African Urban Fiction

A New York Times best-selling author and award-winning journalist with publishing credits in Essence and Vibe, Aliya S. King uses her experience covering celebrity culture to create juicy tales of sex, ambition, and betrayal. In Diamond Life, Alex Maxwell’s rapper husband, Birdie, sees his album go multiplatinum - but life in the spotlight might be too much for his marriage to withstand.

Mother Doreen has left New Day Temple of Faith in Malvonia, Ohio, and moved to Kentucky to help her diabetic sister. Her sister's husband, a truck driver, pretty much lives on the road. Mother Doreen feels in her spirit that she's needed to intervene on her sister's behalf, especially when the assistant pastor of her sister's church seems to be there just a little bit too much. Her suspicions really grow when her sister's belly does too.

What can go wrong when con-mami Mink LaRue joins forces with her slick-tongued look-alike Dy-Nasty Jenkins to run a three hundred grand hustle on the super-rich Dominion oil family? With the conniving Philadelphia stripper Dy-Nasty seeking to dip her fingers into the same pot of gold, Mink knows she has to play her hand right and hustle at the very top of her grind. But when Mink is suddenly called back home to be at the bedside of her sick mother, she is forced to leave Dy-Nasty alone at the mansion...

Carl Weber is the New York Times best-selling author of such fan favorites as So You Call Yourself a Man. The First Lady is the tale of a preacher's wife who learns she's dying and vows to find her husband another woman. There is no shortage of ladies who want her man, but will she be able to find a suitable replacement among the conniving church women?

The story is told primarily through Andre's voice, but we also see things through the voices and points of view of his mother Ruby, a hard-working medical secretary, his older sister Nina, his mostly not-there-usually-drunk-and-high father Eddie, a halfhearted reggae musician, and Reggie and Smoke, the kingpins of competing drug crews.

Life is supposed to be easy and carefree when you are young, but if you live in Washington, DC, that's not always the case. Flashing back to the 1990s, listeners enter the lives of four black men looking to gain money, power, and respect. These four brothas come from different walks of life, but they have one thing in common: They are trying to make fast money in the harsh inner city. However, when the money comes too easily, there's usually a price attached...the ultimate price.

This raw and passionate novel from national best-selling author Tracy Price-Thompson is a provocative story of love across racial boundaries. Juanita and her best friend Scooter are both frustrated in life and love, Juanita because her light skin makes it tough to fit in, and Scooter because he is gay. When they meet two fine-looking Puerto Rican men, their lives head down paths they never anticipated.

Trinidad-born Justin Peters is a Harvard-educated literature professor, whose focus on the works of "Dead White Men" receives little professional respect at the public Brooklyn college where he teaches. But whatever troubles he might have at work are eclipsed when he realizes his wife, Sally, is no longer certain about their life together.

Lorain is back from her sabbatical, and although God didn't reveal to her all that she wanted him to regarding her past, she refuses to just let things be. When all the pieces of the puzzle begin to come together, just how many lives will be damaged, and how many will be restored? The survivor of one of the most horrific experiences a person could ever endure, it appeared as though Sister Nita, as leader of New Day's Janitorial Ministry, was hiding behind a mop and a broom.

National best-selling author Keith Lee Johnson enjoyed breakout success for his novel Little Black Girl Lost. Now Johnson introduces Nelson Kennard, a former number-one NBA draft pick who blew his chance at the big time - and is about to lose the best thing that's ever happened to him, sexy school teacher Parris Stalls. Soon-to-be-dissed Nelson may have been a playa back in the day, but there's always another baller waiting in the wings.

Now that Mink has pushed her way to the front of the line to capture the Dominion family's oil billions, her life has become a luxurious whirl of easy money, fine whips, and sparkling jewels. But she'll need to come out of a whole new trick bag in order to throw shade on her sizzling swerve with Suge, her uncle-by-marriage only. Meanwhile, Suge is going toe-to-toe with the Dominion's oldest adversary, whose shameless mudslinging could cast dirt on their family name and ruin their good fortune forever.

Starr Fields sits in the Clark County jail after being released then re-arrested and held without bail. She uses her time wisely during her incarceration. After making examples out of a few of the other inmates and putting the squeeze on her unit Double Gs style, Starr recruits some new talent for a plan she intends to execute when she gets out. Queen Fem isn't happy about all of the sudden attention on the Double Gs organization.

Entertainment journalist and biographer Aliya S. King has composed a fascinating satirical work about celebrities. Although fictional, the characters in Platinum bear striking resemblance to actual celebrities alive today. Freelance journalist Alex Maxwell plans to marry a famous rapper. But Alex’s situation gets complicated as she starts writing a story that highlights some of the many ways that fame can cripple or destroy a relationship.

Jewell Parker Rhodes follows up her acclaimed Voodoo Dreams with a present-day mystery surrounding the gifts of an ancestor of the Voodoo Queen. Doctor Marie Levant can't explain why she's drawn to New Orleans, or why it's comforting and unsettling at the same time. And she can't shake her haunting dreams. But when she delivers a dead woman's baby, Marie knows malevolent forces are at work, and it's up to her to stop them.

For some, love starts with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends in tears. For four friends from Queens, it's about to get complicated....

TV investigative reporter Topher Davis, the only Black journalist on that beat, has exactly three weeks to do one final story before his position is eliminated due to corporate budget cuts. Enlisting the aid of his sister, SFPD Homicide Detective Lynn Sloan, he decides to investigate what the families of Blacks killed by police—and the families of the cops themselves—go through when tragic events like this occur. Instead, they find themselves involved in an ever-expanding mystery as more officers who’ve committed the same offense turn up dead.

When Jalen Wilson returns from his summer vacation, the only thing on his mind is relaxing before going back to teaching. However, that all changes when he runs into his curvy former student at a local coffee shop. Instantly, Tanisha finds herself drawn to him like a moth to a flame, and turning him out will be unlike anything she's ever done.

The lead scorer on the women’s basketball team, Destiny, falls for Antonio’s charming ways, and after one night of drunken steamy lovemaking, it was all it took for this innocent virgin to fall pregnant. Now Antonio could lose it all, but only if someone finds out. Destiny finds it hard to resist memories of that steamy night, knowing how good another one with him could be. But is she ready for motherhood and to be a mistress to a married man?

Ever since their heated kiss, Kayla can’t keep her mind off of Tyrone. She kept playing the scene over and over in her head. The way his hands brushed her skin, her heart thundering in her chest, and the deep ache she felt when his lips finally left hers. How could she not think about Tyrone? There’s only one problem: Tyrone is forbidden fruit. Not only is Tyrone Kayla’s sous chef roommate, but Kayla is already in a relationship with another man.

The night she met Malik ignited a burning desire in her that Deja hadn’t even known she was capable of. She could never forget the way his strong hands had held her or the way his lips had electrified her body like a bolt of lightning. Things with Malik seemed like something out of a fairy tale, and the more time she spent with him, the more she was willing to give him every part of her. Until the unthinkable happened. Deja discovers that she’s pregnant. How could one night of passion create so much confusion in her life?