In 1959, newly-widowed and pregnant Ruby Washington and her thirteen-year-old half brother, Easton, board a bus in rural South Carolina, destined for Oakland, California. There, far from the violent events that forced her to flee her home, Ruby hopes to make a new life for her family.Ruby gives birth to a daughter, Lida, and strives to raise the girl and Easton. But as their Oakland neighborhood changes during the turbulent 1960s, the three are driven apart by forces that Ruby canno...

In this hilarious, free-wheeling western adventure, Sheriff Emmett Love works overtime to protect the town's most popular resident, a 14-year-old early-blooming female aptly named Enorma Stitz. Enorma, coveted by every man within 100 miles of Dodge City—and every Indian tribe—is a handful in every sense of the word.Meanwhile, Gentry has her hands full keeping the aggressive women of Dodge from stealing her man. She's also trying to raise her daughter, Scarlett Rose, to be a normal,...

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • “[Mat Johnson’s] unrelenting examination of blackness, whiteness and everything in between is handled with ruthless candor and riotous humor.”—Los Angeles Times“Razor-sharp . . . Loving Day is that rare mélange: cerebral comedy with pathos.”—The New York Times Book ReviewNAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYThe New Y...

From New York Times and USATODAY Bestselling Author Nicole Williams:Her heart can’t be destroyed by the same person twice. At least that’s what Clara Abbot finds herself hoping when she runs into Boone Cavanaugh less than an hour after returning to Charleston.As kids, Clara and Boone had been each other’s firsts, and no one or nothing could stand in the way of their forever. But all kids have to grow up sometime. The troubled son of the town drunk winding up with the firstb...

A "wonderful novel" steeped in the folklore of the South from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Women of Brewster Place ( The Washington Post Book World).On an island off the coast of Georgia, there's a place where superstition is more potent than any trappings of the modern world. In Willow Springs, the formidable Mama Day uses her powers to heal. But her great niece, Cocoa, can't wait to get away.In New York City, Coco...

In this hilarious cozy mystery, small-town police chief Arly Hanks tries to stop a right-wing militia from turning Maggody into a battlefield.The sign welcoming travelers to Maggody, Arkansas, reads "Pop. 755," and don't expect Hizzoner Jim Bob to repaint it just because there's someone new in town. The mayor won't go out of his way for anyone, especially someone wicked—and a woman who would open a pawnshop in Maggody must be very wicked indeed. Kayleen Smeltner dec...

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner: "Rivals Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon as the best novel about the black experience in America since Ellison's Invisible Man" ( The Christian Science Monitor).Brilliant but troubled historian John Washington has left Philadelphia, where he is employed by a major university, to return to his hometown just north of the Mason–Dixon Line. He is there to care for Old Jack, one of the men who helped raise him when h...

Pee Wee Gaskins killed without hesitation and apparently without remorse over and over again. He did so as he meandered in and out of maximum security prisons where he spent more than half of his life. Sentenced to reform school at age thirteen he honed his skills in the use of extreme violence. The horror of his crimes is played out against the backdrop of one of the most rural areas of South Carolina during the tumultuous change from absolute segregation to forced integration. In a lifes...

A literary rent party to benefit the Hurston/Wright Foundation of African-American fiction, with selections to savor from bestselling authors as well as talented rising stars.Not since Terry McMillan’s Breaking Ice have so many African-American writers been brought together in one volume. A stellar collection of works from more than fifty hot names in fiction, Gumbo represents remarkable synergy. Edited by bestselling luminaries Marita Golden and E. Lynn Harris, t...

A sparkling debut set in Mark Twain's boyhood town, Flood is a story of what it means to be lost . . . and found.Laura Brooks fled her hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, ten years ago after a historic flood and personal heartbreak. Now she's returned unannounced, and her family and friends don't know what to make of it. She says she's just home for a brief visit and her high-school reunion, but she's carrying too much luggage for that: literal and metaphorical...

Whether weaving family life and history into dark fiction or writing speculative Afrofuturism, American Book Award winner and Essence bestselling author Tananarive Due's work is both riveting and enlightening. In her debut collection of short fiction, Due takes us to Gracetown, a small Florida town that has both literal and figurative ghost; into future scenarios that seem all too real; and provides empathetic portraits of those whose lives are touched by Otherness. Featuring an award-winn...

Cheyenne West grew up living and breathing the club life. Being the daughter of a founding member, the Twisted Mayhem MC is the only family she has ever known. While coming to terms with the secret life of her traitorous husband, and the guilt that comes along with having slept with the enemy, Shy learns that the danger is far from over.For M.C. playboy, Jason Schrader, life is all about chasing the next rush. Taking every day at full-throttle, Schrader lives every octane-fueled mi...