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 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

Join us to celebrate the release of Shot Clock with authors, Caron Butler and Justin A. Reynolds. 

EVENT DEETS:

When: September 7, 2022 at 7 PM CST

Where: 2015 Berry Street, HTX 77004

How: You can purchase a ticket with book or you can purchase a ticket with book to help support our store, programming and the authors. 

About the Book

Former NBA all-star Caron Butler and acclaimed author Justin A. Reynolds tip off a middle grade series in which each book centers on a different young member of an AAU basketball team coached by a former NBA star in his hometown. In the first book, Tony must work to make the team while dealing with the tragedy of his friend’s death.

Tony loves basketball. But the game changed recently when his best friend, Dante, a hoops phenom and the kid he looked up to the most, was killed by a police officer. Tony and his community—Oasis Springs—are dealing with the grief, even as justice for his friend seems fleeting. Tony hopes he can carry on Dante’s legacy by making the Sabres, the AAU basketball team Dante took to two national championships.

The Sabres are one of the best teams around—after all, not every team has a former NBA all-star as its coach. Coach James likes what he sees from Tony at tryouts, but he still doesn’t make the team. Tony takes the devastating news hard until Coach James offers him another chance: join the team as the statistician.

Tony has a sharp mind for the game, and with help from Kiara, Coach James’s daughter, he makes an impact in this new role, even if it’s hard watching his friends play. As the team finds its stride, Tony faces another setback—the officer who killed his friend will be back on the job. With his community reeling and the team just finding its footing on the court, can Tony find a path to healing while helping to bring the Sabres a championship?

About the Authors

Caron Butler is a former two-time NBA all-star who played for fourteen seasons. He is currently an assistant coach for the Miami Heat and previously was a TV commentator on ESPN, NBC, TNT, and NBA TV. In 2016, his memoir, Tuff Juice: My Journey from the Streets to the NBA, was published by Lyons Press. Tuff Juice is being produced as a film by Mark Wahlberg. Caron is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and activist. He created the Butler Elite Basketball Program and the 3D foundation. Caron lives in Miami with his family.

Former NBA All-Star Caron Butler and acclaimed author Justin A. Reynolds deliver another superstar performance in this companion novel to Shot Clock about KO, a budding AAU basketball star as he attempts to find redemption on the court and reconnection with his incarcerated father.

Kofi “KO” Douglas knows how to handle pressure. After all, he is the newly announced #1 ranked AAU player in the country. On the court, his game is as good as it gets—even if his Wolves team lost to the Sabres in the national championship, KO always believes nobody can beat him one-on-one. That is, until his former best friend, Ripp, returns home, just in time for the biggest tournament of the summer, the McNabby. Ripp’s dad plays professional basketball overseas, and Ripp has been tearing up courts there—KO now has his toughest competition yet. 

As KO gears up for this latest challenge, there’s game-changing news at home. KO’s dad, who has been incarcerated for the last seven years, is getting out. It’s been KO and his mom for as long as he can remember, only now his dad is ready to reconnect. It’s another reunion KO isn’t sure he wants to happen, especially as Ripp keeps calling out KO to play him in the McNabby.

With the tournament on the horizon, KO decides to turn to Coach James and the Sabres for help. He may not love the idea of playing with Tony Washington and his former teammates again, but he needs them now more than ever. Can KO prove he’s still the best on the court as his family life turns upside down?

An original middle-grade graphic novel from Graphix starring Brooklyn's Spider-Man, Miles Morales, by bestselling author Justin A. Reynolds and Eisner nominee Pablo Leon!

Miles Morales is a normal kid who happens to juggle school at Brooklyn Visions Academy while swinging through the streets of Brooklyn as Spider-Man. After a disastrous earthquake strikes his mother's birthplace of Puerto Rico, Miles springs into action to help set up a fundraiser for the devastated island. But when a new student's father goes missing, Miles begins to make connections between the disappearance and a giant corporation sponsoring Miles' fundraiser. Who is behind the disappearance, and how does that relate to Spider-Man?A true middle grade graphic novel starring one of Marvel's most popular characters, bestselling author Justin A. Reynolds (Opposite of Always) and Eisner award-nominated artist Pablo Leon (Refugees) create a riveting story that will connect with new and well-versed comics readers alike.

Race through Jason Reynolds’s New York Times bestselling Track series, now in a complete boxed set.

Ghost. Patina. Sunny. Lu. A fast but fiery group of kids from wildly different backgrounds, chosen to compete on an elite track team. They all have a lot to lose, but they also have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves. Discover each of their stories in this complete collection of Jason Reynolds’s explosive New York Times bestselling Track series.

This collection includes:
Ghost
Patina
Sunny
Lu

*Ships/ready for pick-up in 7-10 business days*

New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Jason Reynolds’s debut picture book is a snappy, joyous ode to Word King, literary genius, and glass-ceiling smasher Langston Hughes and the luminaries he inspired.

Back in the day, there was a heckuva party, a jam, for a word-making man. The King of Letters. Langston Hughes. His ABCs became drums, bumping jumping thumping like a heart the size of the whole country. They sent some people yelling and others, his word-children, to write their own glory.

Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, and more came be-bopping to recite poems at their hero’s feet at that heckuva party at the Schomberg Library, dancing boom da boom, stepping and stomping, all in praise and love for Langston, world-mending word man. Oh, yeah, there was hoopla in Harlem, for its Renaissance man. A party for Langston.

*Ships/ready for pick up in 5-8 business days*

This celebration of Black resistance, from protests to art to sermons to joy, offers a blueprint for the fight for freedom and justice -- and ideas for how each of us can contribute

Many of us are facing unprecedented attacks on our democracy, our privacy, and our hard-won civil rights. If you're Black in the US, this is not new. As Colorlines editors Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin show, Black Americans subvert and resist life-threatening forces as a matter of course. In these pages, leading organizers, artists, journalists, comedians, and filmmakers offer wisdom on how they fight White supremacy. It's a must-read for anyone new to resistance work, and for the next generation of leaders building a better future.

Featuring contributions from:

• Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Tarana Burke
• Harry Belafonte
• Adrienne Maree brown
• Alicia Garza
• Patrisse Khan-Cullors
• Reverend Dr. Valerie Bridgeman
• Kiese Laymon
• Jamilah Lemieux
• Robin DG Kelley
• Damon Young
• Michael Arceneaux
• Hanif Abdurraqib
  
• Dr. Yaba Blay
  
• Diamond Stingily
  
• Amanda Seales
• Imani Perry
  
• Denene Millner
  
• Kierna Mayo
  
• John Jennings
  
• Dr. Joy Harden Bradford
  
• Tongo Eisen-Martin

Grammy Award winner Rhiannon Giddens celebrates Black history and culture in her unflinching, uplifting, and gorgeously illustrated picture book debut.

I learned your words and wrote my song. I put my story down.

As an acclaimed musician, singer, songwriter, and cofounder of the traditional African American string band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Rhiannon Giddens has long used her art to mine America’s musical past and manifest its future, passionately recovering lost voices and reconstructing a nation’s musical heritage. Written as a song to commemorate the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth—which was originally performed with famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma—and paired here with bold illustrations by painter Monica Mikai, Build a House tells the moving story of a people who would not be moved and the music that sustained them. Steeped in sorrow and joy, resilience and resolve, turmoil and transcendence, this dramatic debut offers a proud view of history and a vital message for readers of all ages: honor your heritage, express your truth, and let your voice soar, even—or perhaps especially—when your heart is heaviest.

Hailed as "powerful," "accomplished," and "spellbinding," Lalita Tademy's first novel Cane River was a New York Times bestseller and the 2001 Oprah Book Club Summer Selection. Now with her evocative, luminous style and painstaking research, she takes her family's story even further, back to a little-chronicled, deliberately-forgotten time...and the struggle of three extraordinary generations of African-American men to forge brutal injustice and shattered promise into a limitless future for their children...

For the newly-freed black residents of Colfax, Louisiana, the beginning of Reconstruction promised them the right to vote, own property-and at last control their own lives. Tademy saw a chance to start a school for his children and neighbors. His friend Israel Smith was determined to start a community business and gain economic freedom. But in the space of a day, marauding whites would "take back" Colfax in one of the deadliest cases of racial violence in the South. In the bitter aftermath, Sam and Israel's fight to recover and build their dreams will draw on the best they and their families have to give-and the worst they couldn't have foreseen. Sam's hidden resilience will make him an unexpected leader, even as it puts his conscience and life on the line. Israel finds ironic success-and the bitterest of betrayals. And their greatest challenge will be to pass on to their sons and grandsons a proud heritage never forgotten-and the strength to meet the demands of the past and future in their own unique ways. An unforgettable achievement, a history brought to vibrant life through one of the most memorable families in fiction, Red River is about fathers and sons, husbands and wives-and the hopeful, heartbreaking choices we all must make to claim the legacy that is ours.

The incredible journey of activist Opal Lee—known as the Grandmother of Juneteenth—is brought to life in this biographical graphic novel that not only explores Opal’s remarkable path, but the history of the holiday of Juneteenth itself.

From the 1860s to Ms. Opal’s childhood home, from her years as a teacher to the White House, First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth seeks to give readers an insight into the history behind one of the central figures in the creation of America’s newest federal holiday, Juneteenth.

Born in 1926, Opal Lee grew up in a racially divided America and dedicated her life to overcoming the obstacles presented therein. A lifelong educator, Ms. Opal has been a community activist all her life, and would take on the movement to celebrate and commemorate Juneteenth not just as a holiday, but as a symbol of comprehensive freedom for all people.

Ms. Opal’s life personifies the fight for everyday freedom that leads to lasting change. As the Grandmother of Juneteenth says, “There is so much more to do.”

Written by acclaimed journalist, producer, and author Angélique Roché (My Super Hero is Black) and drawn by a trio of talented artists—including Alvin Epps (I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005: A Graphic Novel), Bex Glendining (the upcoming Indigo Port), and rising star Millicent Monroe—The First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth promises to illuminate the life of a singular woman and the history of a momentous holiday, with additional back matter providing more insights into Juneteenth’s history and the making of this graphic novel tribute.