontologe Zach Wells hat sich in seiner selbstironischen Abgeklärtheit bequem eingerichtet: Idealen misstraut er - ob an der Universität, wo er, selbst Afroamerikaner, sich nicht für Gleichberechtigung einsetzt, oder zu Hause in der erkalteten Beziehung zu seiner Frau. Einziges Licht in seinem Leben ist die zwölfjährige schachspielende Tochter Sarah. Als diese ihr Sehvermögen verliert und eine erschütternde Diagnose folgt, flieht Zach in die Wüste New Mexicos.