American Literature

There's a saying in Brooklyn that if you come from my part of town, you're from around the way. Around the Way Girls is a fast-paced look at the life of some street-smart women who think they know it all but are about to get the lessons of their lives.

Set in 1944 Chicago, Edgar Award-winner Naomi Hirahara’s eye-opening and poignant new mystery, the story of a young woman searching for the truth about her revered older sister's death, brings to focus the struggles of one Japanese-American family released from mass incarceration at Manzanar during World War II.

As the CEO of Building Bridges LLC, Bri is driven by determination for success. However, while planning the wedding of one of Chicago's hottest couples, Bri's focus is shifted when the strum of a nocturnal voice captures her attention. Being an empath has empowered her sense of compassion for others, so she's not only drawn to him because of his broken heart but also from a fierce attraction that sparks her interest and tap dances on a groove on her heart. Getting involved with someone who's not open to love may prove to be the most difficult road Bri has ever journeyed.

When Patsy gets her long-coveted visa to America, it comes after years of yearning to leave Pennyfield, the beautiful but impoverished Jamaican town where she was raised. More than anything, Patsy wishes to be reunited with her oldest friend, Cicely, whose letters arrive from New York steeped in the promise of a happier life and the possible rekindling of their young love. But Patsy's plans don't include her overzealous, evangelical mother - or even her five-year-old daughter, Tru. Patsy gives voice to a woman who looks to America for the opportunity to choose herself first.

They say that good girls like bad boys, and this was especially true for Pearl Stone, a child born of privilege to a drug baron and reputed killer known in the streets as Big Stone. Although the flashy, fast-paced nature of the streets calls to Pearl, she's been brought up to look but not touch. Yet when a young hustler named Diamonds crawls up from the swamps of Louisiana and sets up shop in New York City, everything Pearl was taught flies out the window.

After taking us through the rugged, thug-filled lives of Jaz, Kyra, and Angel, Wahida now takes us into the drama-filled life of their best friend, Roz, aka Tasha. She is sexy, beautiful, and torn between her desires to distance herself from the streets and the magnetic attraction to the irresistible and thuggish Trae Macklin, who acknowledges that mature women are a turn-on. Women come and go for a thug who is more about his business over everything else, yet Trae surprisingly falls head over heels for his business partner's woman, Tasha.

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.

Niles has just returned from eight years of serving his country as a Special Forces sniper. He's looking forward to a consulting job with Dynamic Defense and spending time with his family, including his bipolar mother, Lorna, and his hard-drinking uncle, Willie. What Niles doesn't know is that Dynamic Defense is actually a CIA front. He's not interested in joining them, but they won't take no for an answer.

Ripped from the pages of Carl Weber's New York Times best-selling Family Business series comes a solo story about his most popular character to date - the bright, sexy, and deadly Paris Duncan. Join Carl Weber and Eric Pete as they go back in time and take Paris Duncan to Europe, to the finishing school where she meets her first true love, makes her first real enemy, and commits her first crime. Listeners will get a thrilling inside view into the events that made Paris the lovely but lethal woman she is today.

Taken from their families when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run residential school, Kenny, Lucy, Clara, Howie and Maisie are barely out of childhood when they are finally released after years of detention. Alone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn’t want them.

Bleu Montclair knew as a young girl that she would one day escape the hard, unrelenting streets of Flint, Michigan. When her desperate prayers are answered in the form of a scholarship to UCLA, she knows she's struck gold. But soon after arriving, all her beautiful, bright dreams begin to fall apart. Endless temptations abound in the form of cars, clothes, booze, and drugs, and Bleu cannot keep up. When her roommate gives her the opportunity to make a lot of money fast, Bleu goes all in.

Josie Adams had a brilliant speech writing career in American politics - until a scandal destroyed everything. Unsure what to do with the rest of her life, she moves home with her mother in the Cotswolds. Journalist Harriet Powell ditched London after getting sacked and divorced within six months of each other. She hopes to find peace in the village, but after meeting Josie, Harry's world will never be the same. While the two don't see eye to eye on the professional front, it's hard to deny their connection, even if Josie's mum is determined to set Josie up with anyone who isn't Harry.

Cops can make mistakes, even when they're not rookies. Deeply traumatized by a shooting incident, Cass Raines resigned from the Chicago PD, leaving one less female African-American on the force. Now she's the head of a one-woman private investigation agency. She also plays chess with the only father figure she's ever known, Father Ray Heaton. When Father Ray asks Cass to look into a recent spate of vandalism at his church, she readily agrees to handle the case. But only hours later she's horrified to discover his murdered body in the church confessional, a dead gangbanger sprawled out nearby.

Set in the 1920s and 1930s, Honolulu explores the stark contrast between the image of the glamorous Hawaiian paradise portrayed to the mainland and the harsh reality of life on the island. With characters as vivid and richly descriptive as the history of Hawaii itself, this novel is sure to enthrall listeners.

Topanga Canyon is home to two couples on a collision course. Los Angeles liberals Delaney and Kyra Mossbacker lead an ordered, sushi-and-recycling existence in a newly gated hilltop community: He is a sensitive nature writer, she an obsessive realtor. Mexican illegals Candido and America Rincon desperately cling to their vision of the American Dream as they fight off starvation in a makeshift camp deep in the ravine.

These wholly original and shiver-inducing tales introduce listeners to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, these stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples’ survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.

Political activist and best-selling author Randall Robinson is a pillar of scholarship and insight within the African-American literary community. His acclaimed novel Makeda stars Gray March, a young man who, beginning in the 1950s, embarks on a journey of spiritual and historical enlightenment through stories he hears from his blind grandmother.

From the nationally best-selling author of Married Men comes this hilarious story of four black men searching for true love. Kevin's got the looks; Antoine's got the heart and soul; Tyrone's got the skills; and Maurice has all the player moves - but what they don't have are good women in their lives. What do they do? Call 1-900-BLACK-LUV, of course! The riotous experiences that follow have to be heard to be believed.

In American Literature, all main periods are covered, from colonial times to the present movement toward cultural diversity. Also covered are key themes and personalities, with emphasis on major figures, including Ben Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, Edith Wharton, William Faulkner, Langston Hughes, Tennessee Williams, Alice Walker, and many more.

Freedom fighter, brilliant businessperson, devoted wife, master of languages, and ultimately, savior of a European dynasty. Claudia Patterson would become all of these—spurred on by the fiercely powerful loves and losses along the way … Denny Clark. An abused thirteen-year-old White boy whose life twelve-year-old Claudia saves—complicating her own life for years to come.