American English Fiction

Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.

Captured by slave traders when only 15, At-mun never forgot his roots as a prince. Nor did he ever lose his princely dignity and the courage to hold his head high. Sold at auction in America and haunted by the memory of his young sister left behind in Africa, At-mun, now Amos, began his long march to freedom. He dreamed of being free and of buying the freedom of his closest friends.

When Noni married the love of her life, she finally thought she would get everything she deserved. Riches, success, status, influence - she had it all as the wife of Mr. Dominick Meyer. But there is more to her title than meets the eye.When she catches Dom cheating and discovers that he isn’t the businessman he portrayed himself to be, her life is changed forever. Finding out that their wealth was amassed from drug money and that Dom has never truly been faithful, she wants out.

Japanese-American Rei Shimura is a 27-year-old English teacher living in one of Tokyo's seediest neighborhoods. She doesn't make much money, but she wouldn't go back home to California even if she had a free ticket (which, thanks to her parents, she does). Her independence is threatened, when a getaway to an ancient castle town is marred by murder. Rei is the first to find the beautiful wife of a high-powered businessman, dead in the snow. Taking charge, as usual, Rei looks for clues by crashing a funeral, posing as a bar-girl, and somehow ends up pursued by police and paparazzi alike.

Disaya Morgan, a character first introduced in Girls from Da Hood 4, returns in this gritty tale of a money-hungry woman who finds her life spinning out of control. When Disaya meets Indie and falls hopelessly in love, she is determined to keep her lifestyle a secret - but everything done in the dark eventually comes to light. When she loses control of her own hustle, things go horribly wrong, and she learns the hard way that, in the game she’s playing, there are no winners.

From New York Times best-selling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a novel that is equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American-Indian experience. Fans of Jordan Peele and Tommy Orange will love this story as it follows the lives of four American-Indian men and their families, all haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later, they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge, totally helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a vengeful way.

Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: He’s merely Generic Asian man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but he is always relegated to a prop. Yet every day he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy - the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. At least that’s what he has been told.

Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn’t one of them. As the impulsive artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she’s the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they’re long-stemmed roses, she’s a dandelion: an adorable bloom that’s actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her. When regal nonagenarian Ms. Della invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning.

Keita Ali has nothing: no bank account, no papers, no legal identity. A runner, he has fled home - a brutal dictatorship that produces the world's fastest marathoners - to live as an illegal refugee in a wealthy Western nation, surviving on winnings from local races. But the government is cracking down on illegal immigrants, so Keita - who will be executed if he is deported to his homeland - goes underground.

In a hood loaded with sex, brutality, and crime, three friends are at a turning point. They can surrender to the streets - and the murderous men who rule there - or walk a totally different path. But nothing is simple for women addicted to life on the edge. And everything has consequences.... Angel, Jaz, and Kyra are all leading double lives, torn between working hard to leave the ghetto behind and being dragged back in by the lying, pimping, drug-dealing men they can't seem to let go.

In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blonde classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them - along with Callie's failure to develop physically - leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.

Two young sisters are taken from their home and family. Powerless to change their fortunes, they are separated, and each put into different foster homes. Yet over the years, the bond between them grows. As they each make their way in a society that is, at times, indifferent, hostile, and violent, one embraces her Métis identity, while the other tries to leave it behind. In the end, out of tragedy, comes an unexpected legacy of triumph and reclamation.

Garth had been the favorite for the number-one draft pick in the next season of the USA's top sport. His college career was supposed to end on a high note… but it didn't. Sabotaged in his final game, he found himself shut out of the Dungeon League of America, forced to retire his jersey in shame. With no other options, he leaned on his university degree and became a licensed psychiatrist and therapist. That should have been the end of his dungeon-crawling days. But then, a new dungeon appeared in his city.

When two English brothers arrive at a Barbados sugar plantation, they bring with them a darkness beyond what the slaves have already known. Washington Black - an 11-year-old field slave - is horrified to find himself chosen to live in the quarters of one of these men. But the man is not as Washington expects him to be. His new master is the eccentric Christopher Wilde - naturalist, explorer, inventor and abolitionist - whose obsession to perfect a winged flying machine disturbs all who know him.

Remy Morgan, a young girl born and raised in the heart of the ghetto, gets caught up in the life when she meets a drug lord who offers her the world. Young and naive, she is trapped in a game of lies, deception, and greed and learns the hard way that everything that glitters ain't gold. After her love is slain, Remy is forced back into the life that she desperately tried to forget. Remy has kept a diary of her life for the past two years. What she writes inside is a tale of love, passion, money, and secrecy - and ultimately a witness to her tragic end.

Few wars have been fought by each side with greater intensity of conviction in the rightness of its cause or with more abundant personal heroism than the War Between the States. The story begins with a great responsibility falling on Vincent Wingfield, the teenage son of a widowed Virginia plantation owner. Vincent must decide what course of action he should take when a problem arises on the plantation.

How far would you go to see justice done? How far is too far? For Madisun, the answer is simple. There are people in this world who need killing, and she's just the woman for the job!

Alma Katsu calls My Heart Is a Chainsaw “a homage to slasher films that also manages to defy and transcend genre.” On the surface is a story of murder in small-town America. But beneath is its beating heart: a biting critique of American colonialism, Indigenous displacement, and gentrification, and a heartbreaking portrait of a broken young girl who uses horror movies to cope with the horror of her own life.

A star athlete and Olympic prospect, Kal Carter is bound for greatness. Everyone says it, only he's not sure he entirely believes it. Because he's lost something he can't replace, and most days he feels like he's holding up the sky; and doing it all on his own. To maintain focus, he never lets anyone close except in the most superficial ways, and he's become very good at it. Until a long, cold week when the solitary girl next door who never speaks, smiles, or makes eye contact barges into his life and seems poised to upend the whole doggone thing.

It's 1924 in Branchville, South Carolina, and three women have come to a crossroads. Gertrude, a mother of four, must make an unconscionable decision to save her daughters. Retta, a first-generation freed slave, comes to Gertrude's aid by watching her children, despite the gossip it causes in her community. Annie, the matriarch of the influential Coles family, offers Gertrude employment at her sewing circle, while facing problems of her own at home.