Urban African American

Once upon a time, not long ago there was a complex called Chappelle Gardens and in this complex lived a 'thotty' bunch of young women, which quickly got the complex dubbed Thotville. They smiled in your face, while sleeping witcho baby daddy behind yo back. Then one day these girls decided that they were tired of laying on their backs, so they came up with the ultimate plan to rob a bank.

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.

Someone wants every member of the consortium dead, and they'll stop at nothing to make that happen. Meanwhile, Shan has transferred back into Redbone and has taken it to a whole new level. Nick suspects Shan is still in love with Briggen, even though she is with him. Janay has a new lease on life, but her ties to Crystal are always a challenge. Everyone is gunning for Dark, and with The List in the hands of Cisco's wife, Joy, Dark's chances of taking over Detroit are threatened more than ever before.

No one can deny that Imani and Marquis have chemistry. They always have, and, if Imani had any say it in, they always would. Even though Marquis might not admit it to her, Imani didn’t need him to tell her how he felt. She could tell by the way he danced with her. They were drawn to each other like magnets, and nothing either of them did could change that. Dancing with Marquis made Imani feel like she had finally found someone who understood her, body and soul. She had to have him, but will she be able to convince him that they really are soulmates?

The heart of Erica Jones is soft as they come. Her only priority is getting money. She was going out with Lamont for nearly a year, and now he's messing around with anything and everything crawling on Earth. Even those who were close in their circle, so Erica dumped him.

Stacy Washington, a college student majoring in Criminology gets the ultimate assignment; working with a former cop who fell out of grace with local law enforcement. It's the ultimate thrill to learn about policing with such a legend despite his tarnished reputation. Darryl Johnson was ousted from the force for reporting his commanding officer for corruption. Years later, the ex-copper was looking for a way to redeem his honor or what was left of it. Now, he has the chance to do so with one case...

Tanya Jackson works at the Camden Food Bank, and this year is like no other; donations have dried up, and hope is fading due to the pandemic. A phone call to CFB's biggest donor one afternoon and fate has reconnected Tanya to someone she longed for for a long time.

Dylan Monroe, our favorite shopaholic, is back! She’s three months pregnant and madly in love with the father of her child, sexy heavyweight champion Angel. The only problem is the long-legged Victoria’s Secret model standing in the way of getting him back. If that weren’t enough stress, her Jack Daniels-loving mother, Candy, returns to stir up even more trouble. Unsure of how to face her future as a single mother, Dylan reverts back to the only thing she knows to comfort her pain - shopping!

Even the saved struggle when navigating their way through love. This much could definitely be said for the Fold family's oldest child, Angela. Perfection was the main objective when it came to Angela. She was stubborn, strong-willed, and completely incapable of relinquishing control, at times risking her own happiness to preserve the image of what others thought she should be. Angela must figure out which way to go after leaving a toxic marriage. And she may or may not find refuge in an equally stubborn alpha male by the name of Damien Christopher Briscoe.

Black Picket Fences is a stark, moving, and candid look at a section of America that is too often ignored by both scholars and the media: the Black middle class. The result of living for three years in "Groveland", a Black middle-class neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, sociologist Mary Pattillo-McCoy has written a book that explores both the advantages and the boundaries that exist for members of the Black middle class.

As the oldest of three girls, Renee at a young age knew she was born into a special family of women. These women are blessed with unique gifts from God but others may disagree. Although Renee, Leah, and Tiffany were born in Georgia, their family roots were planted in New Orleans where the Creole cuisine fills your soul, the swamps run deep with blood and voodoo is a religion to some. At the age of 13, Renee’s life is forever changed as well as her sister’s.

The audiobook is a story about two brothers, Kelvin “Kels” Johnson, Jr., and Malik “Lil Ghadi” Johnson. Each of them had eager desires to follow in their father’s legacy for success and power. They wanted to finish the goal their father, Kelvin “Ghadi” Johnson, Sr., started before his incarceration, as well as try to achieve the goal of getting out of the game without getting scarred like their father did. Kelvin “Ghadi” Johnson, Sr.’s name ran throughout the streets of the Eastson Neighborhood, but not even his name could stop what his sons were about to face.

Fed up with her married Miami boyfriend, savvy Dulce has no problem stealing his drug-dealer stash and fleeing to the Caribbean. Between her special skills - and an eye for very rich and/or very smokin' men - Dulce stays a hustle ahead of trouble and makes her new life one endless party in Puerto Rico. Until she's caught in Hurricane Maria - and witnesses both the heartbreaking disaster of climate change, and the international vultures who plunder the tragedy for a financial killing, making shady use of relief funds to devastate the island even more....

Sisters from Trinidad, Violet and Lily have never had much in common. Stunning Lily arrives undocumented in New York and makes her way as a stripper. But Harvard-educated Violet is this close to the perfect assimilated life, thanks to a prestigious job, and her rich bougie fiance.... Until she's wrongly accused of helping a notorious strip-club mogul embezzle millions of his workers' earnings. Violet loses everything - except the determination to get her life back. Now Violet's on his track with the help of his vengeful ex-wife and the Lower East Side Women's Health Clinic's resourceful crew - which includes Lily.

Shawn Harrington returned to Marshall High School as an assistant coach years after appearing as a player in the iconic basketball documentary film Hoop Dreams. In January of 2014, Marshall's struggling team was about to improve after the addition of a charismatic but troubled player. Everything changed, however, when two young men opened fired on Harrington's car as he drove his daughter to school. Harrington was struck and paralyzed. The mistaken-identity shooting was followed by a series of events that had a devastating impact on Harrington and Marshall's basketball family.

After serving 10 hard years in the joint for armed robbery, JC is ready for some payback. His targets, the three childhood friends - now crimelords - who betrayed him to save themselves, are about to have everything they've worked for ripped right out of their hands.

At 72, Johnny Ribkins shouldn't have such problems: he's got one week to come up with the money he stole from his mobster boss or it's curtains. What may or may not be useful to Johnny as he flees is that he comes from an African American family that has been gifted with superpowers that are a bit, well, odd. Okay, very odd. For example, Johnny's father could see colors no one else could see. His brother could scale perfectly flat walls. His cousin belches fire. And Johnny himself can make precise maps of any space you name, whether he's been there or not.

As gentrification encroaches on historic Harlem, Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award recipient Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts untangles the myth and meaning of its storied legacy. Drawing on Harlem’s history and her own observations, Rhodes-Pitts introduces a variety of observers who shared a common hope that Harlem would become the ground from which Blacks fully entered America’s democracy.

Former gang member Y. Blak Moore grew up in Chicago’s housing projects before becoming a poet and noted novelist. His gritty fiction captures the mean streets with an authenticity few writers can match.... The Apostles run Chicago’s streets. Now “Solemn Shawn,” their legendary leader, wants out. But the head of The Governors has a score to settle. So before Shawn can make a better life for his pregnant girlfriend, he must fight one last war.

When retired FBI forensic psychologist Spencer Berry and his dog break up a scuffle between gang members, in the process of chasing one with a gun, they end up discovering the nude remains of a young woman partially submerged in a creek behind the home of police spokeswoman Deidre Lawrence. The deceased appears to be the victim of the Park Killer, a serial murderer terrorizing Sinclair Heights, Oregon over the past three years.