Aletha Holmes

Hazel has nothing and no one in her life; the only thing she "owns" is an insatiable addiction to heroin. Her addiction brings her to the slums, where she quickly learns the tricks of surviving - of hustling and getting her street smarts. She'll do anything to feed her habit, even if it means robbing and conning and selling her own body. Yet no matter how much heroin she does, the pain that has cut deep within her never goes away.

Once the streets pull you in, they own you. Or at least that's the way it's been for Nautica. Growing up in the hood, all she's ever known is the fast life - fast money illicitly made through scandals and relentless scheming. But when a big scam nearly finishes her off, she decides she wants more out of life than the hustle and tries to make a new life for herself on the East Coast.

After her mother's tragic death, Shayla is left to navigate her teenage years with little help from her neglectful, playboy father. Used and abused by the adults around her, Shayla makes some risky choices, taking a job as a waitress in one of Harlem's top strip clubs before she's even of legal age. She makes ends meet by running scams on unsuspecting patrons, but her luck soon runs out when she is raped and left for dead one night after work.

Carl Weber brings the best of urban street lit authors together, all telling their own dramatic tales of life in the streets in known cities across the USA. The second installment continues with Treasure Hernandez telling the tale of the Dirty South.

When Ava Dunning's mother is killed in a senseless act of violence, it feels like the world has ended. Now on her own, with the bills piling up, Ava is forced to take a job with a company called Maid For You. Trying to clock as many hours as she can, Ava jumps at the opportunity to do some overtime on the side, only to discover that she's bitten off more than she can chew. Just like that, she becomes a cleaner for King Dex, one of the most notorious kingpins on the West Coast. It's nothing for him to pay a couple thousand dollars for her to clean up his dirty work.

For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand.

While most young people are just getting their footing in life, 24-year-old Bryshon "Boogie" Tolliver is already being groomed to be a boss by his father, Barry Tolliver. At first, he's not so sure he wants to take his father's place in the family business. He has dreams of being the most prominent chef in New York. However, things change when Barry is murdered in cold blood and everything he built is left at Boogie's feet. Gone are those chef dreams, replaced with a new resolve to prove himself worthy of upholding his father's legacy.

Sista Love was a chart-topping girl group that had it all - fame, fortune, and failure. After three years apart, Harmony, Melody, and Lyric are forced back together after the death of their mother. Their forced reunion rekindles past hurt, lies, and deceit, but it is new lies, backstabbing, and jealousy that will bring the sisters to the brink of destruction.

Eve is a recovering drug addict, who was just released from prison to a female Christian halfway house. She signed up for the halfway house not to recover but to learn how to stop using drugs so often. Eve has no intentions of staying clean until she meets Reverend Washington. Reverend Washington's wife dies during childbirth, and Eve seduces the newly widowed reverend until she becomes his new wife and the mother to the reverend's three young children. But Eve is very resentful of the deceased Mrs. Washington and plots to make her husband's first wife look like a lying adulterer.

Beautiful and educated, with just enough Atlanta street smarts to give her a sexy edge, hood princess Danna Mendoza has a dream life. Her temporary bodyguard-turned-undercover lover Don makes it complete. As her father’s best friend and longtime drug partner, Don’s devoted to keeping her safe. But Don’s underlying vendetta against her father is one danger Danna never saw coming....