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  • Let Us March On: An Unforgettable Historical Novel with a Timely Social Justice Theme, Perfect for Winter 2025, Be Inspired by Lizzie McDuffie's Courage and Tenacity!

    Shara Moon

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    Devoted wife, White House maid, reluctant activist…

    A stirring novel inspired by the life of an unsung heroine, and real-life crusader, Lizzie McDuffie, who as a maid in FDR’s White House spearheaded the Civil Rights movement of her time.

    I’m just a college-educated Southerner with a passion for books. My husband says I’m too bold, too sharp, too unrelenting. Others say I helped spearhead the Civil Rights movement of our time. President Roosevelt says I’m too spunky and spirited for my own good.

    Who am I?

    I am Elizabeth “Lizzie” McDuffie. 

     And this is my story…

    When Lizzie McDuffie, maid to Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt, boldly proclaimed herself FDR’s “Secretary-On-Colored-People’s-Affairs,” she became more than just a maid—she became the President’s eyes and ears into the Black community. After joining the White House to work alongside her husband, FDR’s personal valet, Lizzie managed to become completely indispensable to the Roosevelt family. Never shy about pointing out injustices, she advocated for the needs and rights of her fellow African Americans when those in the White House blocked access to the President.

    Following the life of Lizzie McDuffie throughout her time in the White House as she championed the rights of everyday Americans and provided access to the most powerful man in the country, Let Us March On looks at the unsung and courageous crusader who is finally getting the recognition she so richly deserves.

  • The Known World: A Novel

    Edward P. Jones

    $17.99

    Winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize Award and recognized as the best book of fiction in the 21st century by the New York Times, Edward P. Jones's The Known World is a debut novel of stunning emotional depth and unequaled literary power and continues to show its importance to the American literary canon.

    Henry Townsend, a farmer, boot maker, and former slave, through the surprising twists and unforeseen turns of life in antebellum Virginia, becomes proprietor of his own plantation—as well his own slaves. When he dies, his widow Caldonia succumbs to profound grief, and things begin to fall apart at their plantation: slaves take to escaping under the cover of night, and families who had once found love under the weight of slavery begin to betray one another. Beyond the Townsend household, the known world also unravels: low-paid white patrollers stand watch as slave “speculators” sell free black people into slavery, and rumors of slave rebellions set white families against slaves who have served them for years.

    An ambitious, courageous, luminously written masterwork, The Known World seamlessly weaves the lives of the freed and the enslaved—and allows all of us a deeper understanding of the enduring multidimensional world created by the institution of slavery. The Known World not only marks the return of an extraordinarily gifted writer, it heralds the publication of a remarkable contribution to the canon of American classic literature.

  • Dust Tracks on a Road: A Memoir (Modern Classics)

    Zora Neale Hurston

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    Dust Tracks on a Road is the bold, poignant, and funny autobiography of novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, one of American literature’s most compelling and influential authors. Hurston’s powerful novels of the South—including Jonah’s Gourd Vine and, most famously, Their Eyes Were Watching God—continue to enthrall readers with their lyrical grace, sharp detail, and captivating emotionality. First published in 1942, Dust Tracks on a Road is Hurston’s personal story, told in her own words. The Perennial Modern Classics Deluxe edition includes an all-new forward by Maya Angelou, an extended biography by Valerie Boyd, and a special P.S. section featuring the contemporary reviews that greeted the book’s original publication.

  • The Moor's Account

    Laila Lalami

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    PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • The imagined memoirs of the first black explorer of America—this "stunning [book] sheds light on all of the possible the New World exploration stories that didn’t make history” (Huffington Post).

    In these pages, Laila Lalami brings us the invented memoirs Mustafa al-Zamori, called Estebanico. The slave of a Spanish conquistador, Estebanico sails for the Americas with his master, Dorantes, as part of a danger-laden expedition to Florida. Within a year, Estebanico is one of only four crew members to survive.

    As he journeys across America with his Spanish companions, the Old World roles of slave and master fall away, and Estebanico remakes himself as an equal, a healer, and a remarkable storyteller. His tale illuminates the ways in which our narratives can transmigrate into history—and how storytelling can offer a chance at redemption and survival.

  • God Don't Like Ugly

    Mary Monroe

    from $15.00

    The new edition of a modern classic by New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Mary Monroe!

    The riveting first book in the acclaimed God series sweeps readers back to the streets, porches, and parlors of civil rights-era Ohio to bring to life the beginning of an enduring friendship between two girls from opposite sides of the track . . .

    "Reminiscent of Zora Neale Hurston." --Publishers Weekly

    Annette Goode is a shy, awkward, overweight child with a terrible secret. Frightened and ashamed, Annette withdraws into a world of books and food. But the summer she turns thirteen, something incredible happens: Rhoda Nelson chooses her as a friend.

    Dazzling, generous Rhoda, who is everything Annette is not—gorgeous, slim, and worldly—welcomes Annette into the heart of her eccentric family, which includes her handsome and dignified father; her lovely, fragile “Muh’Dear;” her brooding, dangerous brother Jock; and her colorful white relatives—half-crazy Uncle Johnny, sultry Aunt Lola, and scary, surly Granny Goose.

    With Rhoda’s help, Annette survives adolescence and blossoms as a woman. But when her beautiful best friend makes a stunning confession about a horrific childhood crime, Annette’s world will never be the same.

  • Speaking of Summer: A Novel

    Kalisha Buckhanon

    $16.95

    A “powerful song about what it means to survive as a woman in America” (Jesmyn Ward), this “fiercely astute” novel follows a sister determined to uncover the truth about her twin’s disappearance (Tayari Jones).

    On a cold December evening, Autumn Spencer’s twin sister, Summer, walks to the roof of their shared Harlem brownstone and is never seen again. The door to the roof is locked, and the snow holds only one set of footprints. Faced with authorities indifferent to another missing Black woman, Autumn must pursue the search for her sister all on her own.

    With her friends and neighbors, Autumn pretends to hold up through the crisis. But the loss becomes too great, the mystery too inexplicable, and Autumn starts to unravel, all the while becoming obsessed with the various murders of local women and the men who kill them, thinking their stories and society’s complacency toward them might shed light on what really happened to her sister.

    In Speaking of Summer, critically acclaimed author Kalisha Buckhanon has created a fast-paced story of urban peril and victim invisibility, and the fight to discover the complicated truths at the heart of every family.

  • Caucasia: A Novel

    Danzy Senna

    $17.00

    From the author of New People and Colored Television, the extraordinary national bestseller that launched Danzy Senna’s literary career

    “Superbly illustrates the emotional toll that politics and race take … Haunting.” —The New York Times Book Review

    Birdie and Cole are the daughters of a black father and a white mother, intellectuals and activists in the Civil Rights Movement in 1970s Boston. The sisters are so close that they speak their own language, yet Birdie, with her light skin and straight hair, is often mistaken for white, while Cole is dark enough to fit in with the other kids at school. Despite their differences, Cole is Birdie’s confidant, her protector, the mirror by which she understands herself. Then their parents’ marriage collapses. One night Birdie watches her father and his new girlfriend drive away with Cole. Soon Birdie and her mother are on the road as well, drifting across the country in search of a new home. But for Birdie, home will always be Cole. Haunted by the loss of her sister, she sets out a desperate search for the family that left her behind.

    A modern classic, Caucasia is at once a powerful coming of age story and a groundbreaking work on identity and race in America.

  • The Perfect Ruin: A Riveting New Psychological Thriller

    Shanora Williams

    $15.95

    A thrilling new novel of lies, deception, and revenge from the bestselling author, perfect for fans of B.A. Paris and Joshilyn Jackson! The glamour of Miami has a dark side in this twisting story where nothing is what it seems, as one wronged woman seeks to destroy the seemingly perfect life of one of the city’s most revered socialites.

    “A shocking, sensual thriller with sharp twists.” —Tarryn Fisher, New York Times bestselling author of The Wives

    "Twisty and impossible to put down! 10/10 recommend." —Claire Contreras, New York Times bestselling author

    “I was hooked from the very first twist.” —Alessandra Torre, New York Times bestselling author of Every Last Secret

    Book Riot Best Summer 2021 Thrillers
    BiblioLifestyle Most Anticipated Summer 2021 Thrillers, Mysteries, And Suspense Novels
    Publishers Marketplace BUZZ BOOKS Selection
    BookBub Best Thrillers and Mysteries Coming Out This Summer

    A brutal tragedy ended Ivy Hill’s happy family and childhood. Now in her twenties and severely troubled, she barely has a life—or much to live for. Until the day she discovers the name of the woman who destroyed her world: Lola Maxwell—the mega-wealthy socialite with a heart, Miami’s beloved “first lady” of charity. Accomplished, gorgeous, and oh-so-caring, Lola has the best of everything—and doesn’t deserve any of it. So it’s only right that Ivy take it all away . . .

    Little by little, Ivy infiltrates Lola’s elite circle, becomes her new best friend—and plays Lola’s envious acquaintances and hangers-on against her. But seducing Lola’s handsome, devoted surgeon husband turns into a passionate dream Ivy suddenly can’t control. And soon, an insidious someone will twist Ivy’s revenge into a nightmare of deception, secrets, and betrayal that Ivy may not wake up from . . .

    “An ideal summer read.” – Booklist, STARRED REVIEW

    “This fast-paced and incredibly entertaining book is perfect for devouring by the poolside.” – Off the Shelf

  • The Old Drift: A Novel

    Namwali Serpell

    $18.00

    “A dazzling debut, establishing Namwali Serpell as a writer on the world stage.”—Salman Rushdie, The New York Times Book Review
     
    A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Dwight Garner, The New York Times • The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • The Atlantic • BuzzFeed • Tordotcom • Kirkus Reviews • BookPage

    WINNER: The Arthur C. Clarke Award • The Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award • The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction • The Windham-Campbell Prizes for Fiction

    One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years

    1904. On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there is a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. In a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond. As the generations pass, their lives—their triumphs, errors, losses and hopes—emerge through a panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction.

    From a woman covered with hair and another plagued with endless tears, to forbidden love affairs and fiery political ones, to homegrown technological marvels like Afronauts, microdrones and viral vaccines, this gripping, unforgettable novel is a testament to our yearning to create and cross borders, and a meditation on the slow, grand passage of time.
     
    Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Ray Bradbury Prize • Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

    “An intimate, brainy, gleaming epic . . . This is a dazzling book, as ambitious as any first novel published this decade.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times
     
    “A founding epic in the vein of Virgil’s Aeneid . . . thoughin its sprawling size, its flavor of picaresque comedy and its fusion of family lore with national politics it more resembles Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.”—The Wall Street Journal
     
    “A story that intertwines strangers into families, which we'll follow for a century, magic into everyday moments, and the story of a nation, Zambia.”—NPR

  • The Darkest Child

    Delores Phillips

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    A new edition of this award-winning modern classic, with an introduction by Tayari Jones (An American Marriage), an excerpt from the never before seen follow-up, and discussion guide.
     
    Pakersfield, Georgia, 1958: Thirteen-year-old Tangy Mae Quinn is the sixth of ten fatherless siblings. She is the darkest-skinned among them and therefore the ugliest in her mother, Rozelle’s, estimation, but she’s also the brightest. Rozelle—beautiful, charismatic, and light-skinned—exercises a violent hold over her children. Fearing abandonment, she pulls them from school at the age of twelve and sends them to earn their keep for the household, whether in domestic service, in the fields, or at “the farmhouse” on the edge of town, where Rozelle beds local men for money.
     
    But Tangy Mae has been selected to be part of the first integrated class at a nearby white high school. She has a chance to change her life, but can she break from Rozelle’s grasp without ruinous—even fatal—consequences?

  • The Goodness of St. Rocque: And Other Stories

    Alice Dunbar-Nelson

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    A stunning short story collection that takes the reader into the heart of the Creole community in late-nineteenth-century New Orleans, from a key poet and journalist of the Harlem Renaissance—featuring an introduction by Danielle Evans, the award-winning author of The Office of Historical Corrections

    “[Dunbar-Nelson]’s airy, easy eloquence is a pleasure.”—The New York Times
     
    This vivid collection transports readers to New Orleans, from the delights of Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street, to the quiet Bayou where lovers meet, and to fish fries on the shore of the Mississippi Sound. Alice Dunbar-Nelson focuses the struggles and joys of the Creole community in these intimate stories featuring unforgettable characters.
     
    In the title story, Manuela goes to the Wizened One for a charm when her lover strays; in “Little Miss Sophie,” a young woman goes to extreme lengths to get back a ring she pawned; in “M’sieu Fortier’s Violin,” a talented musician finds himself at a loss when his greatest passion is taken away; and in “The Fisherman of Pass Christian,” Annette, an aspiring opera singer, falls in love with a beautiful fisherman who has a secret. Together these stories provide a unique window into the world of everyday Creole Louisianians.
     
    This edition also features a selection of stories from Dunbar-Nelson’s first collection, Violets and Other Tales, which beautifully compliments The Goodness of St. Rocque, making it the essential text for readers looking to discover this underappreciated writer.

    The Modern Library Torchbearers series features women who wrote on their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of resistance.

  • The Intuitionist: A Novel

    Colson Whitehead

    $17.00

    This debut novel by the two time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys wowed critics and readers everywhere and marked the debut of an important American writer.

    Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read • One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years

    It is a time of calamity in a major metropolitan city's Department of Elevator Inspectors, and Lila Mae Watson, the first black female elevator inspector in the history of the department, is at the center of it.  There are two warring factions within the department:  the Empiricists, who work by the book and dutifully check for striations on the winch cable and such; and the Intuitionists, who are simply able to enter the elevator cab in question, meditate, and intuit any defects.  

    Lila Mae is an Intuitionist and, it just so happens, has the highest accuracy rate in the entire department.  But when an elevator in a new city building goes into total freefall on Lila Mae's watch, chaos ensues.  It's an election year in the Elevator Guild, and the good-old-boy Empiricists would love nothing more than to assign the blame to an Intuitionist.  But Lila Mae is never wrong.

    The sudden appearance of excerpts from the lost notebooks of Intuitionism's founder, James Fulton, has also caused quite a stir.  The notebooks describe Fulton's work on the "black box," a perfect elevator that could reinvent the city as radically as the first passenger elevator did when patented by Elisha Otis in the nineteenth century.  When Lila Mae goes underground to investigate the crash, she becomes involved in the search for the portions of the notebooks that are still missing and uncovers a secret that will change her life forever.

    Look for Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Crook Manifesto!

  • A Day Late and a Dollar Short

    Terry McMillan

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    “Without question, this is McMillan’s best. A glorious novel....A moving tapestry of familial love and redemption.”—The Washington Post

    With her hallmark exuberance and a cast of characters so sassy, resilient, and full of life that they breathe, dream, and shout right off the page, Terry McMillan has given us a tour-de-force novel of family, healing, and redemption. A Day Late and a Dollar Short takes us deep into the hearts, minds, and souls of America—and gives us six more friends we never want to leave.

  • There Is Confusion (Modern Library Torchbearers)
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    A rediscovered classic about how racism and sexism tests the spirit, ambition, and character of three children growing up in Hell’s Kitchen and Harlem, from the literary editor of The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP

    With an introduction by New York Times bestselling author Morgan Jerkins

    Set in early-twentieth-century New York City, There Is Confusion tells the story of three Black children: Joanna Marshall, a talented dancer willing to sacrifice everything for success; Maggie Ellersley, an extraordinarily beautiful girl determined to leave her working-class background behind; and Peter Bye, a clever would-be surgeon who is driven by his love for Joanna. 

    As children, Maggie, Joanna, and Peter support one another’s dreams, but as young adults, romance threatens to upset the balance of their friendship. One afternoon, Joanna makes two irrevocable decisions—and sets off a chain of events that wreaks havoc with all of their lives. 

    First published to immense critical acclaim in 1924, written with an Austen-like eye for social dynamics, There Is Confusion is an unjustly forgotten classic that celebrates Black ambition, love, and the struggle for equality. 

    The Modern Library Torchbearers series features women who wrote on their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of resistance.

  • A Different Drummer

    William Melvin Kelley

    $16.00

    The stunning, thought-provoking first novel by a "lost giant of American literature" (The New Yorker)

    June, 1957. One hot afternoon in the backwaters of the Deep South, a young black farmer named Tucker Caliban salts his fields, shoots his horse, burns his house, and heads north with his wife and child. His departure sets off an exodus of the state’s entire black population, throwing the established order into brilliant disarray. Told from the points of view of the white residents who remained, A Different Drummer stands, decades after its first publication in 1962, as an extraordinary and prescient triumph of satire and spirit.

  • Through the Ivory Gate: A novel

    Rita Dove

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    A debut novel by the 1987 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, about an artist on a journey of self-discovery—navigating a family secret, racism, and the conflict between marriage and career.

    “Skillfully evokes the mood of a decade when social change seemed not only possible but imminent.” —Washington Post Book World

    When a woman returns to her Midwestern hometown as an artist-in-residence to teach puppetry to schoolchildren, her homecoming also means grappling with artistic ambition, memories of rejected love, and shocking truths about her family.

  • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (Penguin Vitae)

    Frederick Douglass

    $25.00

    An updated edition of a classic African American autobiography, with new supplementary materials

    A Penguin Vitae Edition

    The preeminent American slave narrative first published in 1845, Frederick Douglass’s Narrative powerfully details the life of the abolitionist from his birth into slavery in 1818 to his escape to the North in 1838, how he endured the daily physical and spiritual brutalities of his owners and driver, how he learned to read and write, and how he grew into a man who could only live free or die. In addition to Douglass’s classic autobiography, this new edition also includes his most famous speech “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” and his only known work of fiction, The Heroic Slave, which was written, in part, as a response to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

    Penguin Classics presents Penguin Vitae, loosely translated as “Penguin of one’s life,” a deluxe hardcover series featuring a dynamic landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction that has shaped the course of our readers' lives. Penguin Vitae invites readers to find themselves in a diverse world of storytellers, with beautifully designed classic editions of personal inspiration, intellectual engagement, and creative originality.

  • Madam X

    Niobia Bryant

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    By popular demand, national bestselling author Niobia Bryant brings you the sizzling, sexy, twist-a-minute follow-up to Madam, May I, in which Manhattan's most exclusive madam discovers her past is back with a vengeance . . .

    Billionaire celebrity clients, anything-goes erotic nights, seductive betrayals—Desdemona Dean couldn't wait to leave the high-end prostitution game behind. Now settled down with the only man she’s ever loved, Desi is getting the chances her shattered childhood denied her—and making her life truly her own. Until a basketball superstar publicly credits Madam X's unmatched sexual services for his astonishing career. Add an anonymous tip to the police—and suddenly Desi is in the center of a social and tabloid media firestorm . . .

    Knowing others’ secret desires has always kept Desi safe—and hiding her own wrenching past is the only protection she could ever trust. But her lies are taking her relationship apart piece by piece, keeping her only seconds ahead of the police—and exposing her to a malicious blackmailer determined to destroy her for good . . .

    Now Desi will need all her nerve and cool, calculating bravado to take down her enemies and outmaneuver the law. But once she reveals who she used to be, can she survive the consequences to hold on to the woman she’s become?

  • Pleasure (Nia Simone Bijou Series)
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    New York Times bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey, “one of the most successful Black authors of the last quarter-century”* explores the depths of desire in this sensual blockbuster.

    Born in Trinidad and living in Atlanta after a relationship gone bad, Nia Simone Bijou is an ambitious writer who has it all. Except for the one thing that'll give her the control she craves-and the power she deserves: absolute, uninhibited sexual satisfaction. Now, in the sweltering days and nights of summer, the heat is on. Nia's fantasies will become a reality-with man after man after man. She will shatter the limits of erotic love. She will open herself up to experiences she never dared before. And as her fantasies begin to spin out of control, she'll discover the unexpected price of the extreme.

    *The New York Times

  • The Single Dad Project (Rose Bend)

    Naima Simone

    $9.99

    "Passion, heat and deep emotion—Naima Simone is a gem!" —Maisey Yates, New York Times bestselling author

    He’s the best mistake she ever made…

    Back in Rose Bend after a work trip that went wrong, Florence “Flo” Dennison craves the kind of distraction only a searing fling with a gorgeous stranger can provide. And she gets it—in an encounter hot enough to leave scars. But satisfaction turns to shock when Flo realizes her one-night stand is leading the restoration project she’s been hired to photograph. And his sweet little girl has decided Flo’s her new bestie…

    Single dad and architect Adam Reed wants stability for his daughter, and he’s sure that Flo—young, ambitious, beautiful—isn’t looking for that. But when his nanny bails and Flo helps him out, it becomes impossible to keep their distance. Now, navigating tangled family ties and her own trust issues, Flo has to decide if one wild night can become so much more.

    Bonus novella!

    Brooklyn Hayes just woke up in Vegas married to her best friend, who also happens to be her sister's ex. Will they make it through a trip back home without spilling their secret…or falling in love?

    Rose Bend

    Book 1: The Road to Rose Bend
    Book 2: Christmas in Rose Bend
    Book 3: With Love from Rose Bend
    Book 4: Mr. Right Next Door
    Book 5: The Single Dad Project

  • Frequent Fliers

    Noué Kirwan

    $18.99

    Library Journal's Romance Pick of May 2024!
    Amazon Editors' Pick - Best Romance Books of August 2024!

    "Heartfelt and romantic, Noué Kirwan has crafted an authentic love story about family—both born into and created—and the power of forgiveness that will stay with you long after you’ve read the last sentence.” —Tracey Livesay, author of American Royalty

    Her life is up in the air—literally…

    Lanie Turner has some loose ends:
    * A nearly complete PhD.
    * A job she basically enjoys.
    * And a lifelong crush…that she’s almost gotten over.

    On a trip to reunite with her family in England—and said crush, Jonah—Lanie intends to take care of one of those items. Her favorite cousin, Gemma, is engaged…to Jonah. And they want Lanie to be both their maid of honor and best "mate" at the wedding. It’s the perfect opportunity to prove the pitying gazes wrong: she’s over Jonah. Really.

    As Lanie travels between New York City and London to help with wedding prep, she befriends her handsome seatmate. Dr. Ridley Aronsen—a widower and single father—who is prickly at first, but feisty Lanie reminds him of a more carefree time in his life. And after a steamy layover in Iceland, the pair take a direct flight from seatmates to lovers. Ridley even agrees to be her plus-one for the wedding. For once, everything seems to be falling into place.

    But Lanie’s used to getting hurt, and Ridley finds opening up difficult. How will a long-distance relationship even work once Lanie’s back in NYC permanently? It’s easy enough to let one more loose thread unravel…after all, life’s problems seem tiny from thirty-five thousand feet in the air.

    From the author of Long Past Summer and perfect for fans of Bolu Babalola, Preslaysa Williams, and Jill Santopolo, Noué Kirwan's next novel is a jetsetting treat for every armchair traveler.

  • Blues in Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes

    Langston Hughes

    $25.00

    Publishers Weekly’s Top Ten Fall 2024 Poetry Books

    From Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, a stunning collection of early works—both polished poems andraw, unfinished, works-in-progress written from 1921-1927—curated by award winning poet and National Book Award finalist, Danez Smith.

    Before Langston Hughes and his literary prowess became synonymous with American poetry, he was an eighteen-year-old on a train to Mexico City, seeking funds to pursue his passion. His early poems see Hughes finding his voice and experimenting with style and form. Beloved verses like “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” were written without formal training, often on the back of napkins and envelopes, and were inspired by the sights and sounds of Black working-class people he encountered in his early life. 

    Blues in Stereo is a collection of select early works, all written before the age of twenty-five, in which we see Langston Hughes with fresh eyes. From the intimate pages of his handwritten journals, you will travel with Hughes outside of Harlem as he ventures to the American South and Mexico, sails through the Caribbean, and becomes the only Harlem renaissance poet to visit Africa. His poems and journal entries celebrate love as a tool of liberation. His songs showcase the musicality of verse poetry. And the collection even includes a play he cowrote with Duke Ellington with a full score that experiments with rhythm and structure.

    Blues in Stereo portrays a young man coming of age in a changing world. Page by page, a young, fresh-faced Hughes contends with matters beyond his years with raw talent. And by keeping his original, handwritten notations found in archival material, we get to witness a genius’s earliest thought process in real time. National Book Award-nominated poet Danez Smith offers their insight and notes on themes, challenges, and obsessions that Hughes early work contains. Beautifully rendered and thoughtfully curated, Blues in Stereo foreshadows a master poet that will go on to define literature for centuries to come.

  • The Book of James: The Power, Politics, and Passion of LeBron

    Valerie Babb

    $30.00

    The unique social, cultural, and political life of the incomparable LeBron James
     
    LeBron James is the hero in two very American tales: one, a success story the nation loves; the other, the latest installment in an ongoing chronicle of American antiblackness. He’s the poor boy from a “broken” home who makes good. He’s also the poor Black boy from a “broken” home who makes good, then at the apex of his career finds “n*****” spray-painted across the gate to his home.
     
    James has lived in the public eye ever since high school when his extraordinary athletic skills subjected his every action, every statement, every fashion choice to intense public scrutiny that tells us less about James himself and more about a nation still wrestling with many social inequities. He uses his celebrity not to transcend Blackness, but to give it a place of cultural prominence, and the backlash he receives exposes the frictions between Blackness and a country not fully comfortable with its presence. As a result, James’s story is a revelatory narrative of how much Blackness is loved, hated, misunderstood, and just plain cool in an America that has changed and yet not changed at all.

  • The Jasmine Throne (The Burning Kingdoms, 1)

    Tasha Suri

    $19.99

    WINNER OF THE WORLD FANTASY AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL

    NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2021 BY PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, LIBRARY JOURNAL, BOOKLIST, AND THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

    A ruthless princess and a powerful priestess come together to rewrite the fate of an empire in this “fiercely and unapologetically feminist tale of endurance and revolution set against a gorgeous, unique magical world” (S. A. Chakraborty, author of the The City of Brass).

    Exiled by her despotic brother, princess Malini spends her days dreaming of vengeance while imprisoned in the Hirana: an ancient cliffside temple that was once the revered source of the magical deathless waters but is now little more than a decaying ruin.
     
    The secrets of the Hirana call to Priya. But in order to keep the truth of her past safely hidden, she works as a servant in the loathed regent’s household and cleaning Malini’s chambers.
     
    When Malini witnesses Priya’s true nature, their destinies become irrevocably tangled. One is a ruthless princess seeking to steal a throne. The other a powerful priestess desperate to save her family. Together, they will set an empire ablaze.

    Praise for The Jasmine Throne:

    "Suri’s writing always brings me to another world; one full of wonders and terrors, where every detail feels intricately and carefully imagined." —R. F. Kuang, author of Babel

    "Raises the bar for what epic fantasy should be." —Chloe Gong, author of These Violent Delights

    "An intimate, complex, magical study of empire and the people caught in its bloody teeth. I loved it.” —Alix E. Harrow, author of The Once and Future Witches

    "Suri’s incandescent feminist masterpiece hits like a steel fist inside a velvet glove. Simply magnificent." —Shelley Parker-Chan, author of She Who Became the Sun

    "A fierce, heart-wrenching exploration of the value and danger of love in a world of politics and power." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

    "Lush and stunning....Inspired by Indian epics, this sapphic fantasy will rip your heart out." —BuzzFeed News

  • My Other Husband

    Dorothy Koomson

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    Cleo Forsum is a bestselling novelist turned scriptwriter whose TV series, 'The Baking Detective' is a huge success. Writing is all she's ever wanted to do, and baking and murder stories have proved a winning combination.

    But now she has decided to walk away from it all - including divorcing her husband, Wallace - before her past secrets catch up with her.

    As Cleo drafts the final ever episodes of the series, people she knows start getting hurt. And it's soon clear that someone is trying to frame her for murder.

    She thinks she knows why, but Cleo can't tell the police or prove her innocence. Because then she'd have to confess about her other husband . . .

    A series of terrifying murders. A set of complex lies. And a woman with no way to clear her name.

  • All My Lies Are True (Ice Cream Girls)

    Dorothy Koomson

    $12.99

    'This is devastatingly good' Heat

    From the bestselling author of The Ice Cream Girls comes a gripping emotional thriller of love and obsession and the nature of coercive control. 'The author plays a blinder' says the Sun.

    Verity is telling lies...
    And that's why she's about to be arrested for attempted murder.

    Serena has been lying for years. . .
    And that may have driven her daughter, Verity, to do something unthinkable...

    Poppy's lies have come back to haunt her . . .
    So will her quest for the truth hurt everyone she loves?

    Everyone lies.
    But whose lies are going to end in tragedy?

    Praise for Dorothy Koomson:

    'If you only do one thing this weekend, read this book. . . utterly brilliant' Sun

    'Immediately gripping and relentlessly intense' Heat

    'An instantly involving pschological thriller' Telegraph

    'Koomson just gets better and better' Woman & Home

  • Tell Me Your Secret

    Dorothy Koomson

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    The gripping new emotional thriller from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Ice Cream Girls,My Best Friend's Girl and The Brighton Mermaid.

    Pieta has a secret
    Ten years ago, Pieta survived a weekend with a sadistic serial killer. She never told anyone what happened and instead moved on with her life. But now, the man who kidnapped her is hunting down his past victims meaning she may have to tell her deepest secret to stay alive . . .

    Jody has a secret
    Fifteen years ago, policewoman Jody made a terrible mistake that resulted in a serial killer escaping justice. When she discovers journalist Pieta is one of his living victims, Jody realises she has a way to catch him - even if it means endangering Pieta's life. . .

    Will telling their secrets save or sacrifice each other?

    'Gripping ... full of heart and truth' Caroline Smailes

    'I raced through this compelling thriller' Catherine Isaac

    'Stunningly tense' Miranda Dickinson

    'Honest and raw' Black Girls Book Club

  • Lotería: Stories

    Cynthia Pelayo

    $18.99

    The Mexican board game of Lotería is a game of chance—similar to bingo. However, in Lotería instead of matching up numbers on a game board, players match up images. 

    There are 54 cards in the Lotería game, and for this short story collection you will find one unique story per card based on a Latin American myth, folklore, superstition, or belief—with a slant towards the paranormal and horrific. In this deck of cards you will find murderers, ghosts, goblins and ghouls. This collection features creatures and monsters, vampires, werewolves and more.

    Many of these legends existed long before their European counterparts—passed throughout the Americas via word of mouth, collected just like the tales the Brothers Grimm. These are indeed fairy tales—Latin American fairy tales—but with a horrifying slant.

  • The Keeper: A Graphic Novel

    Tananarive Due

    $24.99

    A young Black girl finds herself trapped between desperation and her family’s dark history in The Keeper, a horror graphic novel written by New York Times bestselling, award-winning masters of horror Tananarive Due (The Reformatory) and Steven Barnes, illustrated by Marco Finnegan.

    NAMED A BEST GRAPHIC NOVEL OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST
    NAMED A BOOK WE LOVED BY NPR

    Aisha has suffered a devastating loss. Her parents were killed in a car crash, and now she must move to decrepit and derelict Detroit to live with her ailing grandmother. However, shortly after moving in, Aisha’s grandmother’s health rapidly deteriorates. With her dying breath, she summons the dark spirit that has protected their family for generations to watch over Aisha.

    At first it seems that this spirit, whom Aisha refers to as the Keeper, is truly doing as her grandmother asked, caring for Aisha and keeping her safe; however, it soon becomes clear that this being can only sustain itself by stealing life from others. As the Keeper begins to prey on the apartment building’s other residents, Aisha and her friends must come together to destroy it . . . or die trying.

  • Cane River

    Lalita Tademy

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    A New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club Pick-the unique and deeply moving saga of four generations of African-American women whose journey from slavery to freedom begins on a Creole plantation in Louisiana.

    Beginning with her great-great-great-great grandmother, a slave owned by a Creole family, Lalita Tademy chronicles four generations of strong, determined black women as they battle injustice to unite their family and forge success on their own terms. They are women whose lives begin in slavery, who weather the Civil War, and who grapple with contradictions of emancipation, Jim Crow, and the pre-Civil Rights South. As she peels back layers of racial and cultural attitudes, Tademy paints a remarkable picture of rural Louisiana and the resilient spirit of one unforgettable family.

    There is Elisabeth, who bears both a proud legacy and the yoke of bondage... her youngest daughter, Suzette, who is the first to discover the promise-and heartbreak-of freedom... Suzette's strong-willed daughter Philomene, who uses a determination born of tragedy to reunite her family and gain unheard-of economic independence... and Emily, Philomene's spirited daughter, who fights to secure her children's just due and preserve their dignity and future.

    Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Cane River presents a slice of American history never before seen in such piercing and personal detail.

  • Up from Slavery: An Autobiography (Signature Editions)

    Booker T. Washington

    $9.99

    Booker T. Washington’s famous 1901 memoir, Up From Slavery, charts Washington’s rise from an enslaved child with a passion for learning to the nation’s most prominent Black educator and first president of Tuskegee University. A tireless advocate for Black economic independence, Washington attempted to balance his public acceptance of segregation with behind-the-scenes lobbying against voter disenfranchisement and financing anti–Jim Crow court cases. His memoir is both a crucial American document and an exercise in understanding the “double consciousness” coined by W.E.B. DuBois, himself one of Washington’s most vocal critics.

  • Blues Dancing

    Diane Mckinney-Whetstone

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    From acclaimed writer Diane McKinney-Whetstone, a richly spun tale of love and passion, betrayal, redemption, and faith, set in contemporary Philadelphia.

    My aunt says if you smell butter on a foggy night you're getting ready to fall in love.

    For the last twenty years, the beautiful Verdi Mae has led a comfortable life with Rowe, the conservative professor who rescued her from addiction when she was an undergrad. But her world is about to shift when the smell of butter lingers in the air and Johnson—the boy from the back streets of Philadelphia who pulled her into the fire of passion and all the shadows cast from it—returns to town.

    In "this story of self-discovery that moves seamlessly between the early 1970s and early 1990s" (Publishers Weekly, starred review), McKinney-Whetstone takes readers into a world of erotic love, drugs, and political activism, and beautifully illustrates the struggle to reconcile passion with accountability and the redemptive powers of love's rediscovery.

    This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

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