In this thrilling young adult urban fantasy by acclaimed author L.L. McKinney, a Black boy with a bounty on his head uses his powers to protect mankind while searching for answers to his past.

Fifteen-year-old James “Jay” Mitchell has magic in his blood and one mission on his mind: protect his city from supernatural threats. He’s good at it, too—just not exactly authorized. See, hunting monsters without the Guild’s permission is a serious crime. And the Guild doesn’t do warnings. They do prison. Or execution.

When a damsel faking distress blows his cover, Jay suddenly finds himself hunted on two fronts: by the Guild and by the city’s paranormal population, some eager to settle old scores. Before long, there’s a price on his head.

Now, with vampire bounty hunters on his trail, Guild enforcers closing in, and fae knights joining the chase, Jay will need every weapon, spell, and trick in his technically illegal arsenal to survive. Because if he can’t clear his name, everything that goes bump in the night is coming to collect.

Celebrate the release of Carla Bakes with Carla Hall!

EVENT DEETS

When: Friday, December 11 @ 7PM CST

Where: 2310 Elgin St. Houston, TX 77004

How: 

• RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat.

• RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your seat and purchase a copy of Carla Bakes, supporting both the author and our store programming. The book will be available for pickup at the event.

• RSVP (I ALREADY HAVE THE BOOK) to reserve your seat and bring your copy of Carla Bakes that you purchased from another retailer. 

Please Note: Copies of Carla Bakes purchased from other retailers are not permitted in the bookstore and are not eligible for the signing or photo line unless you select the RSVP: I Already Have the Book ticket option, which allows you to bring a copy purchased elsewhere. If you already purchased your book from Kindred Stories, you may select the RSVP Only ticket option and bring your Kindred Stories copy to the event.

If you purchase a ticket and are unable to attend the event, your ticket is non-refundable. If your ticket includes a book, an email will be sent to all attendees before and after the event with instructions on how to receive your book. Books must be claimed within 14 days following the event. If your book is not retrieved it will be returned to the publisher and will not be available for pick up in the future.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Acclaimed chef, TV host, Top Chef fan-favorite, and author Carla Hall returns to her first culinary love story—baking—with over 80 sweet and savory recipes.

For Carla Hall, baking is a creative outlet, her source of play, and her first true passion. But her journey from absolute beginner to Top Chef fan-favorite didn't start until she was well into her twenties with two careers— accounting and modeling —already behind her. Away from home and missing the Southern flavors she grew up with, she took to the kitchen and began to experiment, master, and perfect. 

Now, as a multi-cookbook author and guest judge on multiple baking competitions, Carla is ready to share all her baking knowledge that will guide you whether you're a novice baker or an expert one. Carla Bakes is filled with over 80 recipes for baking savory and sweet goods rooted in her Southern traditions and inspired by her world travels.  Carla brings her joy and playfulness to every recipe, showing you just how much fun it is to bake and bring your own twists to new recipes, including:

• breakfast treats like Sorghum Flour Drop Biscuits, Crisp Sweet Corn Waffles, and Savory Clafoutis with Tomatoes, Goat Cheese, and Smoky Tomato Curd
• cookies like Nut Butter Puffed Cereal Treats, Southern Pecan Crinkle Baklava, and Shortbread Cookie Canvas
• pastries like Giant Frosted Strawberry Pop Tart, Sweet Po-Punkin Pie, and Ham & Cheese Paris-Brest
• cakes like Double Chocolate Oat Flour Snack Cake, Lemon Meringue Cake, and Fairytale Forest Party Cake
• yeasted goods like Hot Cross Milk Buns with Port- and Hibiscus-Soaked Fruit, Butternut Squash Beignets with Spiced Sugar, and Chocolate Focaccia

If you've ever felt intimidated by baking, set those fears aside. Carla's expert guidance and encouragement in Carla Bakes will leave you feeling confident and inspired in your kitchen!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carla Hall first won over audiences on Bravo’s Top Chef, where her “cook with love” philosophy became her hallmark. Her belief that food connects us all, provides a through-line in her work both on and off camera. Carla charmed viewers as a co-host on ABC’s Emmy Award–winning The Chew for seven years, appearing on the Food Network on various baking shows and now on Next Level Baker on Fox. She is also the host of the Emmy-winning travel-food series Chasing Flavor on HBO Max. Carla is the author or co-author of five cookbooks—including the NAACP Image Award–nominated Carla Hall’s Soul Food—and two children’s books. She also hosts the hit podcast Chewed Up and created and stars in her acclaimed one-woman show, Carla Hall: Please Underestimate Me. Carla is active in many charitable endeavors and focuses her board member-level participation in organizations where she can make an impact advocating for children through Beyond Bedtime (formerly Pajama Program) and GENYOUth.

From nine-time Grammy Award–winning artist Anderson .Paak comes a kinky, surreal, and hilariously unhinged collection of stories about a fabled sex shop on Sunset Boulevard.

Peeps on Sunset is the last vestige for true freaks in Los Angeles. Rocco, the store’s reluctant heir, is yanked out of art school by his free-loving hippie parents to breathe new life into the struggling shop he grew up in. The store has questionable stains, dated design, and a weird hole in the bathroom. Now, Rocco has to fix it all while finding himself, not to mention field every fantasy and secret that walks through the door:

A woman has a dangerous sexual obsession with cactuses. A retiree Benjamin Buttons every time she has sex. A maid enjoys the perks of her job after walking in on her celebrity client mid-act. And nobody leaves the store unchanged.

Anderson .Paak’s first book lives somewhere between Goosebumps and Fifty Shades of Grey—a sexy and absurd fever-dream tour of modern desire that celebrate all the ways we come into ourselves. And each other.

Rich with accessible, no-nonsense wisdom, this invaluable guide shows women how to utilize their leadership ability and maximize their potential in all areas of their life.

As “mentors in your pocket,” three successful Black women executives—Elaine Meryl Brown, Marsha Haygood, and Rhonda Joy McLean—share their strategies for playing, and ultimately winning, the power game in corporate America. This updated edition of their 2009 classic The Little Black Book of Success offers all corporate professionals—from college students to entry level employees, senior executives to global leaders—across all industries advice to help them find success. Covering topics like navigating unconscious biases and microaggressions, managing a global workforce, returning to the office after years of remote work, and the importance of self-care, this edition has been optimized for today's culturally and politically complex world.

Anchored in the wisdom of experience—navigating their own transitions from high-powered corporate jobs to becoming entrepreneurs, authors, public speakers, and community leaders—Brown, Haygood, and McLean share all they have learned (and wish they had known), so future generations of professionals can benefit and flourish at work and beyond.

From one of the first and few women of color to reach the c-suite in Silicon Valley, Apple's former chief of HR, co-creator of the Apple Store culture, and first VP of inclusion and diversity, comes a heartfelt story of growing up Black and female in a world with little regard for either and a practical road map for embodying the best in yourself and emboldening others along the way.

From one of the first and few women of color to reach the C-suite in Silicon Valley, Apple's former chief of HR and first VP of inclusion and diversity, comes a heartfelt story of growing up Black and female in a world with little regard for either and a practical road map for embodying the best in yourself and emboldening others along the way.

"You will enjoy reading this book and benefit as a business leader but mostly as a member of the human race."-Ron Johnson, business leader Apple, Target, JCPenney

For her work as a co-creator of the Apple Store cultural experience, Denise Young has been deemed by leadership experts as one of the most emotionally intelligent leaders of her era. In this stirring narrative, part-memoir, part blueprint for action, she shares her vision of what it means to be truly seen at our places of work. As a "first and only" woman of color in boardrooms and leading roles across the Bay Area's booming tech industry, Denise was a trailblazer in a business that was never built for her. The first black and female senior executive under both Steve Jobs and Tim Cook, Denise was often in "the room where it happened." But within a white male-centric professional culture, she still had to work harder, smarter, and differently to be heard.

In When We Are Seen, Denise shares insights on using your own story, empathy, and intuition to unlock the potential in yourself and others. Her story serves as both solace and strategy for anyone who has ever felt left out, unseen, or ostracized; anyone interested in upending cycles of exclusion; and for those interested in reclaiming our agency in the ongoing quest to thrive and belong.

Denise argues that bringing your truest self to work-from wearing your beloved locs to sharing your artistic passion-and, in turn, holistically seeing the attributes others have to offer is not a passive experience; it is a specific skill we can and should build. And the result is a deeper understanding of what it means to be inclusive and powerfully human on the job.

New York Times bestselling author Jasmine Guillory makes her highly-anticipated young adult debut with a Dirty Dancing-inspired contemporary romcom!

It's the summer before her senior year of high school and Kat (Kitty to her family) planned to spend it reading good books, working on her college applications, and enjoying her independence. Instead, she's stuck for an entire month with her family at a camp in the desert in Southern California.

When she stumbles across a staff party on the first night, she's jealous of their joyful, uninhibited dancing. She hasn't danced like that since two years ago, when she was forced to quit ballet, which she once loved more than anything. She's determined to leave dance where it belongs -- the past.

But Jordan, the handsome and magnetic hip-hop dance instructor, keeps dragging it into her present. As Kat begins sneaking around and lying to her parents to spend time with Jordan, she'll have to ask herself -- what is she willing to risk to finally feel free? And is it possible her feelings for Jordan could reignite her love for dance?

Welcome to so-tiny-you'll-blink-and-miss-it town of Elaine for Christmas.

SUNDAY

Just days before Christmas, Sunday Conklin is on the brink of losing everything-her family's scenic farm-in the heart of her small Arkansas town. It's the legacy she's given up her life to protect. With the bank out of mercy and her options gone, her family's oldest enemy, the Adlers, will finally take the Conklin Fields for themselves. But a miracle arrives-one that could save Sunday, her neighbors, and the historic town of Elaine itself. There's just one problem: that miracle comes tangled up with the most infuriating man she's ever met... who belongs right back in Texas where he came from.

SEVEN

Seven Hardcastle can't believe his luck this Christmas, when he's assigned to a middle-of-nowhere Arkansas town. He's ready to return to his perfectly manicured life in Dallas with his wife and kids. All he needs is one signature-Sunday Conklin's. But when the town of Elaine strikes it big, Seven's fate is tied up with that of its most stubborn, maddening, and undeniably magnetic farm-owner. As the town's secrets unravel, and Sunday's fight becomes his own, Seven is handed a Christmas gift he never expected... one that forces him to question his past, his future, and where home truly is.

Note: This novel has been released in both a steamy edition that includes graphic intimacy and a clean edition that fades to black and is appropriate for ages 16+. This book is the CLEAN edition.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A must-read for anyone who cares about their quality of life . . . Dr. Sharon Malone is the first person I turn to for a whole host of issues, especially my health.”—MICHELLE OBAMA

A practical guide to aging and health for women who have felt ignored or marginalized by the medical profession, from a leading OB/GYN and expert on menopausal and post-reproductive health

AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

There’s not enough talk around women’s health, and what little there is rarely helps. Women are routinely warned, lectured, or threatened about their health. Or they are ignored, dismissed, or shamed. But they are rarely empowered. And empowerment, more than anything, is what women—and women of color, in particular—need.

Grown Woman Talk is for every woman who has felt marginalized or overwhelmed by a healthcare system that has become more impersonal, complex, and difficult to navigate than ever. It’s also for any woman who is simply standing at the intersection of aging and health, anxious and wanting solutions.

Part medical handbook, part memoir, and part sister-girl cheerleader, this book is filled with useful resources and real-life stories of victory and defeat. It not only highlights the current data around women’s health issues, but it also places that data in a helpful context.

In a tone that is lively and intimate but unflinchingly direct, Dr. Sharon Malone details how to live better, age better, and get better medical treatment, especially when it’s most needed. This is not a medical activism book designed to fight the power. This is a book designed to show women that they already have the power—they need only to increase their capacity and willingness to use it.

Most important, Grown Woman Talk seeks to eradicate the silence that surrounds women’s health by facilitating discussion between women of all ages and encouraging more accurate and productive medical insights. It is Dr. Sharon’s belief that giving women more agency can, literally, give them life.

From New York Times bestselling author Tami Charles and her son, Chris Charles, comes a soaring and poetic celebration of the beautiful minds that make us all unique!

Some days it feels like my mind doesn't work right. Mom says otherwise. "That beautiful mind is what makes you unique."

This poetry-in-motion, sing-out-loud story follows the journey of one young boy as he navigates the challenges of his constantly running, brilliantly creative, and ever-so-busy brain. From basketball to baking with grandpa, to math class, and high-scoring video game conquests, readers will see that his one-of-a-kind mind is his greatest strength, and though challenges may come, he is all the stronger for it!

From bestselling author, Tami Charles, and her son, Christopher Charles, comes a rhythmic text that will speak to any child -- and every child -- who has needed an extra second or a second chance to harness the power of their own unique gifts and limitless potential. Stunning illustrations by New York Times bestselling artist Nikkolas Smith (I Am Ruby Bridges, Born on the Water) brings to life the joy, frustration, and triumph of navigating the world as a neurodivergent child. That Beautiful Mind celebrates the power and diversity of every child’s beautiful mind, and the dynamic and prismatic way so many children think and learn.

Includes the authors partial bibliography on the back.