African American Historical Fiction

The Secret Side of the Civil War John Scobell, a former slave, works as a spy for the Union, collecting secrets in northern Virginia as the Civil War marches down upon the land. But he has no idea that Peg, the wife he left behind in Richmond, has also become a Union spy operating in the heart of the Confederacy. The Lincoln League is based on the true story of John Scobell, the first African-American spy in the U.S. intelligence service. This thrilling novel also tells the little-known story of the Lincoln League, a network of African-American spies. In the beginning, John saw the war as a...

Captured by slave traders when only 15, At-mun never forgot his roots as a prince. Nor did he ever lose his princely dignity and the courage to hold his head high. Sold at auction in America and haunted by the memory of his young sister left behind in Africa, At-mun, now Amos, began his long march to freedom. He dreamed of being free and of buying the freedom of his closest friends.

Award-winning author Denny S. Bryce and USA Today bestselling author Eliza Knight collaborate on a brilliant novel that uncovers the boundary-breaking, genuine friendship between Ella Fitzgerald, the Queen of Jazz, and iconic movie star Marilyn Monroe.

Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her - but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North.

The compelling account of how two heritages united in their struggle to gain freedom and equality in America. The first paths to freedom taken by runaway slaves led to Native American villages. There, black men and women found acceptance and friendship among our country's original inhabitants. Though they seldom appear in textbooks and movies, the children of Native and African American marriages helped shape the early days of the fur trade, added a new dimension to frontier diplomacy, and made a daring contribution to the fight for American liberty.

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman has sold over a million copies nationwide since its publication in 1971, making the fictional character of Miss Jane so real many people don’t know she exists only in the imagination of Louisiana-born author Ernest J. Gaines. Miss Jane is 100 years old when she is interviewed by an area high school teacher looking to teach his students more about plantation society in the Deep South. Her story is not only a vivid picture of the South before the dawn of the civil rights era, but also a story of one woman’s survival against overwhelming odds.

“I can't die but once!” This was the rallying cry of Harriet Tubman, the most famous conductor in the history of the Underground Railroad. Her name is legendary, but many don’t know Harriet’s full story. The Tubman Train starts with her dramatic early years, including the pivotal day when she began having visions from God—visions of flying North. The story follows Harriet through her own escape in 1849 and the beginning of her work as the “She-Moses,” culminating in the dramatic attempt to rescue her brothers. The Tubman Train is the first novel to explore the complicated ...

Freedom fighter, brilliant businessperson, devoted wife, master of languages, and ultimately, savior of a European dynasty. Claudia Patterson would become all of these—spurred on by the fiercely powerful loves and losses along the way … Denny Clark. An abused thirteen-year-old White boy whose life twelve-year-old Claudia saves—complicating her own life for years to come.

Early 1900s London: Taken from his homeland, twelve-year-old Celestine spends most of the time locked away in the attic of a large house by the sea. The only time Celestine isn’t bound by confines of the small space is when he is acting as an unpaid servant to English explorer Sir Richard Babbington, As the years pass, he desperately clings on to memories of his family in Africa, even as he struggles to remember his mother’s face, and sometimes his real name . . .

Paris was born and raised a slave on a South Carolina rice plantation. As a young boy, he used to look up at the birds, flying freely above him. He longed to be free like the birds, but in 18th century, pre-Revolutionary times, it seemed impossible. However, when the British came seeking slaves willing to desert their masters to fight their cause, a 15-year-old Paris saw his chance, and took it.

Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. Sethe has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.

Both Noon and Herbie have secrets. Because of this she can’t be intimate with her husband, and he sneaks out to a hot jazz singer named Ethel - who has a secret of her own. When the city proposes to build a road through their neighborhood, Noon begins a crusade to keep it from happening - and maybe save her marriage in the process. Tumble into this amazing novel and feel the love and warmth of a special block in South Philly. This is an extraordinary depiction of the true meaning of family and fellowship.

Washington D. C., 1925. Clara Johnson talks to spirits, a gift that saved her during her darkest moments in a Washington D. C. jail. Now a curse that’s left her indebted to the cunning spirit world. So, when the Empress, the powerful spirit who holds her debt, offers her an opportunity to gain her freedom, a desperate Clara seizes the chance. The task: steal a magical ring from the wealthiest woman in the District.

Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother’s position as the estate’s medicine woman and cherished by the Master’s sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world. She’d been promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil’s Half Acre.

Queen Amira has suffered her husband's neglect and disdain since she came to be his wife. His attitude only softening the slightest bit with the birth of the two princes and heirs. With that, she has retained some of her power and love at court. But, she is still lonely and dreams of a true love of her own. Though she dare not dream it will ever come. King Deron loves women. His wife that was sent for him was barren for years. He thought he made a mistake in marrying her. He even took her lady as his mistress and had a child with her. A child that he flaunted under the queen's nose as he ...

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.

In Miracle at St. Anna, toward the end of World War II, four Buffalo Soldiers from the Army’s Negro 92nd Division find themselves separated from their unit and behind enemy lines. Risking their lives for a country in which they are treated with less respect than the enemy they are fighting, they discover humanity in the small Tuscan village of St. Anna di Stazzema—in the peasants who shelter them, in the unspoken affection of an orphaned child, in a newfound faith in fellow man. And even in the face of unspeakable tragedy, they—and we—learn to see the small miracles of life.

Wayétu Moore’s powerful debut novel, She Would Be King, reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia’s early years through three unforgettable characters who share an uncommon bond. Gbessa, exiled from the West African village of Lai, is starved, bitten by a viper, and left for dead, but still she survives. June Dey, raised on a plantation in Virginia, hides his unusual strength until a confrontation with the overseer forces him to flee. Norman Aragon, the child of a white British colonizer and a Maroon slave from Jamaica, can fade from sight when the earth calls him.

Book 2 of the BabyGirl series finds Sage trying to do things the right way, but doing good has left her with a bad taste in her mouth. When her past comes back to haunt her, she's pulled back into the lifestyle that changed her life forever when she lost her two best friends and had to learn how to walk again. Sage knows with high risks, comes high rewards and she's willing to put it all on the line if that means she can come out on top. She's older and wiser now, but one thing about her hasn't changed. Sage wants better than the only life she's known growing up in South Central, Los ...

Johnny Holt Jr. comes home to Kentucky for the summer to find his father, JJ, has made alliances with a notorious slave owner, Spanish-born Edmond Maguerro, to turn Holt Lands into a million-dollar plantation. Johnny is indifferent. Much as he hates the idea because of his liberal views about slavery, he doesn’t involve himself until he meets Elisa, one of his father’s new slaves.