For Maleek Jones, hockey is his wife. Everything and everyone else is his mistress, an aside. When unexpected responsibilities land in his lap, the balance of his world is disrupted, changing the way he sees everything.

Trying to figure out life while recovering from trauma, Nuri Knox finds herself in desperate need of the one thing Maleek has to offer.

In each other, they discover what neither of them expects.

Love.

Winner of the MLA's 2016 Alan Bray Prize for Best Book in GLBTQ Studies
How BDSM can be used as a metaphor for black female sexuality. The Color of Kink explores black women's representations and performances within American pornography and BDSM (bondage and discipline, domination and submission, and sadism and masochism) from the 1930s to the present, revealing the ways in which they illustrate a complex and contradictory negotiation of pain, pleasure, and power for black women.

Based on personal interviews conducted with pornography performers, producers, and professional dominatrices, visual and textual analysis, and extensive archival research, Ariane Cruz reveals BDSM and pornography as critical sites from which to rethink the formative links between Black female sexuality and violence. She explores how violence becomes not just a vehicle of pleasure but also a mode of accessing and contesting power. Drawing on feminist and queer theory, critical race theory, and media studies, Cruz argues that BDSM is a productive space from which to consider the complexity and diverseness of black women's sexual practice and the mutability of black female sexuality. Illuminating the cross-pollination of black sexuality and BDSM, The Color of Kink makes a unique contribution to the growing scholarship on racialized sexuality.

From New York Times bestselling author Shanora Williams comes a deeply heartfelt romance about the tragedies that put our lives on hold―and the love that makes us want to start again.

Javier Valdez hasn’t had much luck with nannies, and he can’t imagine this one will be any different. Octavia Klein is all sass to his stoicism, free spirit to his hard work. But he’s a widower, and with a career in the NBA, he can’t keep doing this alone.

Despite Javier’s reservations, Octavia turns out to be the best thing for his four-year-old daughter…and for him. But he’s reluctant to admit it. Javier swore off love after his wife died, and Octavia has her own reasons for avoiding relationships.

As their bond deepens far past professionalism or even friendship, it’s hard to deny the crackling tension of something more. They’re both toeing lines they said they wouldn’t cross―and when their pasts come rushing back, there’s no telling which way they’ll fall.

With old wounds reopened, can Javier and Octavia overcome the pain once again? Or will their future together become just another scar?

Jean Toomer’s Cane is one of the most significant works to come out of the Harlem Renaissance, and is considered to be a masterpiece in American modernist literature because of its distinct structure and style.

First published in 1923 and told through a series of vignettes, Cane uses poetry, prose, and play-like dialogue to create a window into the varied lives of African Americans living in the rural South and urban North during a time when Jim Crow laws pervaded and racism reigned. While critically acclaimed and known today as a pioneering text of the Harlem Renaissance, the book did not gain as much popularity as other works written during the period. Fellow Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes believed Cane’s lack of a wider readership was because it didn’t reinforce the stereotypes often associated with African Americans during the time, but portrayed them in an accurate and entirely human way, breaking the mold and laying the groundwork for how African Americans are depicted in literature.

For the first time in Penguin Classics, this edition of Cane features a new introduction, suggestions for further reading, and notes by scholar George Hutchinson, and National Book Award Foundation 5 Under 35 novelist Zinzi Clemmons contributes a foreword.

Capturing the distinct rhythms of Jamaican life and dialect, Nicole Dennis- Benn pens a tender hymn to a world hidden among pristine beaches and the wide expanse of turquoise seas. At an opulent resort in Montego Bay, Margot hustles to send her younger sister, Thandi, to school. Taught as a girl to trade her sexuality for survival, Margot is ruthlessly determined to shield Thandi from the same fate. When plans for a new hotel threaten their village, Margot sees not only an opportunity for her own financial independence but also perhaps a chance to admit a shocking secret: her forbidden love for another woman. As they face the impending destruction of their community, each woman—fighting to balance the burdens she shoulders with the freedom she craves—must confront long-hidden scars. From a much-heralded new writer, Here Comes the Sun offers a dramatic glimpse into a vibrant, passionate world most outsiders see simply as paradise.

Meet the Flyy Girls. The group of girls who seem like they can get away with anything. Veteran author Ashley Woodfolk pens a gorgeous and dynamic series of four Harlem highschoolers, each facing a crossroads of friendship, family, and love.

Lux Lawson is on a spree. Ever since her dad left, she’s been kicked out of every school that would take her, and this is her last chance: Harlem’s Augusta Savage School of the Arts. If this doesn’t work, Lux is off to military school, no questions asked. That means no more acting out, no more fights, and definitely no boyfriends. Focus on her photography, and make nice friends. That’s the deal.

Enter the Flyy Girls, three students who have it all together. The type of girls Lux needs to be friends with to stay out of trouble. And after charming her way into the group, Lux feels she’s on the right track. But every group has their secrets, including Lux. And when the past starts catching up with her, can she keep her place as a Flyy Girl?

In this searing series opener, Lux takes center stage as she figures out just how hard it can be to start over.

With simply stated text and compelling characters, Flyy Girls is a series that’s perfect for readers of any level.

Series Overview: The series follows four city girls who are trying to navigate life at an arts high school in Harlem all while dealing with their families, friendships, and feelings.

With a high interest/low reading level, this series engages teenagers with low reading skills and appeals to skilled middle-grade readers looking for a slightly more challenging series with mature content.

The Book of Harlan opens with the courtship of Harlan's parents and his 1917 birth in Macon, Georgia. After his prominent minister grandfather dies, Harlan and his parents move to Harlem, where he eventually becomes a professional musician. When Harlan and his best friend, trumpeter Lizard Robbins, are invited to perform at a popular cabaret in the Parisian enclave of Montmartre--affectionately referred to as "The Harlem of Paris" by black American musicians--Harlan jumps at the opportunity, convincing Lizard to join him.

But after the City of Light falls under Nazi occupation, Harlan and Lizard are thrown into Buchenwald--the notorious concentration camp in Weimar, Germany--irreparably changing the course of Harlan's life. Based on exhaustive research and told in McFadden's mesmeric prose, The Book of Harlan skillfully blends the stories of McFadden's familial ancestors with those of real and imagined characters.

Sunny tries to shine despite his troubled past in this third novel in the critically acclaimed Track series from National Book Award finalist Jason Reynolds.

Ghost. Patina. Sunny. Lu. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds, with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team—a team that could take them to the state championships. They all have a lot to lose, but they all have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves. Sunny is the main character in this novel, the third of four books in Jason Reynold’s electrifying middle grade series.

Sunny is just that—sunny. Always ready with a goofy smile and something nice to say, Sunny is the chillest dude on the Defenders team. But his life hasn’t always been sun beamy-bright. You see, Sunny is a murderer. Or at least he thinks of himself that way. His mother died giving birth to him, and based on how Sunny’s dad treats him—ignoring him, making Sunny call him Darryl, never “Dad”—it’s no wonder Sunny thinks he’s to blame. It seems the only thing Sunny can do right in his dad’s eyes is win first place ribbons running the mile, just like his mom did. But Sunny doesn’t like running, never has. So he stops. Right in the middle of a race.

With his relationship with his dad now worse than ever, the last thing Sunny wants to do is leave the other newbies—his only friends—behind. But you can’t be on a track team and not run. So Coach asks Sunny what he wants to do. Sunny’s answer? Dance. Yes, dance. But you also can’t be on a track team and dance. Then, in a stroke of genius only Jason Reynolds can conceive, Sunny discovers a track event that encompasses the hard beats of hip-hop, the precision of ballet, and the showmanship of dance as a whole: the discus throw. But as he practices for this new event, can he let go of everything that’s been eating him up inside?

How to Carry Water: Selected Poems of Lucille Clifton celebrates both familiar and lesser-known works by one of America’s most beloved poets, including 10 newly discovered poems that have never been collected.

These poems celebrating black womanhood and resilience shimmer with intellect, insight, humor, and joy, all in Clifton’s characteristic style—a voice that the late Toni Morrison described as “seductive with the simplicity of an atom, which is to say highly complex, explosive underneath an apparent quietude.” Selected and introduced by award-winning poet Aracelis Girmay, this volume of Clifton’s poetry is simultaneously timeless and fitting for today’s tumultuous moment.

A chorus of Black student voices that renders a new story of US education—one where racial barriers and violence are confronted by freedom dreaming and resistance

Black students were forced to live and learn on the Black side of the color line for centuries, through the time of slavery, Emancipation, and the Jim Crow era. And for just as long—even through to today—Black students have been seen as a problem and a seemingly troubled population in America’s public imagination.

Through over one hundred firsthand accounts from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Professor Jarvis Givens offers a powerful counter-narrative in School Clothes to challenge such dated and prejudiced storylines. He details the educational lives of writers such as Zora Neale Hurston and Ralph Ellison; political leaders like Mary McLeod Bethune, Malcolm X, and Angela Davis; and Black students whose names are largely unknown but who left their marks nonetheless. Givens blends this multitude of individual voices into a single narrative, a collective memoir, to reveal a through line shared across time and circumstance: a story of African American youth learning to battle the violent condemnation of Black life and imposed miseducation meant to quell their resistance.

School Clothes elevates a legacy in which Black students are more than the sum of their suffering. By peeling back the layers of history, Givens unveils in high relief a distinct student body: Black learners shaped not only by their shared vulnerability but also their triumphs, fortitude, and collective strivings.

Photo albums from the archives of the iconic chronicler of New York's 1980s rap, hip-hop and Black culture

The influential Brooklyn-based photographer Jamel Shabazz has been making portraits of New Yorkers for more than 40 years, creating an archive of cultural shifts and struggles across the city. His portraits of different communities underscore the street as a space for self-presentation, whether through fashion or pose. In every instance Shabazz aims, in his words, to represent individuals and communities with “honor and dignity.” This book—awarded the Gordon Parks Foundation/Steidl Book Prize—presents, for the first time, Shabazz’s work from the 1970s to ’90s as it exists in his archive: small prints thematically grouped and sequenced in traditional family photo albums that function as portable portfolios.
Shabazz began making portraits in the mid-1970s in Brooklyn, Queens, the West Village and Harlem. His camera was also at his side while working as an officer at Rikers Island in the 1980s, where he took portraits of inmates. This book features selections from over a dozen albums, many previously unseen, and includes his earliest photographs as well as images taken inside Rikers Island, all accompanied by essays that situate Shabazz’s work within the broader history of photography.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Jamel Shabazz (born 1960) picked up his first camera at the age of 15 and began documenting his communities, inspired by photographers such as Leonard Freed, James Van Der Zee and Gordon Parks. His work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including those at the Brooklyn Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Shabazz is the author of Back in the Days (2001) and Sights in the City (2017).

An eye-opening roadmap for becoming a millionaire and building the foundation of generational wealth from a self-made, first-generation multimillionaire.

Demystify the path to wealth once and for all with Dominique Broadway’s unique strategy for taking control of your finances and becoming a millionaire. Based on simple steps and small decisions that build upon each other that anyone can execute (even those who have never had money or who face debt), The Wealth Decision includes:

-What orange juice has to do with building wealth (hint: it’s about wanting the good stuff)
-Strategies for spending your way to wealth
-One single question to determine if you’re on top of your money
-How to avoid saving your way to debt
-A road map to score higher on your credit score
-Dominique’s framework for picking the best investments for you
-What insurance has to do with your legacy

Written with millennials and Gen Zers in mind, The Wealth Decision first shows you how to make that one decision to be wealthy. It then takes you through the most important decisions you need to live a life of financial freedom and ensuing strategies to build generational wealth and become a millionaire. Worksheets, resources, visuals, quizzes, and graphs bring Dominique’s strategies to life. With information on everything from crypto to day-trading to modern financial trends, The Wealth Decision is a must-have for anyone looking to up-level their financial situation.

A must-have anthology of the leading Black women and femmes shaping today’s food and hospitality landscape—from farm to table and beyond—chronicling their passions and motivations, lessons learned and hard-won wisdom, personal recipes, and more.

Chef and writer Klancy Miller found her own way by trial and error—as a pastry chef, recipe developer, author, and founder of For the Culture magazine—but what if she had known then what she knows now? What if she had known the extraordinary women profiled within these pages—entrepreneurs, chefs, food stylists, mixologists, historians, influencers, hoteliers, and more—and learned from their stories?

Like Leah Penniman, a farmer using Afro-Indigenous methods to restore the land and feed her community; Ashtin Berry, an activist, sommelier, and mixologist creating radical change in the hospitality industry and beyond; or Sophia Roe, a TV host and producer showcasing the inside stories behind today’s food systems. Toni Tipton-Martin, Mashama Bailey, Carla Hall, Nicole Taylor, Dr. Jessica B. Harris . . . In this gorgeous volume these luminaries and more share the vision that drives them, the mistakes they made along the way, advice for the next generation, and treasured recipes—all accompanied by stunning original illustrated portraits and vibrant food photography.

In addition, Miller shines a light on the matriarchs who paved the way for today’s tastemakers—Edna Lewis, B. Smith, Leah Chase, Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, and Lena Richard.

These collective profiles are a one-of-a-kind oral history of a movement, captured in real time, and indispensable for anyone passionate about food.

Drawing on first-hand clinical insight and scientific research, Dr. Wilborn offers much-needed advice on how women of color can be high-performing and successful professionally, without sacrificing their physical, mental, and emotional wellness. 

Black and brown women have been making profound strides in leadership and professional achievement, despite facing the added hurdles of both sexism and racism in the workplace. But so often, excelling at work comes at the expense of their wellness: the chronic stressors and demands on Black women can result in negative physical health outcomes such as sleep disturbance, hypertension, and diabetes, and negative mental health outcomes including anxiety and depression. We cannot talk about career advancement for Black and brown women without talking about strategies that promote their total wellbeing.

Playing a New Game offers women a new way forward, in which ambition and wellness can not only coexist, but bolster each other. With insights from her 20 years of professional counseling experience and extensive research, mental health expert Dr. Tammy Wilborn expands the dialogue on BIPOC women’s experiences of race and gender stereotypes at work, exploring them as a wellness issue.  Through her evidence-based best practices that promote self-care and self-empowerment as necessary tools for professional success, Black and brown women can flip the script by prioritizing their wellness even as they advance professionally. 

A young girl and her father share an early morning horseback ride around their city in My Daddy Is a Cowboy, a picture book celebration of “just-us time,” perfect for fans of My Papi Has a Motocycle.
 
Tall. High as the clouds.
Strong as a horse’s back.
Like a cowboy.
 
In the early hours before dawn, a young girl and her father greet their horses and ride together through the waking city streets. As they trot along, Daddy tells cowboy stories filled with fun and community, friendship, discovery, and pride. Seeing her city from a new vantage point and feeling seen in a new way, the child discovers that she too is a cowboy—strong and confident in who she is.
 
Thoughtfully and lyrically written by debut author Stephanie Seales, with vibrant illustrations from award-winning artist C. G. Esperanza, this beautiful picture book is a celebration of Black joy, outdoor play, and quality time spent between child and parent.

Perceptive and original, Ain’t I an Anthropologist is an overdue reassessment of Zora Neale Hurston’s place in American cultural and intellectual life.

How creativity makes its way through feeling—and what we can know and feel through the artistic work of Black women
 
Feeling is not feelin. As the poet, artist, and scholar Bettina Judd argues, feelin, in African American Vernacular English, is how Black women artists approach and produce knowledge as sensation: internal and complex, entangled with pleasure, pain, anger, and joy, and manifesting artistic production itself as the meaning of the work. Through interviews, close readings, and archival research, Judd draws on the fields of affect studies and Black studies to analyze the creative processes and contributions of Black women—from poet Lucille Clifton and musician Avery*Sunshine to visual artists Betye Saar, Joyce J. Scott, and Deana Lawson.
 
Feelin: Creative Practice, Pleasure, and Black Feminist Thought makes a bold and vital intervention in critical theory’s trend toward disembodying feeling as knowledge. Instead, Judd revitalizes current debates in Black studies about the concept of the human and about Black life by considering how discourses on emotion as they are explored by Black women artists offer alternatives to the concept of the human. Judd expands the notions of Black women’s pleasure politics in Black feminist studies that include the erotic, the sexual, the painful, the joyful, the shameful, and the sensations and emotions that yet have no name. In its richly multidisciplinary approach, Feelin calls for the development of research methods that acknowledge creative and emotionally rigorous work as productive by incorporating visual art, narrative, and poetry.

Aderyn
Resident playboy, Samson Morgan, thinks he can beat me at my own game.
The hockey captain truly believes he can stop playing the field for longer than I can start having one-night stands.
Okay, sure, historically I'm known for being an all-in, ask-to-be-your-girlfriend-on-the-first-date romantic. But being a player isn't that hard. And I came to Mendell University to win. Whether that's on the ice or off.
Morgan doesn't realize it yet but he's finally met an opponent who can take him down.

Sam
My bet with the women's hockey team captain feels like an easy win.
Three months pretending to be a one-woman kind of man? Easy...scary easy, actually.
Somewhere along the line, I start taking my role too seriously.
This semester isn't the time for me to get distracted from my main goal - ensuring my team gets a fair shot this season.
But Aderyn Jacobs consistently makes me rethink everything I've ever wanted. I'm in danger of losing something far bigger than our bet.
__

Team Players is a college hockey romance starring two cocky and competitive hockey captains. This is book two of the Mendell Hawks series. It's recommended to read the series in order.

Written after two years of artistic silence, during which the world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Minneapolis became the epicenter of protest following the murder of George Floyd, Bluff is Danez Smith’s powerful reckoning with their role and responsibility as a poet and with their hometown of the Twin Cities. This is a book of awakening out of violence, guilt, shame, and critical pessimism to wonder and imagine how we can strive toward a new existence in a world that seems to be dissolving into desolate futures.

Smith brings a startling urgency to these poems, their questions demanding a new language, a deep self-scrutiny, and virtuosic textual shapes. A series of ars poetica gives way to “anti poetica” and “ars america” to implicate poetry’s collusions with unchecked capitalism. A photographic collage accrues across a sequence to make clear the consequences of America's acceptance of mass shootings. A brilliant long poem―part map, part annotation, part visual argument―offers the history of Saint Paul’s vibrant Rondo neighborhood before and after officials decided to run an interstate directly through it.

Bluff is a kind of manifesto about artistic resilience, even when time and will can seem fleeting, when the places we most love―those given and made―are burning. In this soaring collection, Smith turns to honesty, hope, rage, and imagination to envision futures that seem possible.

An introduction to the spiritual source of the beliefs and practices that have so profoundly shaped African American religious traditions.

Most of the Africans who were enslaved and brought to the Americas were from the Yoruba nation of West Africa, an ancient and vast civilization. In the diaspora caused by the slave trade, the guiding concepts of the Yoruba spiritual tradition took root in Haiti, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Brazil, and the United States.

In this accessible introduction, Baba Ifa Karade provides an overview of the Yoruba tradition and its influence in the West. He describes the sixteen Orisha, or spirit gods, and shows us how to work with divination, use the energy centers of the body to internalize the teachings of Yoruba, and create a sacred place of worship. The book also includes prayers, dances, songs, offerings, and sacrifices to honor the Orisha.

Growing up in Seale, Alabama as a Black Queer kid, then attending the Rhode Island School of Design as an undergraduate, Jon Key hungered to see himself in the fields of Art and Design. But in lectures, critiques, and in the books he read, he struggled to see and learn about people who intersected with his identity or who GOT him. So he started asking himself questions:

What did it mean to be a graphic designer with his point of view? What did it mean to be a Black graphic designer? A Queer graphic designer? Someone from the South? Could his identity be communicated through a poster or a book? How could identity be archived in a design canon that has consistently erased contributions by designers who were not white, straight, and male?

In Black, Queer, & Untold, acclaimed designer and artist Jon Key answers these questions and manifests the book he and so many others wish they had when they were coming up. He pays tribute to the incredible designers, artists, and people who came before and provides them an enduring, reverential stage – and in so doing, gifts us a book that takes its place among the creative arts canon. 

In this powerful and comprehensive guide in the spirit of Jambalaya and Sacred Woman, an herbalist celebrates ancient and modern African holistic healing.

“The message of this book is: hold onto your yams, your collards, watermelon, and roots. There is magic, mystery, connection, and healing stored within them.”—Stephanie Rose Bird

Stephanie Rose Bird grew up surrounded by forests, listening to the stories of her ancestors and learning African healing ways. From an early age, she dedicated herself to herbalism and living a spiritually fulfilled life in harmony with nature. Now, the wisdom she as accrued is gathered in this impressive encyclopedic work of African Healing and herbal medicine.

Stephanie teaches you how to garden and harvest in unison with the seasons, and how to use herbalism and magic—derived from ancestral and spiritual helpers—to heal. A treasure trove of knowledge, Motherland Herbal showcases an array of recipes and rituals that nourish every facet of life:

* Seasonal recipes to support overall well-being
* Tinctures for common ailments such as headaches, flu, or heartburn
* Remedies for improving mental health, lessening symptoms of anxiety, stress, or depression
* Natural body and home care products, from facials to cleaning solutions
* Herbal Baths for relaxation, sexual wellness, and good luck
* Rituals and Altars for universal experiences, such as learning to letting go after loss and improving creativity and fertility
* Love Potions, Sleep Potions, Protective Amulets, and more

Written in Stephanie’s warm and authoritative voice, Motherland Herbal seamlessly blends activism and ancestral folklore with the realms of spirituality, gardening, and holistic wellness. Her deep reverence for the wisdom of her ancestors infuses every page of this guide, which is a foundational resource that will shape the landscape of African healing and folk medicine for generations to come.

Motherland Herbal includes 54 original pieces of art, including maps and artwork created by the author.

In this inspiring guide to the power of faithful resilience, Tasha Cobbs Leonard—Grammy Award winner and Billboard’s Gospel Artist of the Decade—shares the secret that helps her persevere: When saying yes to God doesn’t make sense, do it anyway.

“Prepare to be invigorated to claim every promise, realize every dream, cast aside every excuse, and embrace every God-given desire within your heart.”—Travis and Jackie Greene, pastors of Forward City Church

Pastor, entrepreneur, and gospel music icon Tasha Cobbs Leonard tells of journeying through moments of unforeseen challenges while holding to an unshakable God and discovering that our greatest breakthroughs come when we make the courageous choice to show up and do hard things anyway. 

Tasha tells remarkable stories of experiencing this firsthand when she committed to dreams even when they seemed unrealistic, pursued adoption though it looked impossible, navigated the dynamics of a blended family despite challenges, and watched God move in each step of endurance through infertility and depression.

With true testimony and conviction, Tasha inspires you toward a bolder way of life with the promise that it will always be worth it on the other side. Along the way, she equips you with practical tools to help you 
• Dream big with God again
• Focus on God’s direction over the loudness of the world 
• Never forget God’s faithfulness, especially in the midst of your hopelessness
• Don’t let fear of failure force you to quit on your miracle too soon
• Believe firmly that no mess and no amount of pain is beyond God’s redemption

Whether you’re feeling stuck, stressed, or simply weary—there’s a more a hopeful way to live, a bolder way to believe. 

To follow God when the way seems impossible, persevere in faith even when the odds are stacked—this is what it means to “do it anyway.”

In this gorgeous and inspiring book, the beloved artist behind Spoonful of Faith shows you how to overcome your fears and harness your own creative gifts as an act of worship.

With thoughtful stories, powerful reflections, hand lettering, and beautiful original artwork, Jena Holliday invites you to discover how you uniquely reflect the heart of a creative God. Using the lessons she’s learned along the way and creative prompts throughout, Jena encourages readers to overcome the pressure to perform, face the fears of failure and imposter syndrome, believe in the gifts that God has given, step forward in creativity, and delight in the fruit that comes from freely creating as an act of worship.

Each section provides space to digest what you’ve read with thoughtful questions to respond to in words or drawings, an affirmation to encourage you, and a prayer to guide you. With suggested songs to listen to as well, Sacred Creativity is the ultimate invitation to offer your God-given gifts back to the Creator in joyful worship. To yield to the One who Created all, and allow your art, creativity, and life to be a love offering.

Long out of print, the Negro in Sport is a reprint of the 1949 edition with the addition of an introduction by the historian Al-Tony Gilmore

"Informative and full of big flavors, this is a delicious and accessible introduction to Caribbean food for novices; will be a welcome addition to library shelves." —Library Journal

Through 80+ recipes, Code Noir tells the interesting and complex story of Caribbean cuisines that are not only incredibly rich in flavor but also in history.

Code Noir is a cookbook steeped in history. Not just because of the title, which hits on a seventeenth-century decree in which King Louis XIV recorded how enslaved Africans in the French colonies were to be treated, but also because it deals with the food and the people that, through the gruesome course of history, came together in the Caribbean.

Inside, chef and culinary activist Lelani Lewis goes back to her Caribbean roots with classics like jerk chicken, salted cod fritters, pepperpot stew, and Guinness punch. She also shares new creations with typically Caribbean ingredients like cassava, corn, coconut, lime, plantain, and chilies: plantain with peanut and lime salsa, sweet potato gratin with ginger cream, and crème anglaise of creamed corn and caramelized guava.