A First Folktale from the creators of Magnolia Flower, Zora Neale Hurston and Ibram X. Kendi, about the power of sharing.

There was a cat. And there was a dog. And only one piece of pineapple…

Find out if the two animals can overcome this conundrum in Zora Neale Hurston's humorous and charming folktale retold by #1 New York Times bestselling and National Book Award–winning author Ibram X. Kendi and illustrated by New York Times honored artist, Diana Ejaita. This accessible and sizable board book is perfect for introducing the youngest of readers to the beauty of Hurston's storytelling and will lightly teach children that everything is better shared when with friends.

PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: March 31, 2026

“Violent, smart, gruesome and wildly original, this novel pulls readers into a horrific world of murder and cannibalism while also critiquing misogyny, exploring Asian fetishization and stereotypes, sharing what it’s like to navigate two cultures and telling a touching story of a family in turmoil.” —New York Times Book Review

TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF THE YEAR

Crying in H-Mart meets My Sister, the Serial Killer in this brilliantly subversive, feminist psychological horror novel about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective.

Ji-won’s life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her Appa’s extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying . . . yet enticing.

In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Mouthwatering blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George’s, who is Umma’s obnoxious new boyfriend. He brags about his puffed-up consulting job, ogles Asian waitresses while dining out, and acts condescendingly toward Ji-won and her sister, as if he deserves all of Umma’s fawning adoration. But George doesn’t deserve anything from her family. Ji-won will make sure of that.

No matter how many victims accumulate around her campus or how many people she must deceive and manipulate, Ji-won’s hunger and her rage deserve to be sated.

"I was enticed from the first line and entertained throughout. The Eyes Are the Best Part is a quirky, engaging read."—Oyinkan Brainthwaite, author of My Sister, the Serial Killer

The most comprehensive publication to date on widely celebrated artist Rashid Johnson

‘Johnson is a leading voice of his generation.’ – New York Times

The most comprehensive publication to date on widely celebrated artist Rashid Johnson

Working with a variety of media that includes painting, sculpture, photography, video, and performance, Rashid Johnson has created a nuanced and iconographic body of work that connects literature, music, and art. Personal references and pervasive cultural narratives are interweaved with the legacy of modernist abstraction, producing what critics have labelled ‘conceptual post-black art’. A precocious talent (his work was included in the seminal ‘Freestyle’ exhibition in New York in 2001), Johnson received the High Museum of Art’s David C. Driskell Prize, which honours contributions in the field of African-American art.

In honor of Bookstore Romance Day, we have gathered some of our favorite Black contemporary Romance authors, traditionally and indie published.

EVENT DEETS

WHEN: August 17 at 6:30PM

WHERE: Virtual Via Zoom

HOW: Be sure to purchase your $5 ticket or choose one of the bundles to gain entry to this virtual event. 

ROMANCE BOOK BUNDLES

Forbidden Love: The Perfect Find, Forbidden Promises - $26

Second Chance Romance: All I've Ever Want All I've Ever Needed , Seven Days in June - $31

Opposite Attract: Mickey Chambers Shakes It Up, The Secret to a Southern Wedding - $36

Meet Queer: D'Vaughn & Kris Plan A Wedding, Can't Let Her Go , A Dash of Salt & Pepper- $45

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Tia Williams had a fifteen-year career as a beauty editor for magazines including Elle, Glamour, Lucky, Teen People, and Essence. In 2004, she pioneered the beauty-blog industry with her award-winning site, Shake Your Beauty. She wrote the bestselling debut novel The Accidental Diva and penned two young adult novels, It Chicks and Sixteen Candles. Her award-winning novel The Perfect Find is a Netflix movie starring Gabrielle Union. Her latest novel is New York Times bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, Seven Days in June, published by Grand Central. Tia currently lives with her daughter and her husband in Brooklyn.

Like any good Southern belle, Kianna Alexander wears many hats: doting mama, advice-dispensing sister, fun aunt and gabbing girlfriend. She's a voracious reader, an amateur seamstress and occasional painter in oils.She has a passion for history and an endless curiosity. Kianna is proud to tell stories where Black women are loved, valued, and thriving. A native of the TarHeel state, Kianna still lives there while maintaining her collection of well-loved vintage 80's Barbie dolls.

Chencia Higgins hails from the big city of Houston in the greatest state of Texas. Writing has been her my passion since she was a young girl, when her subject matter were visions of middle school drama with her group of girlfriends. She entered the world of publishing in May 2016 with an erotic novella that set the stage for a career in which she would craft engaging tales of Black women being loved up on. She continues to write for women who love to read but are tired of never seeing themselves in the story. Higgins proud to be a part of an indie and self-published author community. When she's not writing, you can find her reading a book (or two, or three), saving recipes that she'll never make on Pinterest, and traveling as much as possible with her family.

A.E. Valdez published her first book, All I’ve Wanted, All I’ve Needed, in 2021. She has continued to write stories with endearing and relatable characters centered firmly around Black love. Readers have described her work as sweet and spicy, deeply emotional, and healing.

She currently resides in the Pacific Northwest with the love of her life and their two sons. When she’s not typing away on a keyboard, she enjoys spending time with her family, going on hiking trips, gaming, or curling up with a good book.

Kosoko Jackson is a digital-media specialist, who lives in the New York Metro Area and spends too much time listening to Halsey and Taylor Swift.

Charish Reid is a fan of sexy books and disaster films. When she's not grading papers or prepping lessons for college freshmen, she enjoys writing romances that celebrate quirky black women who deserve HEAs. Charish currently lives in Sweden, with her husband, avoiding most forms of exercise.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

From New York Times bestselling author Shanora Williams comes a deeply heartfelt romance about the tragedies that put our lives on hold―and the love that makes us want to start again.

Javier Valdez hasn’t had much luck with nannies, and he can’t imagine this one will be any different. Octavia Klein is all sass to his stoicism, free spirit to his hard work. But he’s a widower, and with a career in the NBA, he can’t keep doing this alone.

Despite Javier’s reservations, Octavia turns out to be the best thing for his four-year-old daughter…and for him. But he’s reluctant to admit it. Javier swore off love after his wife died, and Octavia has her own reasons for avoiding relationships.

As their bond deepens far past professionalism or even friendship, it’s hard to deny the crackling tension of something more. They’re both toeing lines they said they wouldn’t cross―and when their pasts come rushing back, there’s no telling which way they’ll fall.

With old wounds reopened, can Javier and Octavia overcome the pain once again? Or will their future together become just another scar?

Celebrate the release of Watermelon & Red Bird Birds: A Cookbook for Juneteeth & Black Celebrations with James Beard Award nominated food writer and chef Nicole A. Taylor!

Event DEETS: 

When: Thursday, June 23 @ 7:00 PM CST

Where: Assembly HTX (2015 Berry Street, HTX 77004)

How: Space is limited. Tickets With Book includes all the necessary materials for cocktail class. Ticket Without Book is for the author talk and materials/supplies for cocktails. 

About the Book

On June 19, 1865, more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and issued General Order Number 3, informing the people of Texas that all enslaved people were now free. A year later, in 1866, Black Texans congregated with music, dance, and BBQs—Juneteenth celebrations.

All-day cook-outs with artful salads, bounteous dessert spreads, and raised glasses of “red drink” are essential to Juneteenth gatherings. In Watermelon and Red Birds, Nicole puts jubilation on the main stage. As a master storyteller and cook, she bridges the traditional African-American table and 21st-century flavors in stories and recipes. Nicole synthesizes all the places we’ve been, all the people we have come from, all the people we have become, and all the culinary ideas we have embraced.

Watermelon and Red Birds contains over 75 recipes, including drinks like Afro Egg Cream and Marigold Gin Sour, dishes like Beef Ribs with Fermented Harissa Sauce, Peach Jam and Molasses Glazed Chicken Thighs, Southern-ish Potato Salad and Cantaloupe and Feta Salad, and desserts like Roasted Nectarine Sundae, and Radish and Ginger Pound Cake. Taylor also provides a resource to guide readers to BIPOC-owned hot sauces, jams, spice, and waffle mixes companies and lists fun gadgets to make your Juneteenth special. These recipes and essays will inspire parties to salute one of the most important American holidays, and moments to savor joy all year round

About the Author

Nicole A. Taylor (@foodculturist) is a James Beard Award-nominated food writer, master home cook, and producer.  She has written for the New York Times, Bon Appétit, and Food & Wine. Nicole is the author of The Up South Cookbook and The Last O.G. Cookbook. She is the executive producer of If We So Choose, a short documentary about the desegregation of an iconic southern fast food joint. Nicole is the co-founder of The Maroon, a marketplace and retreat house focused on radical rest for Black creatives. She lives in New York City and Athens, Georgia, with her husband and son.

About the Moderator

Chef Vicky V (@thequeenofyum) is a United States-based, Houston native Chef Consultant/FoodStylist/Influencer/Media Producer/ & Black Restaurant Liaison. Chef Vicky V is the powerhouse for food media and championing people to expand their palates while living life beyond the stereotypes! Chef Vicky V garnered professional training in Philadelphia at JNA Institute of Culinary Art. After moving back to Houston she has successfully navigated as a food media personality. She has recently centered in on the Food & Travel/ and Unique brand forward recipe development.

Chef Vicky V has rebranded herself as the Queen of Yum in 2020 with a powerful engine of followers she calls the “yumcrumb” behind her! She has
worked with many Regional and National brands to create delicious, colorful, beautifully aesthetic food media with engagement reaching in the multiple of millions.

A woman’s trip home reveals frightening truths in a twisty novel of murder and family secrets by the New York Times bestselling author of And Now She’s Gone and These Toxic Things.

TV writer Yara Gibson’s hometown of Palmdale, California, isn’t her first choice for a vacation. But she’s back to host her parents’ twentieth-anniversary party and find the perfect family mementos for the celebration. Everything is going to plan until Yara receives a disturbing text: I have information that will change your life.

The message is from Felicia Campbell, who claims to be a childhood friend of Yara’s mother. But they’ve been estranged for years—drama best ignored and forgotten. But Yara can’t forget Felicia, who keeps texting, insisting that Yara talk to her “before it’s too late.”

But the next day is already too late for Felicia, whose body is found floating in Lake Palmdale. Before she died, Felicia left Yara a key to a remote lakeside cabin. In the basement are files related to a mysterious tragedy, unsolved since 1998. What secrets was Felicia hiding? How much of what Yara knows about her family has been true?

The deeper Yara digs for answers, the more she fears that Felicia was right. Uncovering the truth about what happened at the cabin all those years ago will change Yara’s life—or end it.

*Use discount code SALE at checkout for 30% *

From the renowned author of Invisible Man,a classic, “elegant” (The New York Times) collection of essays that captures the breadth and complexity of his insights into racial identity, jazz and folklore, and citizenship across six decades. Compiled, edited, and newly revised by Ralph Ellison’s literary executor, John F. Callahan, this definitive volume includes posthumously discovered reviews, criticism, and interviews, as well as the essay collections Shadow and Act (1964), hailed by Robert Penn Warren as “a body of cogent and subtle commentary on the questions that focus on race,” and Going to the Territory (1986), an exploration of literature and folklore, jazz and culture, and the nature and quality of lives that Black Americans lead. With newly discovered essays and speeches, The Collected Essays reveals a more vulnerable, intimate side of Ellison than what we've previously seen. “Raph Ellison,” wrote Stanley Crouch, “reached across race, religion, class and sex to make us all Americans.”

A searing and compassionate new novel about a young Black nurse’s shocking discovery and burning quest for justice in post-segregation Alabama, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wench.

Montgomery, Alabama, 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend intends to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she hopes to help women shape their destinies, to make their own choices for their lives and bodies.

But when her first week on the job takes her along a dusty country road to a worn-down one-room cabin, Civil is shocked to learn that her new patients, Erica and India, are children—just eleven and thirteen years old. Neither of the Williams sisters has even kissed a boy, but they are poor and Black, and for those handling the family’s welfare benefits, that’s reason enough to have the girls on birth control. As Civil grapples with her role, she takes India, Erica, and their family into her heart. Until one day she arrives at their door to learn the unthinkable has happened, and nothing will ever be the same for any of them.

Decades later, with her daughter grown and a long career in her wake, Dr. Civil Townsend is ready to retire, to find her peace, and to leave the past behind. But there are people and stories that refuse to be forgotten. That must not be forgotten.

Because history repeats what we don’t remember.

Inspired by true events and brimming with hope, Take My Hand is a stirring exploration of accountability and redemption.

*ships or ready for pick up in 7 - 10 business days*

Celebrate James Baldwin’s one-hundredth birthday anniversary with the first-ever illustrated biography of this legendary writer, orator, activist, and intellectual.

Before he became a writer, James “Jimmy” Baldwin was a young boy from Harlem, New York, who loved stories. He found joy in the rhythm of music, family, and books.

But Jimmy also found the blues, as a Black man living in America.

When he discovered the written word, he discovered true power. Writing gave him a voice. And that voice opened the world to Jimmy. From the publication of the groundbreaking collection of essays The Fire Next Time to his passionate demonstrations during the civil rights movement, Jimmy used his voice fearlessly.

Michelle Meadows, author of Brave Ballerina and Flying High, introduces young readers to the great American novelist, essayist, poet, playwright, orator, and artist James Baldwin, who, with the fire of his pen, dared a nation to dream of a more equitable world filled with love. Brought to life with warm illustrations by Jamiel Law, Jimmy’s Rhythm & Blues chronicles the life of an incredible visionary who left an indelible mark on American literature and history.