65 results for “by Pen Ken”

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  • Chrysalis (Deluxe Edition) (Men of the Wilds, 2) cover image
    $19.99

    Aurelia George was prepared to let the world believe she was dead. Tangled in the arms of her mountain men and bound only by the rules they make, the twice disgraced pop star had found her happily ever after.

    Or so she thought.

    The only thing surprising about learning her uncle wants her dead is realizing how eager she is to return the favor. Convincing her mountain men to leave their world behind and step into hers won't be easy. Thorin is desperate to disappear again, Khalil is quietly drowning, and Zeke wants her gone.

    For better or worse, this quartet of villains will have to leave their Eden.

    And now that the tables have turned, Aurelia's the one they'll need to survive. But as she and the rest of the world are about to learn, you can take these men out of the wilds, but you can't take the wilds out of them.

  • Blood Brothers

    by Randy Roberts

    $18.99
    *ships/available for pickup in 7-10 business days*
    In 1962, boxing writers and fans considered Cassius Clay an obnoxious self-promoter, and few believed that he would become the heavyweight champion of the world. But Malcolm X, the most famous minister in the Nation of Islam—a sect many white Americans deemed a hate cult—saw the potential in Clay, not just for boxing greatness, but as a means of spreading the Nation’s message. The two became fast friends, keeping their interactions secret from the press for fear of jeopardizing Clay’s career. Clay began living a double life—a patriotic “good Negro” in public, and a radical reformer behind the scenes. Soon, however, their friendship would sour, with disastrous and far-reaching consequences.

    Based on previously untapped sources, from Malcolm’s personal papers to FBI records, Blood Brothers is the first book to offer an in-depth portrait of this complex bond. Acclaimed historians Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith reconstruct the worlds that shaped Malcolm and Clay, from the boxing arenas and mosques, to postwar New York and civil rights–era Miami. In an impressively detailed account, they reveal how Malcolm molded Cassius Clay into Muhammad Ali, helping him become an international symbol of black pride and black independence. Yet when Malcolm was barred from the Nation for criticizing the philandering of its leader, Elijah Muhammad, Ali turned his back on Malcolm—a choice that tragically contributed to the latter’s assassination in February 1965.

    Malcolm’s death marked the end of a critical phase of the civil rights movement, but the legacy of his friendship with Ali has endured. We inhabit a new era where the roles of entertainer and activist, of sports and politics, are more entwined than ever before. Blood Brothers is the story of how Ali redefined what it means to be a black athlete in America—after Malcolm first enlightened him. An extraordinary narrative of love and deep affection, as well as deceit, betrayal, and violence, this story is a window into the public and private lives of two of our greatest national icons, and the tumultuous period in American history that they helped to shape.
    Randy Roberts is a distinguished professor of history at Purdue University. An award-winning author, he has written biographies of iconic athletes and celebrities, including Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Bear Bryant, and John Wayne. Roberts lives in Lafayette, Indiana.

  • Trinity

    by Zelda Lockhart

    $27.99

    Lottie Rebecca Lee is spoken into the world in Fayetteville, North Carolina by a Black nurse who declares, “Lord Jesus, if that ain’t the blackest little baby born this side of heaven.” Later, Lottie will prove that she is the ancestors’ promise to unearth the Mississippi and Ghanaian atrocities that have tormented Benjamin Lee, her grandfather who was born during the Great Depression in Mississippi’s red clay tobacco fields, and Benjamin Junior, his son and Lottie Rebecca’s father, born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where the post Korean War GI Bill promises prosperity. These two generations of men are haunted by the Mother-Spirit who did not survive enslavement’s post-traumatic stress violence. Trinity is the riveting story of the daughter-spirit born to stitch love back into the scattered wombs of her Black mothers and call love back into the fishing blues songs of her Black male kin. Lottie Rebecca Lee is the Divine spirited daughter born to set everything back up right again, in this daringly original novel.

  • I'm So (Not) Over You by Kosoko Jackson
    $16.00

    A chance to rewrite their ending is worth the risk in this swoony romantic comedy from Kosoko Jackson.

    It’s been months since aspiring journalist Kian Andrews has heard from his ex-boyfriend, Hudson Rivers, but an urgent text has them meeting at a café. Maybe Hudson wants to profusely apologize for the breakup. Or confess his undying love…But no, Hudson has a favor to ask—he wants Kian to pretend to be his boyfriend while his parents are in town, and Kian reluctantly agrees.

    The dinner doesn’t go exactly as planned, and suddenly Kian is Hudson’s plus one to Georgia’s wedding of the season. Hudson comes from a wealthy family where reputation is everything, and he really can’t afford another mistake. If Kian goes, he’ll help Hudson preserve appearances and get the opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the biggest names in media. This could be the big career break Kian needs.

    But their fake relationship is starting to feel like it might be more than a means to an end, and it’s time for both men to fact-check their feelings.

  • Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun

    by Tolá Okogwu

    $17.99

    Black Panther meets X-Men in this action-packed and empowering middle grade adventure about a British Nigerian girl who learns that her Afro hair has psychokinetic powers—perfect for fans of Amari and the Night Brothers!

    Onyeka has a lot of hair­—the kind that makes strangers stop in the street and her peers whisper behind her back. At least she has Cheyenne, her best friend, who couldn’t care less what other people think. Still, Onyeka has always felt uncomfortable with her vibrant curls…until the day Cheyenne almost drowns and Onyeka’s hair takes on a life of its own, inexplicably pulling Cheyenne from the water.

    At home, Onyeka’s mother tells her the shocking truth: Onyeka’s psycho-kinetic powers make her a Solari, one of a secret group of people with super powers unique to Nigeria. Her mother quickly whisks her off to the Academy of the Sun, a school in Nigeria where Solari are trained. But Onyeka and her new friends at the academy soon have to put their powers to the test as they find themselves embroiled in a momentous battle between truth and lies…

  • The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore
    $17.00

    *Ships in 7-10 business days*

    The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his.

    In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore. 

    Wes just couldn’t shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen?

    That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that have lasted for several years. Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had had a life not unlike his own: Both had had difficult childhoods, both were fatherless; they’d hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their choices would lead them to astonishingly different destinies.

    Told in alternating dramatic narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.

  • Vampires of El Norte

    by Isabel Cañas

    $28.00

    *ships in 7-10 business days* 

     

    Vampires and vaqueros face off on the Texas-Mexico border in this supernatural western from the author of The Hacienda.


    As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters—her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that drains men of their blood and leaves them for dead.

    Something that once attacked Nena nine years ago.

    Believing Nena dead, Néstor has been on the run from his grief ever since, moving from ranch to ranch working as a vaquero. But no amount of drink can dispel the night terrors of sharp teeth; no woman can erase his childhood sweetheart from his mind.

    When the United States invades Mexico in 1846, the two are brought abruptly together on the road to war: Nena as a curandera, a healer striving to prove her worth to her father so that he does not marry her off to a stranger, and Néstor as a member of the auxiliary cavalry of ranchers and vaqueros. But the shock of their reunion—and Nena’s rage at Néstor for seemingly abandoning her long ago—is quickly overshadowed by the appearance of a nightmare made flesh.

    And unless Nena and Néstor work through their past and face the future together, neither will survive to see the dawn.

     

  • Plant Lady cover image
    $28.00

    In the heart of a quiet town, a young woman tends to her plant shop, but beneath the surface of her lush, green sanctuary lies something far darker....

    Will you dare to disrespect her plants?

    Tucked away in the corner of a neighborhood in Dosan, South Korea, is the Plant Shop. Shop owner Yoohee has started anew, and her meticulously grown foliage thrives under her tender care. To both her customers and herself, Plant Shop is a refuge, where petunias and marigolds bloom and the air itself is like an elixir of peace.

    By day, Yoohee dispenses advice on gardening, but she also finds herself offering a special service off the clock. Women who are at their wits’ end come to her about a man they hope might disappear from their lives. Pulling extra hours is taxing, but Yoohee has encountered—and dealt with—these kind of men in her own life, men who treated her (and her beloved plants) with utter disrespect. So as night falls, Yoohee trades her apron for a shovel and a hoe and disappears into her moonlit garden. There, she buries not just the remains of the day, but also the bloody remnants of a few unfortunate encounters.

    As men begin to disappear…will anyone ever suspect the Plant Lady?

    A highly acclaimed novel from South Korea, Plant Lady brings atmospheric tension and delicate humor to a story of obsession and misogyny that will keep you rooted right to its simmering last page.

  • Afterlives: A Novel

    by Abdulrazak Gurnah

    $28.00

    *ships/available for pickup in 7-10 business days

    When he was just a boy, Ilyas was stolen from his parents on the coast of east Africa by German colonial troops. After years away, fighting against his own people, he returns home to find his parents gone and his sister, Afiya, abandoned into de facto slavery. Hamza too, is back from the war. He was not stolen but sold into service, where he became the protégé of an officer whose special interest has left him literally scarred for life. With nothing but the clothes on his back, he seeks only steady work and safety – until he meets the beautiful, undaunted Afiya. As these young people live and work and fall in love, their fates knotted ever more tightly together, the shadow of a new war on another continent falls over them, ready to snatch them up and once again carry them away.
    Spanning from the end of the nineteenth century, when the Europeans carved up Africa, on through the tumultuous decades of revolt and suppression that followed, AFTERLIVES is an astonishingly moving portrait of survivors refusing to sacrifice their humanity to the violent forces that assail them.

  • APRIL 2026: Non-Fiction Book Club - April 21 @ 7 PM
    $0.00

    We're meeting to discuss The Will To Change by Bell Hooks!

    BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

    When: Tuesday, April 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 Non-Fiction Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

    ABOUT THE WILL TO CHANGE

    Everyone needs to love and be loved - even men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways that patriarchal culture keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving.

    In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are—whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. But toxic masculinity punishes those fundamental emotions, and it’s so deeply ingrained in our society that it’s hard for men to not comply—but hooks wants to help change that.

    With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. She believes men can find the way to spiritual unity by getting back in touch with the emotionally open part of themselves—and lay claim to the rich and rewarding inner lives that have historically been the exclusive province of women. A brave and astonishing work, The Will to Change is designed to help men reclaim the best part of themselves.

  • Queenie

    by Candice Carty-Williams

    $18.99
    NAMED ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2019 BY WOMAN’S DAY, NEWSDAY, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, BUSTLE, AND BOOK RIOT!

    “[B]rilliant, timely, funny, heartbreaking.” —Jojo Moyes, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Me Before You

    For fans of Luster and I May Destroy You, a disarmingly honest, unapologetically black, and undeniably witty debut novel that will speak to those who have gone looking for love and found something very different in its place.

    Queenie Jenkins is a twenty-five-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle class peers. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places…including several hazardous men who do a good job of occupying brain space and a bad job of affirming self-worth.

    As Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?”—all of the questions today’s woman must face in a world trying to answer them for her.

    With “fresh and honest” (Jojo Moyes) prose, Queenie is a remarkably relatable exploration of what it means to be a modern woman searching for meaning in today’s world.
  • JULY 2026: Fiction Book Club - July 30 @ 7PM
    $0.00

    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 

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