African American Literature Fiction

Nia Hudson, fashion powerhouse and philanthropist, swore love wasn't for her because she was too busy chasing after her dreams. But when a blast from the past resurfaces and refuses to take "no" for an answer, Nia decides to give him one hour of her time. Before she knows it, the two have become a couple. East and Nia have nothing in common; he's the complete opposite of everything for which she stands. East is definitely living life in the fast lane, selling everything he can get his hands on and not knowing when the Feds - or friends disguised as enemies - might come after him.

On October 20, 1973, in San Francisco, a White couple strolling down Telegraph Hill was set upon and butchered by four young Black men. Thus began a reign of terror that lasted six months and left 15 Whites dead and the entire city in a state of panic. The perpetrators wanted nothing less than a race war.

Queenie Jenkins is a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle-class peers. After a messy breakup from her White long-term boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places...including several hazardous men who do a good job of occupying brain space and a bad job of affirming self-worth.

Yejide and Akin have been married since they met and fell in love at university. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide have always agreed: Polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage - after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying strange teas and unlikely cures - Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time - until her family arrives on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin's second wife.

Gangsta Divas puts listeners on the streets of Memphis, where gang wars are heating up thanks to the arrival of dangerous new players - the Cripettes. Ta’shara is planning to knock her sister off her perch and climbing to the top of the game. Qiana’s deal with the devil places her directly in the crosshairs of forces ready to take her out. And Queen G LeShelle’s list of enemies keeps on growing. But for these gangsta divas, it’s all part of the game - one they’re determined to win.

Having earned starred reviews and a fervent following for her urban Christian fiction, Leslie J. Sherrod delivers the first in a riveting new series. In Losing Hope, Sienna St. James thinks she’s finally close to getting over her long-lost, globetrotting husband. Or so she thinks. One Tuesday, everything begins to come apart when a succession of strange events - including the mystery surrounding a girl named Hope - brings her past, present, and future into question.

When it comes to love, hate, trust, honesty, lying, cheating, deceit, betrayal, drama, money, power, respect, and backbreaking, limitless, raw, and uncut sex, this monthly urban soap, Single Ladies, takes you to a whole nother level of play. There will be no holding back, no biting of the tongue, and best believe the gloves are coming off when five childhood friends take you through the everyday life of living as a female in the hood. Expect everything...but boredom!

Founded in the late 1800s by the son of Frederick Douglass, Highland Beach along the Chesapeake Bay is the oldest Black resort community in America. Inside this proud and secluded beach community of about 100 private homes is Olivia Jones’s legacy. But Oliva’s legacy comes with thorns—intertwined are secrets of her aunt’s death; a controlling grandmother who is determined to crush anyone or anything that will interfere with her son’s political career; and a father who wants to rebuild the family he rejected decades ago.

All he ever wanted to be was a good son. Shai Clark was an all-American basketball player with aspirations of one day making it to the NBA, but that all changed when his father was viciously murdered and he found himself thrust into the role of the new head of his family's criminal enterprise.

The Reconstruction and Rise of Jim Crow describes the fallout of the Civil War, whose aftermath left the United States South angry and poor. This book details the struggles to decide how to deal with the newly freed slaves, through the years of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, sharecropping, and segregation. The storyline also sets the stage for the country’s next battle, which is between the Jim Crow laws and the 14th and 15th Amendments.

On the surface, it appears that Sunny has got it all: looks, money, a beautiful home, a healthy daughter, and friends who love her. But Sunny has a secret—something she hasn’t even told her best friend. The truth is Sunny is unhappy. She still misses her beloved Dorian and worries that no other man will ever captivate her the way he did. She’s dated some very powerful and successful men since Dorian’s death, but will she ever find love again?

Gabi isn't looking for love. At all. She's much more interested in starting a new life, in a new city, away from the overbearing demands of her parents. Terrence...is even less into the idea of a relationship than Gabi. He's in a good place in his career, focused on receiving a coveted promotion. Follow along with Gabi and Terrence as they navigate the stages of a relationship that was never meant to go further than a single night. Will they be able to overcome the challenges of family and career to build something that could last?

When their parents are discovered brutally murdered in a ditch, Kenya and London are left orphaned and forced to navigate the unforgiving streets of Detroit. They might be identical twins, but they are as different as night and day. While one of them fights relentlessly to make it out of the ghetto, the other eagerly embraces true hood life and everything their parents believed in - selling drugs, living fast, and even dying young (if it means getting paid!).

What happens when the relationship you thought was right ends up being so wrong? JaNair never imagined that her world would come crashing down the way it did at the grand opening of her boyfriend's nightclub. The secrets that were revealed about Jerome in front of her family and friends embarrassed her so much that she hopped on the first flight out of Los Angeles. Her destination: Houston, Texas. The whole gang is back in this final installment of the What Bae Won't Do series for one last ride. Will everyone get their happily ever after, or will their love lives stay in shambles?

Asim Nour is the type of man who appreciates life and all that it has to offer. He’s been in the streets for years and is now realizing the benefit of building his legal status as well. Both worlds keep him busy and his pockets full. As much as he appreciates his status, the women appreciate it more. Kyori Spencer is the type of woman who takes full advantage of all life has to offer. Even if it’s not by way of her own bank account. It just so happens that the man she committed herself to, has loosely committed himself to several other women. When is enough, enough?

Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents Kwame Mbalia's epic fantasy, a middle grade American Gods set in a richly-imagined world populated with African American folk heroes and West African gods. Tristan is dreading the month he's going to spend on his grandparents' farm in Alabama, where he's being sent to heal from a tragedy. But on his first night there, he accidentally ripps open a chasm into the MidPass, a volatile place with a burning sea, haunted bone ships, and iron monsters that are hunting the inhabitants of this world.

Baxter’s name isn’t George. But it’s 1929, and Baxter is lucky enough, as a Black man, to have a job as a sleeping car porter on a train that crisscrosses the country. So when the passengers call him George, he has to just smile and nod and act invisible. What he really wants is to go to dentistry school, but he’ll have to save up a lot of nickel and dime tips to get there, so he puts up with “George.” On this particular trip out west, the passengers are more unruly than usual, especially when the train is stalled for two extra days.

Early 1900s London: Taken from his homeland, twelve-year-old Celestine spends most of the time locked away in the attic of a large house by the sea. The only time Celestine isn’t bound by confines of the small space is when he is acting as an unpaid servant to English explorer Sir Richard Babbington, As the years pass, he desperately clings on to memories of his family in Africa, even as he struggles to remember his mother’s face, and sometimes his real name . . .

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.

Summer 1995: Ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. This is not the first time violence has altered the course of the family’s trajectory. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass—only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected.