For fans of the New Camelot series by Sierra Simone and Kennedy Ryan’s All the King’s Men duet, comes The Illusion of Power. A spicy, contemporary romance that follows future First Lady, Selene Taylor, during the integral months of her husband's campaign for the Oval where she finds herself navigating the embarrassment of his infidelity, the dangers of being a Black woman in proximity to political power, and perhaps worst of all, falling for the two men tasked with protecting her.

After the devastating loss of her child's father, Leerah struggles to piece her life back together. Despite her best efforts to keep her distance, she finds herself entangled in a complicated situation. Trying to resist her growing feelings for her baby father's godbrother, Cree, Leerah grows overwhelmingly confused with mixed emotions.

He was against the rules-strictly forbidden.

But sometimes... rules were meant to be ignored. They both knew the risks and the boundaries they were crossing, yet their connection was undeniable. Cree didn't pursue her to save her but to remind her of what she meant to him... of who she'd always been. Maybe, just maybe, Cree was the person Leerah needed all along.

Please note: Here With You Forever is book 2 in the Evermore Series and does not include a cliffhanger.

A grieving doctor and a nurturing professor join forces on a potentially groundbreaking medical study that sparks a profound connection neither saw coming in this unconventional romantic drama, perfect for fans of Briana Cole, Tia Williams, Kennedy Ryan, and Mary B. Morrison.

Dr. Dresden Xavier moved his family back to his hometown of Monroe City after an unfortunate tragedy. Searching for an escape from the reality of grief and depression, Dresden buries himself in a grueling medical research project that could yield life-changing results. What was supposed to be a short-term partnership with the Professor of Nursing at Monroe University, quickly morphs into a case study of love… or maybe just an experiential error.

Harper Kingsley, a loving wife, mother, and professor, was not only seeking tenure but a little peace and happiness in her fast-paced life. In the public eye, Harper is a poised perfectionist, but behind closed doors, she desperately fights to mend the broken threads of her feeble family. Lies, sickness, and secrets that could destroy her family permeate her soul until the healing touch of Dr. Xavier changes her trajectory. What was supposed to be a clinical research assignment evolves into something much greater and beyond their control.

*Paperback Release Date - 9/8/26*

A heartwarming and unforgettable collection of love stories set at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, exploring hope, endurance, and what it means to leave a legacy, from some of today’s most prominent Black writers and edited by the acclaimed author of Love Radio

Love can be messy, painful, and heartbreaking, but it can also be revolutionary, profound, and hopeful. For Celine, a forbidden crush on a professor evolves into a second chance at romance years later. Myra’s focus on a coveted audition for the Fisk Jubilee Singers is challenged by the handsome music major determined to help her. Kiese investigates the darker side to academia, love, and identity. Like most blessings, love emerges in the most unexpected places—in a training cockpit for new pilots, during a Mardi Gras celebration, or while gathering signatures to start the first-ever LGBTQ+ student organization officially recognized at an HBCU.

These are just a few of the heart-searing, tender, and transporting love stories collected in You’ve Got a Place Here, Too—a true celebration of Black love and the profound impact of HBCUs on the community.

Featuring stories by Elizabeth Acevedo, Jasmine Bell, Carla Bruce, Aaron Foley, Kai Harris, Ebony LaDelle, Kiese Laymon, Christine Platt, Farrah Rochon, Kennedy Ryan, Dawnie Walton, and Nicola Yoon.

We're meeting to discuss Blood Slaves by Markus Redmond!

BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

When: Tuesday, July 21 @ 7PM CST

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

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Horror Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

ABOUT BLOOD SLAVES

For readers of Victor LaValle, Tananarive Due, and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, this ingenious reimagining of the vampire origin story set during the early days of American slavery blends alternate history with supernatural horror, as the last surviving member of an ancient African vampire tribe meets a slave desperate for freedom, and together, they lead an army of enslaved people in a cinematically blood-soaked battle for freedom and revenge.

What if nobody ever freed the slaves…because they freed themselves – 150 years before the Civil War?

In the Province of Carolina, 1710, freedom seems unattainable for Willie, for his beloved Gertie, and for their unborn child. They live, suffer, and toil under their brutal master, James “Big Jim” Barrow, whose grand plantation was built by the blood, sweat, and tears of the enslaved. To flee this hell on earth is be hunted and killed. Until one strange night Willie is offered a dark hope by Rafazi, an enigmatic slave with an irresistible and blood-chilling path to liberation.

Hailing from the Kingdom of Ghana, Rafazi is the lone survivor of the Ramanga, an African vampire tribe rendered nearly extinct by plague. Rafazi has roamed the world for centuries with an undying desire to replenish the power that once defined his heritage. In Willie, Rafazi has found his first biddable subject to be turned and to help in a hungry revolt. And Willie desires nothing more than to free his people from malicious bondage. Whatever it takes.

One by one, as an army of blood slaves thirsting for revenge is gathered, the headstrong Gertie fears that no good can come from the vampiric legacy that courses through Rafazi’s veins. Willie knows that only evil can fight evil. And when the woman he loves stands between the reemergence of the Ramanga and the justified slaughter of the oppressors, Willie must make an irreversible decision. Only one thing is certain: on the Barrow plantation, and beyond, blood will spill.

Part historical drama, part supernatural horror, and part alternate history, Blood Slaves is an ingenuous and defiant new creation myth of the vampire, one rooted in both justice and the sometimes-violent means necessary to achieve it.

We're meeting to discuss Judge Stone by Viola Davis!

BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

When: Tuesday, July 28 @ 7PM CST

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

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Mystery/Thriller Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

ABOUT JUDGE STONE

We're meeting to discuss The Missed Connection!

BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

When: Wednesday, July 8 @ 7PM CST

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

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Romance Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

*This book is currently on PRE-ORDER and has an on sale date for June 9th. You can purchase now for your book to be picked up or shipped on June 9th. 

ABOUT THE MISSED CONNECTION

New York Times bestselling author Tia Williams returns with an intensely romantic, deliciously sexy tale about a woman searching for her handsome seatmate on a European flight--and the unexpected places her hunt for love leads her.

Sasha Cruz knows types. As a booked-and-busy casting agent, she's always casting -- at happy hour, the post office, the grocery store, everywhere. She's all about finding the perfect person to slot into the perfect role. What she doesn't do, however, are relationships. Too much energy, not enough time. Men find her intimidating, and she likes it that way.

But when Sasha's seated next to a mysterious, broodingly handsome Italian man on the way to a work trip in Paris, sparks fly - but they miss the chance to exchange contact information. Now, convinced that she's lost out on her soulmate, Sasha is on a manhunt to find Seat F.

Sasha enlists her work friend for help in the search, but when she accidentally emails the entire global company, colleagues around the world begin looking for Seat F, too - with some finding love along the way. Meanwhile, Sasha takes matters into her own hands, hiring a smoldering detective who complicates matters in unforeseen ways

We're meeting to discuss Kin by Tayari Jones!

BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

When: Thursday, July 30 @ 7PM CST

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

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Fiction Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

ABOUT KIN

A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriage—Tayari Jones has written an unforgettable novel that sparkles with wit and intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of a devastating tragedy.

Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and discovers a world of affluence, manners, aspiration, and inequality. Annie, abandoned by her mother as a child and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, culminating in a battle for her life.

A novel about mothers and daughters, friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South, Kin is an exuberant, emotionally rich, unforgettable work from one of the brightest and most irresistible voices in 

Celebrate Kennedy Ryan's new book, This Could Be Us!

EVENT DEETS

When: Sunday, March 10 at 2 PM

Where: Eldorado Ballroom (2310 Elgin Street, HTX, 77004)

How: Purchase your ticket here! Each ticket comes with a copy of This Could Be Us. No refunds.

ABOUT THE BOOK 

Soledad Barnes has her life all planned out. Because, of course, she does. She plans everything. She designs everything. She fixes everything. She’s a domestic goddess who's never met a party she couldn't host or a charge she couldn't lead. The one with all the answers and the perfect vinaigrette for that summer salad. But none of her varied talents can save her when catastrophe strikes, and the life she built with the man who was supposed to be her forever, goes poof in a cloud of betrayal and disillusion.
 
But there is no time to pout or sulk, or even grieve the life she lost. She's too busy keeping a roof over her daughters' heads and food on the table. And in the process of saving them all, Soledad rediscovers herself. From the ashes of a life burned to the ground, something bold and new can rise.
 
But then an unlikely man enters the picture—the forbidden one, the one she shouldn't want but can't seem to resist. She's lost it all before and refuses to repeat her mistakes. Can she trust him? Can she trust herself?
 
After all she's lost . . .and found . . .can she be brave enough to make room for what could be?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

Wale Okerayi is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor working with folks in New York and Texas. She has a double masters degree in mental health counseling from Teachers College Columbia University. After practicing in New York for a few years, Wale moved back to her hometown Houston and started her own therapy practice in 2020. Wale currently works with individuals and couples, writers and creative folks on a weekly basis.

As an avid reader and Kindred Stories aficionado, Wale has moderated various author talks featuring: Lyvonne Briggs, Sochil Washington, Tyriek White, Adorah Nworah, Dr. Joy, and Nicole Walters. 

BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

When: Tuesday, January 16 @ 7PM CST

Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend and RSVP WITH BOOK to purchase your book and support Romance Book Club!

ABOUT REEL

Neevah Saint is ready for the spotlight. After months as an understudy, this is her night to shine. She never imagined he would be in the audience. Canon Holt. Famous film director. Fascinating. Talented. Fine.

Before she can catch her breath, everything is changing. Neevah goes from backstage Broadway to center stage Hollywood. From being unknown, to having her name on everyone’s lips when Canon casts her as the lead in a star-studded Harlem Renaissance biopic.

But forbidden attraction, scandal, and circumstances beyond Neevah’s control soon put her dream in jeopardy. Could this one shot—the role of a lifetime, the love of a lifetime—cost her everything?

We're meeting to discuss Can't Get Enough by Kennedy Ryan!

BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

When: Tuesday, June 10 @ 7PM CST

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

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend and RSVP WITH BOOK to purchase your book and support Romance Book Club!

ABOUT CAN'T GET ENOUGH

New York Times bestselling author and BookTok star Kennedy Ryan concludes the Skyland trilogy with an unapologetically ambitious businesswoman finally finding a soft place to land with a soulmate who wants nothing more than to make all her dreams come true...if she would only let him.

Hendrix Barry lives a fabulous life. She has phenomenal friends, a loving family, and a thriving business that places her in the entertainment industry's rarefied air. Your vision board? She’s probably living it.

She’s a woman with goals, dreams, ambitions—always striving upward. And in the midst of everything, she's facing her toughest challenge yet: caring for an aging parent. Who has time for romance? From her experience, there's a low ROI on relationships. Anyway, she hasn't met the man who can keep up with her. Until...him.

Tech mogul Maverick Bell is a dilemma wrapped in an exquisitely tailored suit and knee-melting charm. From their first charged glance at the summer's hottest party, Hendrix feels like she’s met her match. Only he can’t be. Mav may be the first to make her feel this seen and desired, but he’s the last one she can have. Forbidden fruit is the juiciest, and this man is off limits if she plans to stay the course she’s set for herself.

But when Maverick gives chase—pursuing her, spoiling her, understanding her—is it time to let herself have something more?