American English Fiction

Playboy filmmaker Samir "Sam" Rathod is Bollywood's favorite bad boy. He'll do anything for his big brother - even travel halfway across the globe to take care of the "wife" who just crawled out of his brother's past. Yet Mili isn't the simple village girl Sam expected. She's a whirlwind who sucks him into her roommate's elaborate elopement and soon has him drowning in her onyx eyes.

New York Times best-selling author Catherine Anderson pens riveting historical romances. Loretta Simpson lost her parents to a daring Comanche raid seven years ago - and now she lives as a mute with her extended family. Meanwhile, Comanche Hunter of the Wolf sees her as the embodiment of an ancient prophesy and chooses her for marriage. Still fearful of his tribe, Loretta soon finds her will bending, even as conflict between their two peoples intensifies.

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to 12 years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding.

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.

Doing Time: For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than "serving a sentence"; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. The contest honors the best short stories, plays, essays, and poems among hundreds submitted annually by men and women nationwide.

Nationally best-selling author Mary Monroe createsan unforgettable cast of characters in The Upper Room. Mama Ruby stole her best friend's baby girl, ran off to Florida, and raised her as her own. Maureen is the center of Mama Ruby's world, and she will do anything to protect her and their life together. Now Maureen wants to know what the rest of the world is like. She is determined to find out, but escaping Mama Ruby won't be easy.

Kenny and Tashena were born into the struggle, separated by a few blocks of concrete and heavy doses of pain, somehow finding their way back to each other after life and its perils pushed them apart. The truth needed to be told before either of their hearts could mend. Healing was needed on both ends before reception was an option. Trust needed to be established before love was a possibility. Such heavy burdens to bare for souls that were already carrying too much.

Travel back to a small Southern town where, before there was Duncan Motors, there were the Duncan brothers: Louis, aka Sweet Lou, a lover of ladies and life and a man you did not want to cross; Lawrence, aka Larry, a screw-up as attracted to trouble as it was to him; and Lavernius, better known as LC, the soft-spoken college boy who simply wanted to sell cars.

Under Western Eyes, Conrad's novel of political treachery and oppression, begins with a bomb that kills a hated Russian minister of police along with innocent bystanders. A young student named Razumov hides the perpetrator, then betrays him and becomes a spy among his exiled comrades. He faces a moral dilemma from which there is no escape. This masterwork, published six years before the Russian Revolution, is a chillingly accurate prophecy of what was to come.

In Amanda Skenandore's provocative and profoundly moving debut, set in the tragic intersection between white and Native American culture, a young girl learns about friendship, betrayal, and the sacrifices made in the name of belonging. Told in compelling narratives that alternate between Alma's childhood and her present life, Between Earth and Sky is a haunting and complex story of love and loss, as a quest for justice becomes a journey toward understanding and, ultimately, atonement.

Priscilla White knows she'll never be a wife or mother and feels God's call to the mission field in India. Dr. Eli Ernest is back from Oregon Country only long enough to raise awareness of missions to the natives before heading out West once more. But then Priscilla and Eli both receive news from the mission board: No longer will they send unmarried men and women into the field. Left scrambling for options, the two realize the other might be the answer to their needs.

They were just kids when Claudette McPhearson took them all in. Eight of them all together. All different races and ethnic makeups, but she loved them as her own. One woman taught them how to love, trust, and respect one another. She was the only glue that kept them together, the only one they wanted to please and never let down. She had been their light at the end of a long troublesome tunnel - it shined so bright. Then, one dreadful day, it all came to a crashing halt.

Meg Pero has been assisting her photographer father since she was big enough to carry his equipment, so when he dies she is determined to take over his profession - starting with fulfilling the contract he signed to serve on an Army survey of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in 1871. What she doesn't realize is that the leader of the expedition is none other than the man she once refused to marry. Captain Ben Coleridge would like nothing more than to leave without the woman who broke his heart, but he refuses to wait even one more day to get started.

Martin Dressler, son of an immigrant cigar maker, believes he can achieve anything if he works hard enough. At the turn of the century, he rises from the shadows of his father’s shop in New York City to become a powerful entrepreneur and builder of hotels. But, as he contemplates this land of almost limitless opportunity, his plans grow impossibly grand. Through the curve of Martin’s spectacular rise and eventual downfall in the business world, his tale remains a uniquely American one. Martin may not always control an empire, but he will always be able to dream.

As a 14-year-old, he was Malcolm Little, the president of his class and a top student. At 16, he was hustling tips at a Boston nightclub. In Harlem, he was known as Detroit Red, a slick street operator. At 19, he was back in Boston, leading a gang of burglars. At 20, he was in prison. It was in prison that Malcolm Little started the journey that would lead him to adopt the name Malcolm X, and there he developed his beliefs about what being Black means in America: beliefs that shook America then and still shake America today.

He set out to be the good son, but the streets had a different plan. Born to one of New York City's most notorious crime families, Shai Clark has always managed to be a good kid. A college hoops star, Shai shunned the world that his father had created and focused on his dreams of going pro. Tommy, Shai's trigger-happy older brother, is next in line for the throne and rules under his father through brute force. But Poppa has bigger plans for Shai.

Keyara Henderson's life takes an unexpected turn when more than half of her vision deteriorates due to diabetes. In an effort to regain her independence, Keyara opts to attend Georgia Southern University, a prestigious university with a drive long enough to prevent her from having anyone to fall back on. Although he has reservations, Keyara's father relents under two conditions: one being that she must stay in an assisted-living facility and the other requiring her to employ a chauffeur.

Jessamyn Teoh is closeted, broke, and moving back to Malaysia, a country she left when she was a toddler. So when Jess starts hearing voices, she chalks it up to stress. But there's only one voice in her head, and it claims to be the ghost of her estranged grandmother, Ah Ma. In life Ah Ma was a spirit medium, the avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she's determined to settle a score against a gang boss who has offended the god - and she's decided Jess is going to help her do it.

In this shocking novel of a young girl alone on the streets, Donald Goines delves into yet another facet of the ghetto experience - the dark, despair-ridden world of a black girl's soul.

Sandra took to the streets when she was eight years old and tried to fight off the hunger pangs by shoplifting and moving into the profits of drug pushing. Then she met Chink, and with him she discovered love and affection...as well as rape and murder.

Justin and Toni were friends. Besties, with a whole list of life rules developed over a friendship that started when they were kids. As long as they stuck to the rules, even when they blended a business relationship into the friendship, things went off without a hitch. But then one of them broke the rules - it was Justin. Justin broke the rules - and Toni has been mad about it ever since.