It's raining Black holiday romances and women's fiction this year and we're here to celebrate it all!

EVENT DEETS

When: Sunday, November 24 @ 3:30 PM CST

Where: Virtual via Zoom. We'll send you the Zoom link!

How: RSVP here to let us know you're coming! Also, check out the cool book bundles to support the authors. 

The Grinch (includes Only for the Holidays by Abiola Bello, A Novel Christmas by Charity Shane and Christmas in Spite of You by K.C. Mills)

The Hallmark (I'll Be Gone for Christmas by Georgia Boone, The Christmas Catch by Toni Shiloh, Only for the Holidays by Abiola Bello) 

Home Alone (Christmas in Spite of You by K.C. Mills,  I'll Be Gone for Christmas by Georgia Boone, A Novel Christmas by Charity Shane) 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS 

Abiola Bello is a British-Nigerian author from London, England. She is the bestselling, award-winning author of the children’s series Emily Knight I Am and the YA novel Love in Winter Wonderland, as well as a contributor to The Very Merry Murder Club anthology. Abiola has won London’s BIG Read 2019, was a finalist for the People’s Book Prize Best Children’s Book and was nominated for the Yoto Carnegie Award.

Charity Shane holds a bachelor’s degree and a Juris Doctor degree. Author. Higher Education Leader. Legal Expert. Writing stories that create feelings through her words is her true passion. Her soul sings AA romance and urban romance fiction. To date, she has published twelve books, one of which became a #1 Bestseller in Urban Fiction on Amazon. Charity Shane’ is dedicated to giving readers robust and diverse stories centered around love.

K.C. Mills penned her first novel in July 2015. One of her many talents is the ability to move between multiple genres and fully execute stories which are whole, realistic and heart-warming that leave readers wanting more. Her soul tends to feel at home with contemporary adult romance and urban fiction novels. To date, she has over one hundred titles, thirty-seven of which were published independently. Mills’ goal as an author is to craft Romance with an Edge that displays love in all shades of brown, with beautifully flawed humans that deserve to find their happily ever after.

Toni Shiloh is a wife, a mom, and an award-winning Christian contemporary romance author. Her novel In Search of a Prince won the first ever Christy Amplify Award. It has also been praised by Oprah Daily, POPSUGAR, Library Journal, and Booklist and is a Parable bestseller. Her books have won the Christy Award and Selah Award and have been finalists for the Carol Award and the HOLT Medallion. As a member of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), Toni loves connecting with readers and authors alike via social media. Learn more at ToniShiloh.com

Georgia K. Boone is a writer, a poet, and the daughter of storytellers. Sometimes, she writes songs she may one day share. Once, in a Brooklyn community center, she read James Baldwin’s quote “You can’t tell the children there’s no hope,” and she carries those words from the city to the desert and beyond. She lives on the West Coast with her family

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Theresa Arline, is a Birmingham, AL native, graduate of Texas Southern University and the owner of Public Displays of Reading, a book accesories company based in Houston, Texas. Her lifelong passion for reading has evolved into a mission to promote books by Black authors across genres. 

Sometimes, the perfect match isn't the one you planned for. Fans of The Boyfriend Project by Farrah Rochon and One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London will love Weight for Me.

Julissa Sanders has it all--a thriving PR agency, a superstar NFL quarterback fiancé, and a picture-perfect life. But when a careless comment about her weight gain goes viral, Julissa's world crumbles. Determined to regain control, she hits the gym, only to find an unexpected ally in her fiancé's best friend, Malachi.

As Julissa navigates the pressures of planning a high-profile wedding and managing her image, she finds herself drawn to the man who's supposed to be just her trainer. With her carefully crafted life unraveling, Julissa must choose between the love she thought she wanted and the love that could change everything.

Celebrate Brenda Jackson's 150th book, Spilling the Tea! 

EVENT DEETS

When: Tuesday, May 15 @ 7PM

Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)

How: RSVP WITH BOOK

ABOUT THE BOOK

Ninety-something Mama Laverne is determined to find all of her great-grandchildren their perfect match before going home to glory. So far, her success rate is 100 percent—and she intends to keep it that way.

Ninety-something-year-old Felicia Laverne Madaris, known in the family as Mama Laverne, is determined to find all of her great-grandchildren the perfect match before she goes home to glory. So far, her success rate is 100 percent, and she intends to keep it that way.

After sustaining injuries in Iraq, US Army Ranger Chancellor (Chance) Madaris was told he’d never walk again. Chance credits his great-grandmother, Mama Laverne, with giving him the will and fortitude to heal and prove the doctors wrong. He has a healthy respect for her meddling ways and knows he’ll eventually end up next on her matchmaker’s list.

When Zoey Pritchard was eight, she survived a car accident that left both her parents dead. She was sent to live with her great-aunt who refused to speak about her parents. Zoey has no memory from before the crash, but she’s been having the same dream over and over…

Guided by nothing but a hunch and images from her dream, Zoey travels to Houston. Searching for answers, Zoey uncovers a scandal involving her parents and the wealthy and powerful Madaris family. Her trail leads her straight to Chance’s door. The dislike and intense attraction are instant and simultaneous. Was it chance or Mama Laverne’s plan to throw this pair together?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BRENDA JACKSON is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than one hundred contemporary multicultural romance novels, including the Madaris Family series, the Westmorelands series, and The Playas series. She was the first African-American author to have a book published under the Harlequin/Silhouette Desire line and the first African-American romance author to hit both the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists in the series romance genre. Many of her books have been adapted into movies. Brenda lives in Jacksonville, Florida, and divides her time between family, writing and traveling. brendajackson.net.

Now you can support your favorite independent bookstore everywhere you go!

Wear our little bookshop with Love and Pride.

The bookclub meeting will take place on January 25, 2024 at 7 PM in The Reading Room (inside The Post). Be sure to show up with the book read (or partially read) but you are always welcome to just come and take up space. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Disrupt and push back against capitalism and white supremacy. In this book, Tricia Hersey, aka The Nap Bishop, encourages us to connect to the liberating power of rest, daydreaming, and naps as a foundation for healing and justice.

What would it be like to live in a well-rested world? Far too many of us have claimed productivity as the cornerstone of success. Brainwashed by capitalism, we subject our bodies and minds to work at an unrealistic, damaging, and machine‑level pace –– feeding into the same engine that enslaved millions into brutal labor for its own relentless benefit.

In Rest Is Resistance, Tricia Hersey, aka the Nap Bishop, casts an illuminating light on our troubled relationship with rest and how to imagine and dream our way to a future where rest is exalted. Our worth does not reside in how much we produce, especially not for a system that exploits and dehumanizes us. Rest, in its simplest form, becomes an act of resistance and a reclaiming of power because it asserts our most basic humanity. We are enough. The systems cannot have us.

Rest Is Resistance is rooted in spiritual energy and centered in Black liberation, womanism, somatics, and Afrofuturism. With captivating storytelling and practical advice, all delivered in Hersey’s lyrical voice and informed by her deep experience in theology, activism, and performance art, Rest Is Resistance is a call to action, a battle cry, a field guide, and a manifesto for all of us who are sleep deprived, searching for justice, and longing to be liberated from the oppressive grip of Grind Culture.

*Ships in 7-10 business days*

The new edition of an American masterpiece, this is the harrowing story of Ursa Corregidora, a blues singer in the early 20th century forced to confront the inherited trauma of slavery.

A literary classic that remains vital to our understanding of the past, Corregidora is Gayl Jones’s powerful debut novel, examining womanhood, sexuality, and the psychological residue of slavery. Jones masterfully tells the story of Ursa, a Kentucky blues singer, who, in the wake of a tragic loss, confronts her maternal history and the legacy of Corregidora, the Brazilian slave master who fathered both her mother and grandmother. Consumed and haunted by her hatred of the man who irrevocably shaped her life and the lives of her family, Ursa Corregidora must come to terms with a past that is never too distant from the present.

Selected, edited, and first edited by Toni Morrison, it is “the most brutally honest and painful revelation of what has occurred, and is occurring, in the souls of Black men and women,” (James Baldwin) and “a tale as American as Mount Rushmore and as murky as the Florida swamps.” (Maya Angelou).

Aria is no stranger to tragedy -- as a young girl, she and her older sister and mother survived a car crash that took the lives of their father and beloved baby sister. And although relations with her remaining family are strained, she's done her best to establish a solid, normal life for herself, living in Atlanta and teaching literacy to girls who have fallen on hard times.

But now she has a secret that she's not yet ready to share with Dwayne, her devoted boyfriend, or Rochelle, her roommate and best friend: Aria is pregnant. Or so she thinks. The truth is about to make her question her every assumption and reevaluate the life she has worked so hard to build for herself...as it sends her reeling in a direction she had no idea she was destined to go.

*Ships in 7-10 business days*

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.
 
This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.

A critical collection of conversations with Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Gayl Jones and other Black women writers that changed the scope of Black literature in the 20th century and beyond.

“Black women writers and critics are acting on the old adage that one must speak for oneself if one wishes to be heard.” —Claudia Tate, from the introduction

Long out of print, Black Women Writers at Work is a vital contribution to Black literature in the 20th century. 

Through candid interviews with Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alexis De Veaux, Nikki Giovanni, Kristin Hunter, Gayl Jones, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Margaret Walker, and Sherley Anne Williams, the book highlights the practices and critical linkages between the work and lived experiences of Black women writers whose work laid the foundation for many who have come after.

Responding to questions about why and for whom they write, and how they perceive their responsibility to their work, to others, and to society, the featured playwrights, poets, novelists, and essayists provide a window into the connections between their lives and their art.

Finally available for a new generation, this classic work has an urgent message for readers and writers today.

Event Details:

When: Friday, September 17 at 7:00 PM CST

Where: The Fountain of Praise, 13950 Hillcroft Ave, Houston, TX 77085

How:  Ticket required for entry.  Every ticket includes a copy of Gabrielle Union’s book, You Got Anything Stronger?, which will be available for pick-up when checking in at the venue. 

Cost: $35 via Eventbrite (includes book)

We hope to see you there!

About the Book:

Over the years Gabrielle Union has been a tireless advocate for the marginalized and the victimized, and fans around the world have watched her both on and off-screen stand up to and speak out against injustice, in its myriad forms. 

With her newest book, You Got Anything Stronger?, Gabrielle is at her most vulnerable. Life happens with all its plot twists, and Gabrielle is opening up about everything from her surrogacy journey to navigating married life to aging and leveling up in your career. This will be a memorable evening of conversation that will leave guests feeling empowered and inspired. 

About the Author:

Gabrielle Union is an actress, executive producer, activist, best-selling author and most recently, a Time100 cover honoree. Union formed her production shingle “I’ll Have Another” in 2018 with the goal of telling stories that center marginalized communities with their specific point of views in an authentic manner. In August of 2020, she relaunched her haircare brand “Flawless by Gabrielle Union” for women with textured hair. The new and improved collection includes an array of options, affordably priced between $4 - $10, that empowers consumers to customize a regimen specific to their texture and style preferences. Prior to relaunching Flawless, Union learned of the disparities in the food space and joined Bitsy's as a cofounder with the goal of making healthy, allergen-friendly, school-safe snacks that are accessible and affordable for all families regardless of their socioeconomic or geographical status. Her first book, We’re Going To Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated and True, was released in 2017 and instantly became a New York Times bestseller. Union serves as a leader and advocate for inclusion in the entertainment industry. She is also a champion of breast health and combating sexual violence.

Event guidelines subject to change.