African American Literature Fiction

Meet Relebogile Naledi Mpho Moruakgomo. Or, for short, Eddie: an aspiring playwright who dreams of making it big in London’s theater world. But after repeated rejections from white talent agents, Eddie suspects her non-white sounding name might be the problem. Enter Hugo Lawrence Smith: good looking, well-connected, charismatic and…very white. Stifled by his law degree and looking for a way out of the corporate world, he finds a kindred spirit in Eddie after a chance encounter at a cafe. Together they devise a plan, one which will see Eddie’s play on stage and Hugo’s name in lights.

Anoor is the first blue-blooded ruler of the Wardens' Empire. But when she is accused of a murder she didn't commit, her reign is thrown into turmoil. She must solve the mystery and clear her name without the support of her beloved, Sylah. Sylah braves new lands to find a solution for the hurricane that threatens to destroy her home. But in finding answers, she must make a decision, does she sacrifice her old life in order to raise up her sword once more?

Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her.

From Richard Wright comes a compelling story of one man's attempt to escape his past and start anew in Harlem. Cross Damon is a man at odds with society and with himself—a man of superior intellect who hungers for peace but who brings terror and destruction wherever he goes. The Outsider is an important work of fiction that depicts American racism and its devastating consequences in raw and unflinching terms. Brilliantly imagined and frighteningly prescient, it is an epic exploration of the tragic roots of criminal behavior.

Sixteen-year-old Diamond "Ray-Ray" Jenkins has it made in the shade, until one wrong move by her parents turns their lives upside down. Their secret of taking from the wrong street King in the Trap, Damien Orlando, has now put her in peril. The death of her parents signals an end to Diamond's semi-perfect life, putting her in the hands of evil. Her only salvation is to learn the game, and to put her trust in a kid wearing a hoodie.

Shannon Mitchell gambled that betraying her husband's biggest heist ever was her way out of the game for good. Losing that bet put her in lockdown - and at the top of Todd Mitchell's revenge-fueled hit list. Now she'll work every seductive move and lethal play to survive. 'Cause when it comes to wreaking her own vengeance, this devious beauty isn't taking any prisoners....

New York Times best-selling author Mary Monroe’s God Don’t Like Ugly hit audiences like a thunderbolt, appealing to multiple generations of readers. God Don’t Make No Mistakes concludes the saga begun in that groundbreaking novel. Here, Annette Goode Davis is attempting to reconcile with her estranged husband. However, her appetite for food - and other men - has her world spiraling dangerously out of control.

Nationally best-selling author Vanessa Davis Griggs helps spread the Word with powerful fiction for the faithful. In The Other Side of Dare, Paris Simmons-Holyfield finds her marriage of seven years stressed to the breaking point when she works toward adopting nine-year-old Jasmine. Her husband Andrew and her father oppose the adoption. And while Paris has her suspicions as to why, it soon becomes clear that Jasmine is the key to a long-buried secret. Now Paris must overcome tests to her faith and marriage as she searches for the truth.

Carl Weber is a New York Times best-selling author who’s made a name for himself with wildly entertaining works marked by his trademark wit and storytelling panache. In The Choir Director, Bishop T.K. Wilson is banking on dynamic new choir director Anthony Mackie to reverse the failing congregation’s fortunes. But while Anthony’s got more than enough chops to raise a heavenly chorus, he’s also got a weakness for the ladies that could make the Devil himself stand up and take notice.

When someone asks you to spend your life with him, it shouldn't come as a surprise - or happen in front of 45,000 people. When freelance writer Nikole Paterson goes to a Dodgers game with her actor boyfriend, his man bun, and his bros, the last thing she expects is a scoreboard proposal. Saying no isn't the hard part - they've only been dating for five months, and he can't even spell her name correctly. The hard part is having to face a stadium full of disappointed fans....

Rain soaks Tessa Scott as she runs from her car to the old vine-covered property she has been called to survey. She’s too busy to accept a new job, but doing this favor for the grandmother of her childhood sweetheart delays a painful decision she must make about her controlling boyfriend. When Tessa finds a tattered journal carefully hidden inside the house’s ancient fireplace, the tragic story of how Ona was ripped from her mother’s arms to live and work in the palatial Mount Vernon, and the heart-shattering betrayal that led her to risk her life and run, has Tessa spellbound.

Essence® best-selling authors Kiki Swinson and De’nesha Diamond are two rising stars in the world of urban fiction. Heist presents two novellas starring young women hustling their way to the top of the game through daring robbery schemes. In Swinson’s The Ultimate Heist, pampered Shannon Marshall is accustomed to a big-money lifestyle. Her world is shattered, however, when her man is thrown into prison for gun running.

A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality: the black Chinese restaurant.

Young Lensinda Martin is a protegee of a crusading Black journalist in mid-18th century southwestern Ontario, finding a home in a community founded by refugees from the slave-owning states of the American south—whose agents do not always stay on their side of the border. One night, a neighboring farmer summons Lensinda after a slave hunter is shot dead on his land by an old woman recently arrived via the Underground Railroad. When the old woman, whose name is Cash, refuses to flee before the authorities arrive, the farmer urges Lensinda to gather testimony from her before Cash is condemned.

Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is a genre-defying collection of essays that record the small joys that occurred in one year, from birthday to birthday, and that we often overlook in our busy lives. His is a meditation on delight that takes a clear-eyed view of the complexities, even the terrors, in his life, including living in America as a Black man; the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture; the loss of those he loves.

In the 1970s, Topper and Sanya flee to Miami as political violence consumes their native Kingston. But America, as the couple and their two children learn, is far from the promised land. Excluded from society as Black immigrants, the family pushes on first through Hurricane Andrew and later the 2008 recession, living in a house so cursed that the pet fish launches itself out of its own tank rather than stay. But even as things fall apart, the family remains motivated, often to its own detriment, by what their younger son, Trelawny, calls “the exquisite, racking compulsion to survive.”

Danielle Evans is widely acclaimed for her blisteringly smart voice and X-ray insights into complex human relationships. With The Office of Historical Corrections, Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters’ lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture, and history. She introduces us to Black and multiracial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love, and getting walloped by grief - all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively.

Raymond Jaffe feels like he doesn’t belong. Not with his mother’s new family. Not as a weekend guest with his father and his father’s wife. Not at school, where he’s an outcast. After his best friend moves away, Raymond has only two real connections: to the feral cat he’s tamed and to a blind ninety-two-year-old woman in his building who’s introduced herself with a curious question: Have you seen Luis Velez?

Kyrell Knight believes life is a game to be played and thoroughly enjoyed. He rarely takes anything seriously, lives in the moment, and indulges in as much pleasure with women as possible. But the sarcasm, money, and women are an attempt to erase the memories of his past as he tries to forget what he came from. It works until his past wants to be a part of his present. Kyrell reconnects with Quinn Halifax at their mutual best friend's engagement party. They spark up a friendship that quickly turns to flames when it becomes a superficial, no-strings-attached relationship.

Cam is a young man with a bright future in the music business who seemed to be on his way to the top after signing one of the hottest R&B singers in the world -a singer who goes by the name Honey. Cam and Honey hit it off hot and heavy as they mix business with pleasure. The sky is the limit for the young powerhouse couple. The only problem is Cam's fiancée, Yolanda. She and Cam have been together for seven long years, and she hates the fact that her man has to work with Honey.