African American Families

The son of Maya Angelou, Guy Johnson is a critically acclaimed author and poet in his own right. Echoes of a Distant Summer is the story of Jackson St. Clair Tremain, a San Francisco civil servant who thought he had left his old life far behind. In 1982, Jackson is summoned to Mexico to confer with his dying grandfather, the brutal hustler King Tremain. When King dies, Jackson inherits $50 million - and the unwanted attentions of a malevolent bayou crime lord named Pug DuMont.

Stanford Solomon’s shocking, 30-year-old secret is about to change the lives of everyone around him. Stanford has done something no one could ever imagine. He is a man who faked his own death and stole the identity of his best friend. Stanford Solomon is actually Abel Paisley. And now, nearing the end of his life, Stanford is about to meet his firstborn daughter, Irene Paisley, a home health aide who has unwittingly shown up for her first day of work to tend to the father she thought was dead.

From the time Brooke Green was seven years old, she has lived with the pain of losing her mother. Her father has done the best job he could in raising her, but a piece of her always felt empty. On the day of her father's funeral, her grandmother breaks the shocking news: Her mother, Sarah, is very much alive. She abandoned her family because she claimed she wasn't fit for motherhood. After doing some research, Brooke discovers her mother is living in Atlanta, enjoying a great career...and a brand-new family.

Most people think that money is the key to happiness, but when an ecstatic Nina Lawson wins millions in the Powerball lottery, her world is turned upside down. At first, she and her fiance, Rick, are delighted with the unexpected windfall and immediately begin planning their future. Soon, family members and friends begin coming out of the woodwork to claim a piece of Nina's winnings. But the most unexpected request comes from Todd, Nina's ex-husband.

It takes two sparks to ignite a flame... Lois and Todd, both independent and irresistibly seductive, have been flirting and tempting each other for months. As the eldest siblings in their families, they are used to taking charge and protecting those they love. Lois' fiery independence and sensual allure, paired with Todd's unwavering determination and masculine confidence, create the perfect storm for a sizzling romance. When Todd faces an unexpected family emergency, Lois provides the support he desperately needs. However, when tensions stirred by former lovers rise, testing their budding ...

On a routine trip to the Piggly Wiggly in Albany, Georgia, widower Fletcher Dukes smells a familiar perfume, then sees a tall woman the color of papershell pecans with a strawberry birthmark on the nape of her neck. He knows immediately that she is his lost love, Altovise Benson. Their bond, built on county fairs, sit-ins, and marches, once seemed a sure and forever thing. But their marriage plans were disrupted when the police turned a peaceful protest violent.

Jacqueline Woodson's first middle-grade novel since National Book Award winner Brown Girl Dreaming celebrates the healing that can occur when a group of students share their stories. It all starts when six kids have to meet for a weekly chat—by themselves, with no adults to listen in. There, in the room they soon dub the ARTT Room (short for "A Room to Talk"), they discover it's safe to talk about what's bothering them—everything from Esteban's father's deportation and Haley's father's incarceration to Amari's fears of racial profiling and Ashton's adjustment to his changing family fortunes.

A story inside a story inside a story. A man visits his aging father in a nursing home, where his father writes the novel he imagines his son would write. Or is it the novel that the son imagines his father would imagine, if he were to imagine the kind of novel the son would write?

Some lessons aren't taught—they're inherited. When Jordan Williams discovers her grandmother Rose's pink leather journal hidden in an old attic, she finds more than family memories. She uncovers a blueprint for navigating life as a Black woman in a world that isn't always ready for her shine. As a rising corporate executive passed over for yet another promotion, Jordan has always played by the rules. But her grandmother's journal reveals a different path—one of dignity, determination, and unapologetic excellence. Each entry unveils timeless lessons about commanding respect, knowing your...

Burned by his faith. Abandoned by his family. Coming out was nothing compared to finding a reason to forgive… Embittered, Lawrence Greene can't catch a break. He loathes his dead-end job, and his love life is pitiful. When his religious mother returns seeking reconciliation, he’s torn between resentment and his need to heal. As his mother fights for a place in her son's life, her presence conjures painful memories for Lawrence. But when a sexy and good-hearted man named Hakee Mitchell comes knocking, will Lawrence let go of his grief and embrace a fresh start? The Freed Church Boy is a ...

After being heartbroken by Cage, Angelina & her Collection, The Linas, build an alliance with The Minks, the female Wolves led by Flow’s ex-girlfriend, that will prove to be deadly. To deal with the public blood feasts that The Linas and The Minks are creating, Cage must enlist the help of his Frenemy, Onion. This task proves more challenging than Cage realizes because although Onion needs Cage’s help against Angelina too, it’s not his sole focus. Onion still has his eyes on the bigger prize, Angelina herself. As Cage tries to navigate his way as the Vampire King by leading The ...

Dr. Cade Mathis learned early that he was not the son of the man who raised him. His adoptive father, a cruel, bitter man, had always been quick to tell him that he was a bastard and an embarrassment to the rich society family whose daughter got pregnant with him. So when Cade received a full scholarship to college, he was only too happy to leave the only home he had ever known behind and never looked back. Now a successful doctor and one of the best neurosurgeons in the state, the only thing he still wants are answers about where he came from.

Rose doesn’t mean to do damage! Love is not supposed to destroy! But what’s a woman to do when she was destroyed early on! She can’t love right! Because men have hurt her… And she doesn’t trust them! And so she does the only thing she knows how…Follow her heart. Live in the moment. Keep her secrets. Rinse and Repeat! But the old adage hurt people hurt people, has never rang truer. Rose fights her demons and appears to have won the battle. But something from the past, has come back and she fights to keep more secrets from Boston. And when Ashley blows the lid off of everything ...

It’s a warm, bright October afternoon, and Ozro Armstead walks out into the brilliant sunshine on his thirty-seventh birthday. At home, his wife Deborah and daughter Trinity prepare a surprise celebration; down the street, his brother waves as Oz heads back to his office after having lunch together. But he won’t make it to the party or even to his briefcase back at his desk. He's about to disappear.

In 1916, Celia Coleman and Lucy Grimes flee the racism and poverty of their homes in the post-Civil War South for the “Promised Land” of the North. But soon they learn that even in Vauxhall, New Jersey, black women are mainly hired for domestic work, money is scarce, children don’t progress in school, and black men die young. Within a few short years, both women’s husbands are dead. Left to navigate this unwelcoming place alone, Celia and Lucy turn to one another for support in raising their children far from home.

The Family Legacy: Ancestral Echoes of Greatness is a powerful, soul-stirring journey that traces the generational roots of Dr. Marshall J. Cowell, born in Phenix City, Alabama, through centuries of African heritage, slavery, survival, and excellence. The book integrates genealogy, DNA science, West African culture, and historical research into a compelling family narrative that bridges continents and time periods.

At the age of 12, Sophie Caco is sent from her impoverished village of Croix-des-Rosets to New York, to be reunited with a mother she barely remembers. There she discovers secrets that no child should ever know and a legacy of shame that can be healed only when she returns to Haiti - to the women who first reared her. What ensues is a passionate journey through a landscape charged with the supernatural and scarred by political violence in a novel that bears witness to the traditions, suffering, and wisdom of an entire people.

This stirring coming-of-age tale unfolds in 1930s rural Kansas. A poignant portrait of African-American family life in the early twentieth century, it follows the story of young Sandy Rogers as he grows from a boy to a man. We meet Sandy's mother, Annjee, who works as a housekeeper for a wealthy white family; his strong-willed grandmother, Hager; Jimboy, Sandy's father, who travels the country looking for work; Aunt Tempy, the social climber; and Aunt Harriet, the blues singer who has turned away from her faith.

Pumkin Patterson is a thirteen-year-old girl living in a tiny two-room house in Kingston, Jamaica, with her grandmother (who wants to improve the family’s social standing), her Aunt Sophie (who dreams of a new life in Paris for her and Pumkin), and her mother Paulette (who’s rarely home). When Sophie is offered the chance to move to France for work, she seizes the opportunity, and promises to send for her niece in one year’s time....

Seven years ago, Mckayla, the woman of Ray’s dreams, abruptly disappeared the same day a member of his family was killed in a hit and run accident. When she resurfaces out of the blue engaged to his cousin (Shawn), Ray struggles with letting her go and focusing on his job as Chief of Staff to his father, Governor Walt Rucker. Shawn makes the separate startling discovery that the families of him and his and his new fiancée are already tied together deeper than their nuptials could stich them, and he decides to keep it to himself for the time being. After a by chance run-in, Ray and ...