African American Literature Fiction

A stint at the Branch Avenue Boys' Youth Institute taught Ricky, Derrick, and Jamal to unite when the going got tough. But fallout from their very different adult lives is making loyalty something they can't afford - and igniting drama they never saw coming. Arrested during a city-wide raid, Ricky must inform on DC's drug kingpin, Dolla Dolla - and find the woman who loved and betrayed him. Institute head Derrick hopes reuniting with his fiancee will keep his secret affair with a colleague in the past. And Jamal has a backroom deal with DC's corrupt mayor.

Ever since he was a child, the only thing Cyril Anderson wanted was to be down with his brother Cane's crew. Cane Anderson, leader of the notorious Bankroll Crips, was invincible - or so Cyril thought. On the night of Cyril's initiation, things take a terrible turn and leave Cane lying dead in a pool of his own blood. Now the leader of a blood-thirsty gang, there is only one thing that Cyril wants to do: seek revenge.

Around the Way Girls 10, like its predecessors, is a fast-paced look at the lives of some street-smart women who think they know it all but are about to get the lessons of their lives.

Midori Hunter has it all, and on the outside looking in, one would think Midori is happy, but it's another story when you don't marry for love. Tired of her cheating husband and with being lonely, Midori takes a liking to Jaydah B., the sassy best-selling author. They appear to be a match made in heaven. When the lies that both women have told threaten to be exposed, who decides who stays and who goes? Midori and Jaydah have a lot on the line, and both could lose everything they've worked for. That's why their love affair has to remain their little secret.

Urban Books' popular Around the Way Girls series is back, bringing readers more dramatic tales about the lives of some tough, resourceful women who can hold their own when things get rough on the streets. Growing up poor and biracial, Shannon never quite fit in. Not truly accepted by either side of her family, the confused teenager turns to the one thing that loves her back unconditionally - the streets. With a bottle of liquor at her side and a worthless mentality in tow, Shannon allows the local strip club and the pole to become her new family.

Young and naive, Tiara Rogers learns the hard way what happens when you are green in the game. She has everything a girl could ever want, except a normal life. Not understanding that being the daughter of Dallas, Texas kingpin, makes her a walking target, she does everything she can to defy her father, including losing her virginity when she falls hard for the charm of a boy she barely knows.

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?

Baby Girl McCoy was given her name when her mother couldn’t even be bothered to give her another one in the hospital after she gave birth. Baby Girl was the product of rape, and she spends her life in a quest for a father figure. Never in a million years did she imagine that she’d find it in the man that she does.

Following in the successful footsteps of its predecessors, Around the Way Girls 6 features three popular authors presenting their versions of the tough, street-smart girls that everyone loves.

Tiphani Fuller is on the run for her life. This former district attorney, wife of a Baltimore detective, and mother of two has burnt bridges and left dead bodies across the country. Now she has nowhere to turn but to the home she ran from in her youth. As a child, Tiphani did everything to put the bullet-infested and crime-laden streets of Flint in her rearview mirror. Now she finds herself back in the community with people she swore she would never deal with again.

Ntozake Shange’s most beloved novel, Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, is the story of three “colored girls,” three sisters and their mama from Charleston, South Carolina. Sassafrass, the oldest, is a poet and a weaver like her mother, gone north to college and living with other artists in Los Angeles, trying to weave a life out of her work, her man, her memories, and her dreams.

Nikki’s life was a wreck—three years wasted with a deadbeat boyfriend, and then a huge fight with her best friend, Tia. Now, with a promotion at work and a loving new man—who respects her—life is finally going as planned. Until one day, when Tia reveals a secret that will blow Nikki’s new life apart.

Derrick. Ricky. Jamal. One's responsible; one's still a player; one's upwardly-mobile. Sentenced to the Branch Avenue Boys' Youth Institute at 12, they grabbed the chance for better futures. They beat the odds and turned their lives around. But now, these three best friends will go head-to-head with ambition, deception - and each other.

When the office lotto pool lands the winning ticket for four friends, each will embark on journeys that change their lives forever. After years of stringing her along, Terrance has reluctantly married his longtime girlfriend, Sheray...just days before winning the lottery. When the money drives a wedge between them, Sheray leaves and Terrance learns the hard way to be careful what you wish for. Angelique has been overweight since she was young. When she uses some of her winnings to get weight loss surgery, her new body and new attitude could cost her the man she loves.

Amaryllis Price is back and wreaking havoc on the lives of those around her. After witnessing Randall Loomis leave with a new wife and family, she starts a new chapter. She decides to move to Las Vegas to live with her sister, attorney at law Michelle Denise Price. Michelle is engaged to Minister James Bradley, and it doesn’t take long for Amaryllis to become envious. She wishes to destroy Michelle’s fairy-tale relationship and take James away for herself. Amaryllis concocts an evil recipe for destruction, but this devilish diva is about to get a dose of her own medicine.

Oreo is raised by her maternal grandparents in Philadelphia. Her black mother tours with a theatrical troupe, and her Jewish deadbeat dad disappeared when she was an infant, leaving behind a mysterious note that triggers her quest to find him. What ensues is a playful, modernized parody of the classical odyssey of Theseus with a feminist twist, immersed in seventies pop culture, and mixing standard English, black vernacular, and Yiddish with wisecracking aplomb.

According to Max Disher, an ambitious young black man in 1930s New York, someone of his race has only three alternatives: "Get out, get white, or get along." Incapable of getting out and unhappy with getting along, Max leaps at the remaining possibility. Thanks to a certain Dr. Junius Crookman and his mysterious process, Max and other eager clients develop bleached skin that permits them to enter previously forbidden territory. What they discover in white society, however, gives them second thoughts.

In Jesmyn Ward's first novel since her National Book Award-winning Salvage the Bones, this singular American writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural 21st-century America. An intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle, Sing, Unburied, Sing journeys through Mississippi's past and present, examining the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power - and limitations - of family bonds.

Nationally best-selling author Niobia Bryant lays down smooth and sexy fiction for her adoring fans. Here, four friends must deal with a shocking betrayal from within their group. Jaime, Renee, Aria, and Jessa have stuck together through it all. But the group is stunned when Jessa texts the other three a confession regarding an affair with someone’s husband—and she won’t reveal whose man she’s been sleeping with.

Yetu holds the memories for her people - water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners - who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly, is forgotten by everyone, save one - the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu. Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface, escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities.