American Saga

In this powerful debut novel set in New York City in the 1970s, Bonnie J. Glover explores the meaning of loss and family. Pamela is the middle of three sisters who are trying to keep their lives together after their mother kicks their father out of the house. Pamela only has an imaginary guide, a character from the television show Kung Fu, to help her and advise her when times turn tough.

Critics have compared her work to that of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, but J. California Cooper has a warm, witty style that’s definitely her own. Each of her short stories is a gem of downhome wisdom, polished with a bit of gossip, some heartbreak, and lots of humor.

The Wedding tells the story of life in the Oval, a proud, insular community made up of the best and brightest of the East Coast's black bourgeoisie.

Within this inner circle of "blue-vein society", we witness the prominent Coles family as they gather for the wedding of their loveliest daughter, Shelby, who could have chosen from "a whole area of eligible men of the right colors and the right professions." Instead, she has fallen in love with and is about to be married to Meade Wyler, a white jazz musician from New York.

This spirited tale of love, family, and honoring loved ones is filled with sharp insights. As four sisters prepare for their father's funeral, they examine what he meant to them. But they are all thrown off balance when they discover the secret their father carried to his grave.

When young Armstrong Todd's mother sends him to spend the summer in her native rural Mississippi, the Chicago-bred 15-year-old is unused to the segregated ways of the Deep South. So when the black youth utters a few innocuous words in French to a white woman, he has no idea of the impending firestorm he has ignited. Armstrong ends up paying the ultimate price when the offended woman's husband and his friends decide to teach the youth a lesson.

In the years following the Civil War, Mariah Reddick, former slave to Carrie McGavock - the "Widow of the South" - has quietly built a new life for herself as a midwife to the women of Franklin, Tennessee. But when her ambitious, politically minded grown son, Theopolis, is murdered, Mariah - no stranger to loss - finds her world once more breaking apart. How could this happen? Who wanted him dead?

On a sweltering summer night in 1925, beauties in beaded dresses mingle with hepcats in dapper suits on the streets of Harlem. The air is thick with reefer smoke, and jazz pours out of speakeasy doorways. Ben Charles and his devoted wife, Angeline, are among the locals crammed into a basement club to hear jazz and drink bootleg liquor. For aspiring poet Ben, the swirling, heady rhythms are a revelation. So is Baby Back Johnston, an ambitious trumpet player who flashes a devilish grin and blasts jazz dynamite from his horn.

The heralded Queen of Hip-Hop Lit presents an addictive collection of celebrated urban authors with their fingers on the pulse of the streets. Street lit’s finest female voices—Keisha Starr, Tysha, LaKesa Cox, and Monique S. Hall—deliver searing stories about women who make hard sacrifices to stay on top of their hustle and seize the power, money, and fame they can’t live without.

After the tragic loss of his wife, Helen, Luke Hansard is desperate to keep her memory alive. In an effort to stay close to her, he reaches out to an online friend Helen often mentioned: a reclusive photographer with a curious interest in beautiful but broken objects. But first he must find her - and she doesn’t want to be found. Orla Kendrick lives alone in the ruins of a remote Suffolk castle, hiding from the haunting past that has left her physically and emotionally scarred.

Seven thousand years ago, major climatic change was ushering in a 3,500 year drought. For a small band of pioneers in what is now Wyoming and the Montana Mountains, it was a time of fire. As they struggled valiantly to keep their ancestors’ dreams alive in an unforgiving, drought-stricken land, a heroic young dreamer and a fearless woman warrior united to lead their people to a magnificent destiny.

Seven thousand years ago, major climatic change was ushering in a 3,500 year drought. For a small band of pioneers in what is now Wyoming and the Montana Mountains, it was a time of fire. As they struggled valiantly to keep their ancestors’ dreams alive in an unforgiving, drought-stricken land, a heroic young dreamer and a fearless woman warrior united to lead their people to a magnificent destiny.

Ten years ago, someone framed him for murder. Kingsley Buchanan lost everything, including Gabriella de la Cruz. Now the billionaire is back to settle old scores. But he must protect his child. Kingsley needs Gabi - as a nanny for his son. But Gabi is no longer a naive girl. She's a businesswoman with needs of her own. The only thing that hasn't changed: her hunger for Kingsley. But Gabi won't risk her heart on a man she can't trust - unless she can convince him that love is more powerful than revenge.

For Dana, what should be the happiest day of her life becomes the day her world falls apart. Her daughter is born beautiful and healthy, but no one can help noticing the African-American traits in her appearance. Dana's husband, to her great shock and dismay, begins to worry that people will think she has had an affair. Now Dana has to track down the father she never knew and explore the possibility of African-American lineage in his family history.

Blackboard and Essence best-selling author Francis Ray has been honored with the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award, as well as the EMMA and Golden Pen Awards. Here, she continues the saga of the Grayson family with Morgan's story. Mother Ruth Grayson is pushing her son to get married, but he resists - until he meets Phoenix, a beautiful artist with a secret.

In the late 1800s, the residents of a small village in coastal Italy migrated to the promised land of America. They eventually settled in Roseto, Pennsylvania, where they re-created every detail of their former lives, including the centerpiece of Roseto’s colorful old-world tradition: the annual pageant for Our Lady of Mount Caramel—or “the Big Time,” as it’s called by the young women competing to be its Queen.

Don and Mindy Wallace have always been Francophiles, so when they had the opportunity to buy a home on a small French island off the coast of Brittany, they jumped—sight unseen—into a crumbling mess that challenged their finances and their family. But when the Wallaces arrived on the island, they found a building in ruin, and it wasn't long before their lives resembled it. Plagued by emergency repairs, a stock market crash, and very exasperated French neighbors, Don and Mindy could have accepted their fate. Instead, they embraced it.

Once upon a time, there lived a man whose fate would rest with two sisters. One will hold his heart. With her, he will find a love that will last forever, though it will come with a price. From the other sister, he will learn fortitude as he discovers that she holds the power to destroy all he holds dear. For as easily as one sister captures his heart, the other will trap his soul.

Before the outsider, now Chief Heads Off, brought the Elk Dogs (horses) to the People, their strategy had always been to flee or hide from their mortal enemies, the Head Splitters. Now the People live in peace, but the young warriors long for war.

Don Pedro Garcia believes the drunken Captain Sanchez' claim that the Don's only son is still alive and living among the savages in New Spain's uncharted wilderness.

Raised by their mother, a bar owner in Bolohead Row, Honolulu's red-light district, they each face issues of varying addictions. Charlie, the newly divorced stepson, works a dead-end job in an ABC store and spends nights at his mother's bar singing karaoke. Mark is a shut-in who occupies all of his waking hours playing a computer game called Everquest. Within 24 hours of being out of prison, Winnie, the eldest, has a boyfriend, money, and enough drugs to send her back for life. Dangerous people are searching for her, and Charlie is unwittingly swept into her turmoil.