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  • MAY 2024: Adult Book Club - May 23 @ 7PM
    from $0.00

    The bookclub meeting is on May 23 at 7 PM. We're be in the Kindred Stories Reading. Be sure to show up with the book read (or partially read) but you are always welcome to just come and take up space. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    Nate Evers, a young black political activist, struggles with rage as his people are still being killed in the streets 62 years after Emmett Till. When his little cousin is murdered, Nate shuns the graffiti murals, candlelight vigils, and Twitter hashtags that are commonplace after these senseless deaths. Instead, he leads 3 grief-stricken friends on a mission of retribution, kidnapping the descendants of long-ago perpetrators of hate crimes, confronting the targets with their racist lineages, and forcing them to pay reparations to a community fund. For 3 of the group members, the results mean justice; for Nate – pure revenge.

    Not all targets go quietly into the night, though, and Nate and his friends' world spirals out of control when they confront the wrong man. Now the leader of a white supremacist group is hot on their tail as is a jaded lawman with some disturbingly racist views of his own.

    As the 4 vigilantes fight to thwart their ruthless pursuers, they’re forced to accept an age-old truth: "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."

    Smoke Kings is a powerful and propulsive novel with a diverse and unforgettable cast of characters. Like Steph Cha’s Your House Will Pay it explores decades of racial tensions through a fictional landscape where the line between justice and revenge is blurred.

  • YA Book Club for Adults Presents Legacy of Orisha Read - A - Thon
    $0.00

    We are so excited for Children of Anguish and Anarchy by Tomi Adeyemi, the third and final book in the Legacy of Orisha series, which comes out June 25, 2024!!!

    In preparation, we are re-reading Children of Blood and Bone as well as Children of Virtue and Vengeance and we want all of you to join us!

    Here's how: 

    • First, pre-order Children of Anguish and Anarchy from us!
    • Once you pre-order, you'll be added to our exclusive Legacy Orisha Read-A-Thon Facebook Group
    • You will also receive the links for each book club meeting and a little bit of swag.

    Meeting Times

    • Children of Blood and Bone - May 21 at 7 PM CST (virtual)
    • Children of Virtue and Vengeance - June 24 at 7 PM CST (virtual)
    • Children of Anguish and Anarchy - July 27 at Time: TBA (hybrid)

    About the Book(s)

    Children of Blood and Bones 

    In a world where magic has disappeared and magis, once revered, are targeted by a ruthless king, Zélie has always feared she would share the fate of her mother, killed at the hands of the king’s guards when Zélie was just a child.

    Now, at seventeen, Zélie has a chance to bring magic back to the land of Orïsha. With the help of her brother Tzain and the fugitive Crown Princess Amari, she sets off on a journey to restore her people’s magical abilities. In order to succeed, they’ll have to outwit and outrun Prince Inan, who is hell-bent on ridding the world of magic.

    In the face of danger, death, and a star-crossed romance, Zélie must grapple with the ramifications of bringing magic back to her people—and come to terms with her own powers.

    About Children of Virtue and Vengeance 

    Zélie must save Orïsha from a devastating civil war in the dazzling second installment of the Legacy of Orïsha trilogy by Tomi Adeyemi.

    After battling the impossible, Zélie and Amari have finally succeeded in bringing magic back to the land of Orïsha. But the ritual was more powerful than they could’ve imagined, reigniting the powers of not only the maji, but of nobles with magic ancestry, too.

    Now, Zélie struggles to unite the maji in an Orïsha where the enemy is just as powerful as they are. But when the monarchy and military unite to keep control of Orïsha, Zélie must fight to secure Amari's right to the throne and protect the new maji from the monarchy's wrath.

    With civil war looming on the horizon, Zélie finds herself at a breaking point: She must discover a way to bring the kingdom together or watch as Orïsha tears itself apart.

    About Children of Anguish and Anarchy 

    New allies rise.
    The Blood Moon nears.
    Zélie faces her final enemy.
    The king who hunts her heart.

    When Zelie seized the royal palace that fateful night, she thought her battles had come to an end. The monarchy had finally fallen. The maji had risen again. Zélie never expected to find herself locked in a cage and trapped on a foreign ship. Now warriors with iron skulls traffic her and her people across the seas, far from their homeland.

    Then everything changes when Zélie meets King Baldyr, her true captor, the ruler of the Skulls, and the man who has ravaged entire civilizations to find her. Baldyr’s quest to harness Zélie’s strength sends Zélie, Amari, and Tzain searching for allies in unknown lands.

    But as Baldyr closes in, catastrophe charges Orïsha’s shores. It will take everything Zélie has to face her final enemy and save her people before the Skulls annihilate them for good.

  • April 2024: Adult Book Club - April 25 @ 7PM
    from $0.00

    The bookclub meeting is on April 25, 2024 at 7 PM. We're be in the Kindred Stories Reading. Be sure to show up with the book read (or partially read) but you are always welcome to just come and take up space. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court

    Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens—on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles—the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since the '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is told that his father's work will lead to a memoir that will solve their financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.
    Fueled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident—the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins—he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in front of the Supreme Court.
    Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the U.S. Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality—the black Chinese restaurant.

  • APRIL 2024: Young Adult Book Club for Adults - April 23 @ 6:30 PM
    from $0.00

    The bookclub meeting will take place on April 23, 2024 at 6:30 PM in the Kindred Stories' Reading Garden. Be sure to show up with the book read (or partially read). You are always welcome to just come and take up space. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    From the New York Times bestselling author of the Brown Sisters trilogy, comes a laugh-out-loud story about a quirky content creator and a clean-cut athlete testing their abilities to survive the great outdoors—and each other.

    Bradley Graeme is pretty much perfect. He’s a star football player, manages his OCD well (enough), and comes out on top in all his classes . . . except the ones he shares with his ex-best friend, Celine.
     
    Celine Bangura is conspiracy-theory-obsessed. Social media followers eat up her takes on everything from UFOs to holiday overconsumption—yet, she’s still not cool enough for the popular kids’ table. Which is why Brad abandoned her for the in-crowd years ago. (At least, that’s how Celine sees it.)

    These days, there’s nothing between them other than petty insults and academic rivalry. So when Celine signs up for a survival course in the woods, she’s surprised to find Brad right beside her.

    Forced to work as a team for the chance to win a grand prize, these two teens must trudge through not just mud and dirt but their messy past. And as this adventure brings them closer together, they begin to remember the good bits of their history. But has too much time passed . . . or just enough to spark a whole new kind of relationship?

  • Houston Reads Zora Neale Hurston by Project Row Houses, Chanecka, & Kindred Stories
    $0.00

    Kindred Stories is proud to partner with Project Row Houses and Chanecka Williams to present Houston Reads Zora Neale Hurston.

    Zora Neale Hurston Meeting Schedule 

    November 19 - Jonah’s Gourd (1934)

    December 17 - Mules and Men (1935)

    January 14 - Their Eyes are Watching God (1937)

    February 18 - Tell My Horse (1938)

    March 17 - Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939)

    April 21 - Dust Tracks on a Road (1942)

    May 17 -  Seraph on the Suwanee (1948)

    June 23 - I Love Myself When I Am Laughing…Then Again (1979)

    July 21 - The Complete Stories (1998)

    August 18 - Every Tongue Got to Confess (2001)

    September 15 - Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” (2018)

    October 20 - Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick (2020)

    November 19 - You Don’t Know Us Negros and Other Essays (2022)

  • March 2024: Adult Book Club - March 28 @ 7PM
    from $0.00

    The bookclub meeting is on March 28, 2024 at 7 PM. We're be hanging out with our friends at The Plant Project (in the Montrose Collective). Be sure to show up with the book read (or partially read) but you are always welcome to just come and take up space. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    In the vein of Octavia E. Butler and Margaret Atwood, a harrowing novel set in an alternate United States—a world of injustice and bondage in which a young Black woman becomes the concubine of a powerful white government official and must face the dangerous consequences.

    Solenne Bonet lives in Texas where choice no longer exists. An algorithm determines a Black woman’s occupation, spouse, and residence. Solenne finds solace in penning the biography of Henriette, an ancestor who’d been an enslaved concubine to a wealthy planter in 1800s Louisiana. But history repeats itself when Solenne, lonely and naïve, finds herself entangled with Bastien Martin, a high-ranking government official. Solenne finds the psychological bond unbearable, so she considers alternatives. With Henriette as her guide, she must decide whether and how to leave behind all she knows.  

    Inspired by the lives of enslaved concubines to U.S. politicians and planters, The Blueprint unfolds over dual timelines to explore bodily autonomy, hypocrisy, and power imbalances through the lens of the nation’s most unprotected: a Black girl.


  • March 2024: Young Adult Book Club for Adults - March 26 @ 7PM
    from $0.00

    The bookclub meeting will take place on March 26, 2024 at 7 PM in the Kindred Stories' Reading Garden. Be sure to show up with the book read (or partially read). You are always welcome to just come and take up space. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    In this new pulse-pounding thriller from the author of The Black Queen, two brothers must come together to solve the murder of the most popular girl in school after one of them is caught fleeing the scene of her death.

    Amir Trudeau only goes to his half brother Marcel’s birthday party because of Chloe Danvers. Chloe is rich, and hot, and fits right into the perfect life Marcel inherited when their father left Amir’s mother to start a new family with Marcel’s mom. But Chloe is hot enough for Amir to forget that for one night.

    Does she want to hook up? Or is she trying to meddle in the estranged brothers’ messy family drama? Amir can’t tell. He doesn’t know what Chloe wants from him when, in the final hours of Mardi Gras, she asks him to take her home and stay—her parents are away and she doesn’t want to be alone. 

    Amir never finds out, because when he wakes up, Chloe is dead—stabbed while he was passed out on the couch. And in no time, Amir becomes the only suspect. A Black teenager caught fleeing the scene of a rich white girl’s murder? All of New Orleans agrees: the case is open-and-shut.

    Amir is innocent. He has a lawyer, but unless someone can figure out who really killed Chloe, things don’t look good for him. His number one ally? Marcel. Their relationship is messy, but Marcel knows that Amir isn’t a murderer—and maybe proving his innocence will repair the rift between them.

    To find Chloe’s killer, Amir and Marcel need to dig into her secrets. And what they find is darker than either could have guessed. Parents will go to any lengths to protect their children, and in a city as old as New Orleans, the right family connections can bury even the ugliest truths.

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