Between ancient prophecies and breaking headlines, the end times can feel like a giant puzzle with missing pieces. In this book, the hosts of the Faith & Friction podcast dig into Scripture with curiosity, humor, and a healthy dose of real talk, unpacking what's unfolding now and what could be coming next.

When the Faith and Friction crew were invited to witness the red heifer selection process (animals tied to an ancient prophecy that could ignite world-changing events), little did they know they stepped straight into a mystery thousands of years in the making. What could this sacrifice mean for believers now? And how close are we to seeing it unfold?

This book invites you into a story where the lines between ancient prophecy and modern life blur. With clear, modern language and gripping questions, it's designed to spark curiosity for anyone hungry for answers about the unseen forces shaping our time. The deeper you go, the harder it is to look away.

As the authors pull back the curtain on ancient prophecy and today's headlines, you'll:

* uncover the ancient rituals that could unlock the mysteries of the End Times;
* connect Christian and Jewish perspectives to see prophecy come alive both in history and modern day;
* dive into scripture and controversy surrounding the Third Temple, the Antichrist, the Rapture, and Tribulation;
* get sharp, modern answers to the questions that many are too afraid, or too confused, to ask;
* and step into the investigation yourself: dig deeper, challenge what you thought you knew, and gain confidence in the end times conversation.

Jesus is coming back. Do you know what to expect? Are you ready to dig into the truth and find out what's next in the cosmic story? The countdown has already started.

An ambitious teen enrolls at an elite science institute in Morbid Curiosities, a young adult thriller from author S. Hati.

When the Institute’s invitation arrived at my doorstep, it felt like it had been inked in my blood, sweat, and tears.

Aarya’s life plan has been set for as long as she can remember: finish high school with a bang, attend the best college she can get into, then land a prestigious biology research job. Her ticket to this dream is a one-year program at the Elizabethan Institute, the preeminent organization for life sciences in the United States, currently on the cusp of revealing a major project that could transform the worlds of biology and medicine.

But as Aarya tries to settle in to a school with sky-high academic expectations and research cloaked in mystery, it becomes clear that someone doesn’t want her there. As the scholarship student surrounded by rich, cutthroat peers who seem all too willing to torment her, she never expected to make friends, but the notes warning her to run rattle her to her core. She finds an ally in Sofia, a mysterious girl who claims to be the subject of closed-door Institute experiments and begs for Aarya’s help in discovering the Institute's true goal.

As rumors of mutated flora and fauna in the nearby city circulate and a murder investigation rocks the Institute, Aarya must navigate Sofia’s growing paranoia and her own increasingly unreliable memory to determine which classmates she can trust―and which would rather see her dead.

"A sharply intelligent, darkly fascinating academic thriller about unraveling the hard truths of who you are and who you want to be - and the final twist made me gasp out loud." ―Andrew Joseph White, New York Times-bestselling and award-winning author of Compound Fracture

The second novel in an all new series by New York Times bestselling author Ashley Antoinette!

Morgan Atkins is used to losing, but losing Messiah Williams was the most tragic of them all. Surely, after Messiah, no other man could compare. Settling with Sebastian Fredrick didn't seem like such an impossible task. He treated her well enough, he accepted her children, and he offered her entrance into a well-connected world. There was only one problem: he wanted to change her into someone else. The rules that went along with his lifestyle suffocated her and when Morgan reconnected with Messiah's crew, she no longer wanted to play by Bash’s rules. When she falls in love with Messiah's best friend, Ahmeek Harris, she knows she's headed for trouble. His presence heals her in a way that no man has ever been able to do before. Their love affair is electric. Morgan is uncertain about many thing but one thing she's sure of is that she can't let this feeling go. She goes out on a limb and risks it all just to be with Meek, but when Messiah reveals that he's still alive, the battle for one girl's heart just may lead to the demise of them all.

She can only be queen to one man. Which one has the true key to her heart? Can Messiah make up for his mistakes or is it too late to save what they once had? Is Ahmeek a rebound or does he offer her something more? Does Bash even stand a chance? This second installment of the Butterfly series will leave you breathless.

Celebrate the release of City Summer, Country Summer with Kiese Laymon!

EVENT DEETS

When: Sunday, April 6 @ 2PM

Where: 2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004

How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our store programming

ABOUT THE BOOK

A lyrical picture book from the award-winning author of Heavy, about three Black boys who form a deep connection during a transformative summer trip down South to visit family.

On the ground of that garden, covered in vegetables and dirt, coated in laughter, I want to say that the Mississippi and New York in our Black boy bodies were indistinguishable.

Three Black boys spend one special summer exploring the Mississippi woods and woulds and coulds of sharing the kind of freeing friendship that is love.

Watched over and given space to discover by Grandmama and Mama Lara, New York, Country, and little C find camaraderie in their contrasts and all the unspoken things between them while playing games of marco polo in the thick garden and sledding on cardboard by the underpass. 

With text brimming with love by award-winning author Kiese Laymon and deeply evocative illustrations by Ashley Franklin, City Summer, Country Summer illuminates the tenuous and tender bonds of friendship Black boys forge with one another.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the Libbie Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. Laymon is the author of Long Division, which won the 2022 NAACP Image Award for fiction, and the essay collection, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, named a notable book of 2021 by the New York Times critics. Laymon’s bestselling memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir, won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, the Barnes and Noble Discovery Award, the Austen Riggs Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media, and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times. The audiobook, read by the author, was named the Audible 2018 Audiobook of the Year. Laymon is the recipient of 2020-2021 Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard. Laymon is at work on the books, Good God, and City Summer, Country Summer, and a number of other film and television projects. He is the founder of The Catherine Coleman Literary Arts and Justice Initiative, a program based out of the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University, aimed at aiding young people in Jackson get more comfortable reading, writing, revising and sharing on their on their own terms, in their own communities. He is the co-host of Reckon True Stories with Deesha Philyaw. Kiese Laymon was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.

The long-awaited reissue of Alice Coltrane’s original spiritual teachings and reflections, which provide powerful insight into her transcendent music, cherished by millions across the globe 

ALICE COLTRANE (1937–2007) was a composer, master of various musical instruments, improviser, spiritual leader, and wife of John Coltrane. Throughout her adult life, she worked within and combined a broad range of musical genres, including gospel, R&B, bebop, free jazz, Indian devotional song, and Western art music. She recorded more than twenty full-length albums for Impulse and Warner Bros. Her music speaks to her experiences as a child playing for church congregations in Detroit; the transcendent and mind-bending avant-garde improvisations she performed with her husband John Coltrane; and her religious pilgrimages to India. 

When Monument Eternal was originally published in 1977, Alice Coltrane was living in Southern California and had recently become a swami, building and nurturing an alternative spiritual community. In these pages, she says that the book is “based upon the soul’s realizations in Absolute Consciousness and its spiritual relationships with the Supreme One.” Monument Eternal offers deep insight into Coltrane’s tremendous musical output, and shines a light on her transformation from Alice McLeod, Detroit church organist and bebopper, to sage thought leader Swami Turiyasangitananda. It also reflects the extraordinary fluidity of American religious customs in the mid and late twentieth century. 

Akashic’s long-awaited reissue of Monument Eternal includes a new foreword by Ashley Kahn.

Selected as one of Hyperallergic’s 15 Art Books We’re Excited to Read in 2026

This book chronicles the transformative impact of Black curators on American art museums since the 1970s as told by visionaries at the forefront of the change.

The relationship between Black Americans and U.S. art museums has historically been fraught and hard-won. In the late 1960s, the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition and other groups organized protests at major art museums, calling for the inclusion of Black artists and curators. Such advocacy led to acquisitions and exhibitions by Black artists at important institutions and spurred the establishment of museums and cultural organizations promoting Black art and culture. Today, Black curators hold significant positions at institutions nationwide. Black Curators Matter illuminates this critical history by spotlighting figures who have transformed the art world since the 1970s.

This book presents illuminating conversations between six pioneering curators―Lowery Stokes Sims, Deborah Willis, Richard J. Powell, Kellie Jones, Thelma Golden, and Franklin Sirmans―and a new generation of professionals, including Ashley James, Kalia Brooks, Aaron Bryant, Thomas Jean Lax, Rujeko Hockley, and LeRonn P. Brooks. Capturing the voices and experiences of Black curators, these discussions highlight their achievements and provide guidance for future generations aiming to diversify and enrich the cultural landscape. This volume reexamines the curatorial field to reveal the transformative strategies, critical interventions, and boundary-breaking exhibitions that reshaped American art museums toward greater inclusivity and experimentation.

For all the girls in your life who are inspired, deserving, and worthy, bestselling author Marshawn Evans Daniels’ debut picture book Worthy Girl offers a lyrical, inspirational message about believing in yourself and realizing God’s higher purpose for your life.

From early on, young girls seek to find their place and voice in a complex world that tells them who they’re supposed to be. Worthy Girl uses soaring language to combat the forces trying to keep girls small and instead awaken their ambition and instill in them an unshakeable sense of self-worth, confidence, and identity bathed in possibility. This beautifully illustrated picture book anchors girls in God’s promises and challenges them to believe—even at a young age—that God made them for such a time as this.

Worthy Girl is perfect for:

* Any girl at any time, but especially for birthdays, graduations, and milestones that celebrate a girl’s life and potential.
* Parents desiring to inspire their daughters to embrace their uniqueness.
* Reassuring girls that God has a plan for their lives and there are limitless possibilities ahead of them.

Encourage kids to find their unique voice and share it confidently with this inspirational story from Pentatonix (PTX) musical performer Kevin Olusola. A self-proclaimed "misfit," Kevin knows what it's like to be different, to have a talent others don't understand, and to find the courage to stand out.

On a regular morning getting ready for school, Kasey discovers that he can make some not-so-regular sounds with his mouth. Snares, cymbals, bass drums—he can do it all! With every beat, Kasey learns that his voice matters and to never stop sharing his gift with the world.

This upbeat and uplifting Own Voices picture book for 4 to 8 year olds . . .

* assures children that the things that make them different make them special;
* encourages kids to embrace their gifts and develop their talents;
* inspires readers to use their abilities and passions to make a difference; and
* includes an author's note from Kevin's heart about how he found the courage to be the perfect kind of different that God made him to be.

With bright, energetic art and lots of fun, rhythmic sounds, this affirming book tells kids that they are not alone and that the world needs who they were created to be.

Celebrate the final installment of Attica Locke's Highway 59 Series, Guide Me Home! 

EVENT DEETS

When: Wednesday, September 11, 2024 @ 7 PM

Where: Holy Family HTX (3719 Navigation Blvd, HTX, 77004) 

How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support Attica Locke and the bookstore! 

ABOUT THE BOOK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Attica Locke is a NY Times best-selling author of six novels, including Guide Me Home.  She is also a winner of an Edgar Award and the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and she has been short listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and nominated for an LA Times Book Prize and an NAACP Image award for her work as a novelist. Locke is also a screenwriter and TV producer, with credits that include Empire, When They See Us and the Emmy-nominated Little Fires Everywhere, for which she won an NAACP Image award for television writing. She co-created and executive produced an adaptation of her sister Tembi Locke’s memoir From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home for Netflix. A native of Houston, Texas, Attica lives in Los Angeles, California

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

Celebrate the release of Black Girls Breathing with Jasmine Marie!

EVENT DEETS:

When: Thursday, February 6th @ 7PM

Where: Hogan Brown Gallery, 2310 Elgin St, HTX, 77004

How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our store programming

ABOUT THE BOOK:

As a Black woman, Jasmine Marie knows the impact that intergenerational trauma and systemic racism have had—and continue to have—on her community. Those experiences, along with her own journey through chronic stress, are why she created black girls breathing®, a movement dedicated to helping Black women understand the power of the mind‑body connection and its impact on their holistic health, one breath at a time.  

In Black Girls Breathing, Jasmine Marie offers you the power of breathwork, and the revolutionary nature of slowing down and turning inward. With each intentional breath, you’ll learn how to sink deeper into your body to begin to undo the trauma that’s long been stored. Sharing exercises from her unique somatic philosophies proven by data and utilized by tens of thousands of participants to date, Jasmine Marie will also help you:

• Connect more fully to your body
• Give yourself permission to rest
• Heal the chronic stress you carry in your body and nervous system
• Address emotional pain
• Rebuild your sense of self and your community

This is a long-overdue resource for every Strong Black Woman—the woman ready to break cycles of trauma, heal the internalized beliefs of perfectionism and conditional self‑worth, and follow the wisdom of her inner voice.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jasmine Marie is a speaker, breathwork practitioner, and founder of black girls breathing®, a wellness platform that provides Black women with tools to heal trauma in the body and reduce chronic stress and anxiety. An alum of NYU Stern School of Business, Jasmine Marie’s work has been featured in Good Morning America, VOGUE, Forbes, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Glamour, Nylon Mag, Black Enterprise, Oprah Magazine, Well + Good, Wall Street Journal, Bust Magazine, Goop, MindBodyGreen, Refinery29, Pix11 NY, The Cut, FoxSoul, Cosmopolitan, and PopSugar Fitness, among others.

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER:

Raveen Johnson is a Wellness Writer, Registered Yoga Teacher, Journaling Workshop Guide and a deep advocate for Mental/Emotional Health.
Raveen has been hosting journaling workshops in Houston since 2016, and has since expanded the offering locally and internationally. She offers the practice of journaling as a form of expression that supports mental, emotional and even physical healing. The intention is to be able to use our words in ways that compassionately support the lives that we desire for ourselves.
Raveen's yoga journey began in 2016 as a student. The practice re-introduced her to herself in way that was more empowering, strong and gracious than before. Raveen knew she wanted to effectively share the practice with others so she received her 200HR-RYT certification in 2020 at BIG Power Yoga in Houston, Texas. Four years later in 2024, Raveen received another 200HR certification under the guidance of Sarah Montross and Gioconda Parker so that she could further expand her knowledge and practice of yoga.
Journaling and yoga offer a relationship with ourselves and others that is loving, accepting and trustworthy; these are important ingredients in the recipe of following your gut and being present to your life. Raveen is delighted to use these tools to support the mental, spiritual and physical aspects of your personal healing journey.

Spring is in the air, and love is on the page. Join D.W. Brooks, Alexandra Lechelle, and Zee Renee at Kindred Stories for a celebration of local romance authors.

EVENT DEETS

When: Saturday, May 23 @ 6PM

Where: Kindred Stories: (2310 Elgin St, Houston, TX 77004)

How: RSVP WITH BOOK to support the authors and our store programming. There are four options available: you can choose to support an individual author or select the Romance In Spring Bundle, which includes one book from all participating authors.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

D. W. Brooks

D. W. Brooks  is an author who has independently published three romantic suspense books and two contemporary romance novels. In addition to writing books, D. W. is also a retired ophthalmologist and a kidney transplant recipient of over eight years. She is originally from Alabama but now lives in Texas with her husband and daughter.

Alexandrea LeChelle

Alexandrea LeChelle is a contemporary romance author whose stories explore love, grief, healing, and the complicated beauty of human connection.

Her novels unfold between Houston and Louisiana and center Black characters navigating family legacies, emotional vulnerability, and the quiet courage it takes to love deeply and unapologetically.

Through rich, emotional storytelling and cinematic detail, Alexandrea writes the kind of love stories she rarely saw growing up and entering adulthood. Stories where Black characters are allowed to be flawed, passionate, and deeply human.

What began as a way to process emotions and channel creativity through her own healing journey, slowly evolved into something much bigger: an urge to create and share stories about love, healing, and the complicated paths of life that bring people together.

Her stories often explore themes such as emotional healing, family dynamics, grief and growth, healthy Black love, the courage to begin again. Every story is planted in the belief that love, in all its forms, has the power to change us for the better.

When she’s not reading, Alexandrea can be found working her way through her own TBR, journaling or planning new creative projects, adding recipes to her personal cookbook, and listening to playlists that eventually inspire new stories.

At the heart of everything she creates is a simple hope: That readers will find pieces of themselves in her stories.

Zee Renee

Writing is where Zee thrives, finding peace and purpose. Her journey began at thirteen with a black-and-white composition book, later blossoming on Wattpad, where she captivated over two million readers. In December 2023, she released her debut novel, All In, and was nominated for the 2023 Black Girl Who Writes Best New Author award. By November 2024, Zee became a National Best-Selling Author with the release of When He’s Not There, her third book.

Crafting urban fiction and romance, Zee transforms raw emotions into powerful stories. Her characters are deeply personal, each carrying a piece of her spirit. She is grateful for the opportunity to share her God-given talent and hopes readers will feel the same passion in her words as she does in writing them.