Urban African American

The LaCroixs are four beautiful Haitian American women bound by money and blood. On the surface, the LaCroix Group is a venture capitalist company, but underneath, it’s so much more. The four sisters run long cons, targeting wealthy, prominent business figures. They have a system: Find the perfect mark, create the problem, then present the solution. For a cost....

Trick Baby tells the story of White Folks, a blue-eyed, light-haired con artist whose pale skin allows him to pass in the streets as a white man. Folks is tormented early in life, rejected by other children and branded a "trick baby," a child conceived between a hooker and her trick. Refusing to abandon his life in the ghetto and a chance at revenge, Folks is taken under the wing of an older mentor, Blue. What happens next is unbelievable.

With Samad’s target on her back, Liberty must survive the harsh streets alone. But when a chance encounter pushes her into the arms of a new friend, Po, the two take on the California kingpin - and step full force into the game. As bullets and sparks fly, the unlikely pair embarks on a serendipitous journey back to where it all started: Sierra Leone. With a new overseas connection, Po sees an opportunity that is too good to pass up. When his pursuit of the American dream conflicts with Liberty’s past, will they be able to survive, or will the drug empire that they’ve built together come crashing down?

Inner-city Black America is often stereotyped as a place of random violence; in fact, violence in the inner city is regulated through an informal but well-known code of the street. How you dress, talk, and behave can have life-or-death consequences, with young people particularly at risk. The most powerful force counteracting this code and its reign of terror is the strong, loving, decent family, and we meet many heroic figures in the course of this narrative.

Kazimir, the head of the Bratva, has come to New York to find the person who murdered his loyal washer. Nicknamed The Russian Lion because he's credited with over 200 kills, the death of his washer is enough to start a dark and deadly war. Unfortunately, Emily falls on Kazimir's radar. Her brother is suspected of being involved in the murder, and she's determined to do everything she can to save him.

Zane’s erotic writing has captivated a legion of fans. Her previous short story collection not only became a best seller but also delivered fully on its promise—exploding the myth that men are more sexual in nature than women and that African American women are particularly inhibited. This second volume of Sex Chronicles is Zane’s hottest collection yet. Smart, witty, and extremely sexy, these stories are tailored to women—but perfect for lovers to share.

On a warm spring evening in South Los Angeles, a young man is shot and killed on a sidewalk minutes away from his home, one of the thousands of Black Americans murdered that year. His assailant runs down the street, jumps into an SUV, and vanishes, hoping to join the scores of killers in American cities who are never arrested for their crimes. But as soon as the case is assigned to Detective John Skaggs, the odds shift.

Beautiful disaster. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of her. Who hurt you? The first question comes to mind when I open my mouth to greet her. Although it wasn't the easiest to reach, I knew her heart was pure. Gentle to the touch yet stubborn as a bull, she made it hard to resist her. Unintentionally, she sank her hooks in me. She was the calm before my storm. A thunderous, darkening storm with lightning that graciously exposed the paternity of my brother and me. Though the gloom of it all lingered above both our heads.

Nola is a city full of wonders. A place of sky trolleys and dead cabs, where haints dance the night away and Wise Women help keep the order. To those from Away, Nola might seem strange. To Perilous Graves, it’s simply home. Perry knows Nola’s rhythm as intimately as his own heartbeat. So when the city’s Great Magician starts appearing in odd places and essential songs are forgotten, Perry knows trouble is afoot.

Lyle DeLeone has always had the mentality of a hustler. Having grown up with a weak, drug-addicted mother and an ignorant, misogynistic father, she had to learn early on to protect herself and handle her own. Unfortunately, her ways caused those around her to deem her unlovable. So, it was no surprise that when she met the handsome Rashawn, she quickly snatched him up, hoping to prove that she, in fact, could be loved by a man. Married life with Rashawn isn't bad, but it isn't good either.

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.

Jake Billings is usually cool under pressure, but when two stick-up kids rob his record store, Jake opens fire on them, landing him in prison. Five days in, he receives an anonymous letter telling him that his days are numbered. But before he can find out who's behind the threats, Jake is stabbed and ends up in a coma. When he wakes in a hospital bed two years later, things have changed: His prison sentence has been commuted, his girlfriend is fiercely independent, and his side piece has gotten out of the street life altogether. But one thing remains: Jake's enemy still wants him dead and is powerful enough to track him down....

Gaza was born and raised in McGregor Gully, one of Jamaica's grittiest housing projects in the slums of East Kingston. Growing up in poverty, he was exposed to robbery and murder at a tender age. In order to stay alive, he quickly adapted to a life of crime. Now he is one of the coldest killers and richest kingpins to ever walk the streets of Kingston. Whoever comes into contact with him and his crew either loves them, fears them, or wants to see them dead. The entrance of Catherine into his life just might change everything.

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.

Apparently, I had been naive the entire time that I was with King. Who knew that he had been keeping such a secret from me? Just my luck, as I hid from him to gather my thoughts and deal with the pain, yet another crushing blow to my happiness was revealed. I then realized that I could no longer live for King; it was time to live for Kennedy. Little did I know, Jada was suffering the same heartbreak that I was. Dolla had torn her heart into two. My girl was miserable, but she didn’t run as I did; she was trying her best to inflict the same pain on Dolla as he had on her.

My name is Kennedy Desiree Carter. I met the love of my life, Damion "King" Carter, five years ago. Back then, you would not have been able to convince me of the way that he would change my life, in good ways and bad. I was a good girl; on my way to college with a high GPA and big dreams of becoming a child psychologist. Yet, as soon as I met King, I also dreamed of being the best rider that any street nigga had ever seen. I was a good girl with a bad boy fetish, and King was the ultimate bad boy that came to love me in ways that I had never felt before.

As a low-level enforcer in Los Angeles, Ken Swift knows danger, but nowhere does he feel it more than in his tangled romances. Divorced from one woman, in love with another, and wrestling with a strong desire to get to know a third, his life is far from perfect, and it becomes all the more complicated when his troubled daughter resurfaces on the same day as a major job.

Vegas Duncan's release from prison is right on time for his older brother Junior's engagement to the voluptuous Sonya Brown. Unfortunately Junior's attempt at happiness comes to a screeching halt when Sonya's husband, the mysterious Brother X, and his army of Muslim hit men declare war on the Duncan clan. Duncan family patriarch LC Duncan has gone up against many foes in his time.

It's about to be an all-out war. While an ambitious rival has taken over Diamonds' crew, Diamonds lies in wait in exile, carefully planning his next move to come back and reclaim his position as king of the streets of New York for good. But when an unexpected enemy from the past one-ups Diamonds and beats him at his own game, Diamonds needs to dig deep into his bag of tricks - and make an unlikely alliance - in order to climb back to the top.

Welcome to Detroit, Michigan, home of the grittiest, illest, most hardcore, crime-infested, poverty-stricken neighborhoods in the country. It's sometimes referred to as the Murder Capital because of the huge murder rate that never ceases to surprise us, the Murder Mitten, or the Dirty Glove because of the state's shape on the US map.