Urban African American

Celeste Styles is starting over. After losing her cherished salon in a suspicious fire, she has finally left her adulterous relationship and her drama-filled life in Brooklyn for the peace and tranquility of Atlanta, Georgia. But when Rah-Lo heads down south after deciding to leave his wife Asia, Celeste is floored and isn't quite sure if she wants to rekindle their affair.

The lives of Frankie, Tommie, and Olivia (Livvy) haven't turned out quite as planned. Frankie has a pair of stalkers. The life that Tommie had dreamed of having with Blue has become anything but perfect, and Olivia, despite her efforts, hasn't been able to get over the psychological barrier caused by her husband's affair in Naughty or Nice.

A riveting, groundbreaking account of how the war on crime has torn apart inner-city communities. Forty years in, the tough-on-crime turn in American politics has spurred a prison boom of historic proportions that disproportionately affects Black communities. It has also torn at the lives of those on the outside. As arrest quotas and high-tech surveillance criminalize entire blocks, a climate of fear and suspicion pervades daily life, not only for young men entangled in the legal system but for their family members and working neighbors.

Nestled between Little St. Simons Island and Jekyll Island, Salix Pointe is not a place that many people know of. Part of the Golden Isles of Georgia, all the weeping willows that grow there have led the surrounding town’s folk to call it the Island of Death. Elisa and Tasmin may not want to put too much stock into the folklore of Salix Pointe, but there is a reason that the universe has brought the two women together.

In this scorching, mournful, often explicit, and never less than moving literary novel by the famed creator of the Easy Rawlins series, Debbie Dare, a black porn queen, has to come to terms with her sordid life in the adult entertainment industry after her tomcatting husband dies in a hot tub. Electrocuted. With another woman in there with him. Debbie decides she just isn't going to "do it anymore". But executing her exit strategy from the porn world is a wrenching and far from simple process.

Isolated from family and friends because of the one man she thought would be her happily ever after, Scotland is depressed, broke, and a shell of the woman she used to be. But when her man does the unthinkable, it is the last straw, causing Scotland to make a huge gamble in the name of revenge. But when that retaliation follows her home, adding yet another problem to her already hefty plate, Scotland must figure a way out of the hell she now calls life.

Is love really the only thing O'Asia needs to save the waters? Or, is that just the tip of the iceberg? O'Asia and Zale need to fall in love, but they're currently surrounded by angry guards ready to uphold the law. Can Odessa succeed in protecting them both? With Emperor Seera now back in open waters, they quickly become more dangerous for one merm in particular, and O'Asia soon realizes that the prince and his love aren't the only things she needs to protect. She has to protect them all.

Meet Justice, a half-black, half-Filipino goddess whose appetite for a quick dollar is insatiable. Having moved from Chi-town to Charlotte, North Carolina, at an early age, Justice and her younger brother, Monk, decide to take the streets of the Queen City by storm. All is well and their hustle is fruitful until Justice's ex-boyfriend, Carlos (a vicious drug dealer), is robbed, and all fingers are pointed towards Justice and Monk. Subsequently, a war ensues between Monk and Carlos' clique of dealers and killers. No one is exempt from the bloodbath!

Just when Alize believes that things just can't get any worse, she's proven wrong once again. Her aunt Melva is in critical condition, Lindsey's been shot, and her chances of getting her girls back seem to be slipping further and further away. All Alize can do is hope and pray that things work out, but with more drama brewing in the background, she's going to need more than just some hope and prayers.

Ryder is back and finally able to tell her story, it’s her turn to leave your jaws dropping. When two of Ryder’s best friends go missing, everyone starts to lose hope in finding them but when something about their disappearance leads to a fragment of Ryder’s past that she thought was dead and gone, Ryder has a choice to make. Will she face the demons and save the people that matter most to her? Or will she succumb to the death grip that her past has on her and lose her friends in the process?

In this urban take on Cinderella, Briella is trying to find her way in the world. She is dealing with her cruel stepmother who forces her to work in a brothel, being a slave to her stepsisters and trying to keep her grades up...Prince has always been a gentleman, even though he was raised by a kingpin. When he meets Briella something else ignited inside of him. He instantly knows he must do whatever he can to protect her, especially from her stepmother who is the core of Briella's rough life.

A masterful, moving novel about age, memory, and family from one of the literary icons of our time. Ptolemy Grey is 91 years old and has been all but forgotten - by his family, his friends, even himself - as he sinks into a lonely dementia. His grand-nephew, Ptolemy's only connection to the outside world, was recently killed in a drive-by shooting, and Ptolemy is too suspicious of anyone else to allow them into his life. Until he meets Robyn, his niece's 17-year-old lodger and the only one willing to take care of an old man at his grandnephew's funeral.

The children we meet through the deepening friendships that evolve between Janathan Kozol and their families defy the stereotypes of urban youth too frequently presented on TV and in newspapers. Tender, generous, and often religiously devout, they speak with painful clarity about the poverty and racial isolation that have wounded but not hardened them. "It's not like being in a jail," says 15-year-old Isabel. "It's more like being hidden."

Lance Christopher is a semi-reformed thug who was lucky enough to run into the right connection to propel him to the top. His success, of course, hasn't come without its fair share of bloodshed, problems, and disappointments. A dangerously ungrateful brother who won't shake his street mentality and a money-hungry ex who tricked her way into his heart are just some of the issues he faces that money can't seem to fix. Lance doesn't want much more, just peace and a woman who can relate to him and help him battle the demons he faces.

When Snow Wilson graduated from high school, she would have never imagined that such unimaginable deadly circumstances would snatch her off of the campus of the HBCU and land her in the whirlwind of the drug game. Yet, she juggled it all to the best of her ability in order to take care of her brothers, Killion and Prince, and her incarcerated best friend, Bae. She found her strength to push past her pain with the help of Zo, a single father, with the same reason to hustle hard in order to survive.

Marcus vows to spread a positive message with his upbeat flow. After one too many dead-end relationships, he plans on ditching the distraction until he meets the alluring Desta. Struck speechless by her passion and drive, he agrees to feature his mission in her documentary and secretly hopes to capture her heart. My Light: An African American Romance is the first stand-alone book in a series inspired by hip-hop songs. If you like simmering chemistry, driven characters, and Black love in motion, then you’ll enjoy Ebony Rose’s soulful novel.

Kailani had been scarred from her last relationship and love was the last thing on her mind, but when Hendrix makes an appearance, she can't seem to shake, she learns to lower her guard. The two build a bond that seems unbreakable until someone from Kailani's past threatens to ruin it all.

Impassioned antislavery rhetoric made antebellum Boston famous as the nation’s hub of radical abolitionism. In fact, the city was far from a beacon of equality. In No Right to an Honest Living, historian Jacqueline Jones reveals how Boston was the United States writ small—a place where the soaring rhetoric of egalitarianism was easy, but justice in the workplace was elusive. Highlighting the everyday struggles of ordinary Black workers, this book shows how injustice in the workplace prevented Boston—and the United States—from securing true equality for all.

Chasing money is all Chloe has ever known. Just when she thinks she’s got it all, times get tight, and her body is put to work in the bedroom. Between sexin’ married men for hire and searching for the man who would get her out of the game, her life is shattered - and then her cousin Oshyn pulls in a drug dealer with deep pockets. Oshyn knows her conniving cousin would do anything to walk in her shoes, so she flaunts glamorous gifts and icy diamonds, given to her by new love, Brooklyn Jones. Chloe resorts to desperate measures when she can’t steal Brooklyn from Oshyn.

Peace. That's what Synovi now had and cherished more than anything. Free from all the disturbances his chaotic life once ensued, he wanted nothing more than to keep it that way. With a thriving business and relationship, almost nothing could take him back to that dark place of no love. His Love didn't reside there. His world is still hers, and she is still his. Without warning, Torin inserted herself into Synovi's life and remained. She's the person he can run to when everything begins to fade, but there's a price to pay when you have a good heart.