National Security by Matt Sloane
National Security (Vince Carver Spy Thriller Book 1) by Matt Sloane
Vince Carver left the CIA with a dead friend and a close call.
So much for so-called intelligence work. No longer knowing what he was fighting for, Carver switched to the private sector and swore he’d never go back. Armed with the elite skills of a special operator, he now leads a team of security specialists far from the battlefield.
Everything changes when his convoy is ambushed on American soil.
The three-letter agencies all want a piece of him, and the CIA is front and center. His client, a semiconductor billionaire, may be selling secrets to the Chinese. As his bodyguard, Carver is the asset best placed to uncover the plot, and he begrudgingly commutes to Taipei for one last mission.
Soon he’s embedded in a world of slick intrigue and fast lies.
Carver is pitted against a resident security team led by a beautiful and enigmatic woman, but she’s far from the only one keeping secrets. When foreign agents gun for him, old doubts resurface, and not even the CIA is above suspicion.
Carver rediscovers his drive to fight.
He may be guarding secrets vital to US national security, but he’s a private contractor to the bone. This is Carver’s show, and he knows the key to a timeless truth. When best-laid plans fall by the wayside, nothing can replace the indifferent precision of a man with a gun.
National Security by Matt Sloane is stunningly real. A debut espionage thriller packed with intrigue, spycraft, and blistering action. From high-stakes business deals in Taipei to a strategic installation nestled in America’s Appalachians, this instant classic doesn’t stop to breathe until the last page.
Recommended for fans of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp, Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, and Brad Thor’s Scot Harvath.
Night Wherever We Go: A Novel by Tracey Rose Peyton
A gripping, radically intimate debut novel about a group of enslaved women staging a covert rebellion against their owners.
On a struggling Texas plantation, six enslaved women slip from their sleeping quarters and gather in the woods under the cover of night. The Lucys—as they call the plantation owners, after Lucifer himself—have decided to turn around the farm’s bleak financial prospects by making the women bear children. They have hired a “stockman” to impregnate them. But the women are determined to protect themselves.
Now each of the six faces a choice. Nan, the doctoring woman, has brought a sack of cotton root clippings that can stave off children when chewed daily. If they all take part, the Lucys may give up and send the stockman away. But a pregnancy for any of them will only encourage the Lucys further. And should their plan be discovered, the consequences will be severe.
Visceral and arresting, Night Wherever We Go illuminates each woman’s individual trials and desires while painting a subversive portrait of collective defiance. Unflinching in her portrayal of America’s gravest injustices, while also deeply attentive to the transcendence, love, and solidarity of women whose interior lives have been underexplored, Tracey Rose Peyton creates a story of unforgettable power.
Nights Over Egypt (Contemporary Romance) by Barbara Keaton
Ashalon is a professor of Egyptology at Cairo University in Egypt and he is none too happy to learn that another American is coming to his country to conduct a dig among the ruins of his ancestors. He vows to make it difficult for this foreigner, who has been given permission by the Supreme Council of Antiquities … at least until he meets the American, Corina Camden.
Professor Camden is searching for mummified remains from the Twenty-first and Twenty-second dynasties and is hard pressed to hear her every move in Egypt would be supervised by some professor.
Corina and Ashalon are each surprised by their reaction to each other as they set across the blazing desert, captivated by their love of antiquities and unknown passions.
Nights Over Egypt is a story of archaeological digs, rich culture and buried passions.
Book Review from The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers
4.0 out of 5 stars In Search of an Egyptian Tomb or Egyptian Love
For years Corina Camden has been the baby everyone doted on and the geeky little girl of the family, with the exception of one night when she was transformed into a raving beauty to attend her high school prom. Her date was arranged by her older brother with plenty of threats and instructions. The date was magical a one for Corina considering the response she was getting from her classmates and her escort. She listens intently to him as he describes his Egyptian homeland and his desire to be an archaeologist, echoing similar desires she herself has dreamed of doing.
Fast forward several years and Corina is all grown up and a well-known professor of archaeology in the United States. She has been offered the chance to participate in an excavation in Egypt among the Royal Tombs of Tanis. The honor is one that hasn’t been granted in ten years and will establish her as a serious Egyptologist. It is of little consequence Dr. Ashalon El Asab will be supervising the dig; she only hopes they can get along.
Upon meeting Dr. El Asab, they each get a vague feeling of familiarity. There is one thing for sure; they are both instantly attracted to each other. However, Corina recognizes a personal involvement could only lead to trouble, so she resolves to fight the feelings. Working in close proximity with fireworks looming in the background, the dig may result in more then ancient artifacts to secure.
NIGHTS OVER EGYPT is an endearing love story that casts an African American woman in a very nontraditional role in a country rich in history and culture. I was captivated by the obvious research Barbara Keaton put into this project and the vivid imagery she used to bring Egypt, its people and its heritage to life. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought Keaton herself was of Egyptian decent. Her character development was excellent with even the secondary characters showing budding potential for an additional story or two. This is definitely a must have for the romance enthusiast. —-Reviewed by Brenda M. Lisbon of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers
Purchase Nights Over Egypt by Barbara Keaton, look here.
Overcoming Bias and Racism in Your Workplace: A Primer for Minorities in the Business World by Gregory L. Harris
Imagine a society where bias, prejudice, and past discrimination’s impact on employees doesn’t exist. Not reality. Overcoming Bias and Racism in Your Workplace helps everyone deal with the real world as it is.
Bias and Racism in our country won’t just slip away. It takes a combined effort to change patterns of beliefs and practices that have been fostered and entrenched for some centuries. Each person deals with these realities every day in their workspace to one degree or another.
Each individual can take a stand and make a way—converting one person at a time if necessary—while thriving in their job, career, and profession. We can accomplish that goal while being successful in our day-to-day work responsibilities. Not as a new burden, but in ways that make all of us better.
In a society dealing with overt racism in its daily atmosphere, Gregory L. Harris has written Overcoming Bias and Racism in Your Workplace with the intended goal to help you not just survive, but thrive, whether just starting out in a job, or in the middle of your career.
Information on how to accomplish your goals while maintaining who you are and who you want to be are between the pages of this book. It is a primer for steps in your business and relationships that will make a difference.
All that’s needed is you!
Purple Lotus: A Novel by Veena Rao
“The dazzling tale of an Indian-American woman finding her way through the labyrinth of tradition to self-awareness in the modern world. The writer employs an energetic prose style interspersed with melodic passages to make the writing itself a hybrid. Set in particular times and places, Purple Lotus nonetheless appeals to readers everywhere, especially women, to claim the full measure of their human rights. A vivid and resplendent novel for our time.”―Elaine Neil Orr, critically acclaimed author of Swimming Between Worlds
Tara moves to the American South three years after her arranged marriage to tech executive Sanjay. Ignored and lonely, Tara finds herself regressing back to childhood memories that have scarred her for life. When she was eight, her parents had left her behind with her aging grandparents and a schizophrenic uncle in Mangalore, while taking her baby brother with them to make a new life for the family in Dubai.
Tara’s memories of abandonment and isolation mirror her present life of loneliness and escalating abuse at the hands of her husband. She accepts the help of kind-hearted American strangers to fight Sanjay, only to be pressured by her patriarchal family to make peace with her circumstances. Then, in a moment of truth, she discovers the importance of self-worth—a revelation that gives her the courage to break free, gently rebuild her life, and even risk being shunned by her community when she marries her childhood love, Cyrus Saldanha.
Life with Cyrus is beautiful, until old fears come knocking. Ultimately, Tara must face these fears to save her relationship with Cyrus—and to confront the victim-shaming society she was raised within.
Intimate and deeply moving, Purple Lotus is the story of one woman’s ascension from the dark depths of desolation toward the light of freedom.
Purposeful Living Journey by Patricia L Gadsden
Purposeful Living Journey by Patricia L Gadsden
Still trying to figure out your life’s purpose? Look no further. This journal provides you with many exercises and tools to help you discover the you that you were meant to be.
Patricia L. Gadsden is the founder and President of Life Esteem, a personal and professional enrichment training/consulting firm and Founder of the Life Esteem Holistic Health Center. She is an entrepreneur and respected workshop and seminar leader who works with businesses, state agencies, colleges and schools, educations and human service organizations. Mrs. Gadsden has compiled materials that will assist you with finding your life purpose.
About the Author and Community Leader
Patricia L. Gadsden is the founder and President of Life Esteem, a personal and professional enrichment training/consulting firm and Women-Connect, a quarterly magazine which focuses on connecting women of all cultures, backgrounds, ages and experiences. She is an entrepreneur and respected workshop and seminar leader who works with businesses, state agencies, colleges and schools, educational and human service organizations. Mrs. Gadsden has made numerous presentations and speeches at conferences and conventions.
Mrs. Gadsden was named one of the top 50 Pennsylvania Women in Business for 2006, by the Central Penn Journal. She co-hosts (with husband Nathaniel Gadsden) a weekly television program called Life Esteem focusing on community issues, airing Sunday mornings at 6:00 am on the CBS affiliate WHP-TV 21. She also just launched in May 2008 a quarterly women’s magazine called, Women-Connect with a focus on highlighting women from diverse backgrounds and experiences.
She has contracted with the University of Pittsburgh’s PA Child Welfare Training Program since 1993 to provide diversity and other trainings for supervisors and new social workers in children and youth agencies and other providers of services to these agencies. Mrs. Gadsden co-wrote two diversity curriculums and train the trainer outlines. The first curriculum is a one-day training entitled, “Valuing Diversity and the second curriculum is, “Managing Diversity”. She also trained auditors and other support staff for the Auditor General office staff a curriculum she wrote entitled, “Diversity: A Vision for Understanding.” She recently contracted with the Workforce Investment Board to conduct diversity trainings for health care professionals in hospitals and nursing home settings.
Mrs. Gadsden was a master trainer for the Girl Scouts of the USA where she received her Instructor of Master Trainer’s Certification. She also serves as a National Operational Volunteer for GSUSA where she travels to girl scout councils across the country to conduct council performance assessments and diversity/pluralism trainings.
Mrs. Gadsden is married to Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Gadsden, pastor of Imani African Christian Church. She co-hosts with her husband a weekly public affairs TV talk/show program called Life Esteem, on the CBS Harrisburg affiliate television station, WHP-TV 21
Purchase Purposeful Living Journey by Patricia L Gadsden
Razorblade Tears: A Novel by S. A. Cosby
A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance.
Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid.
The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss.
Derek’s father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed of his father’s criminal record. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy.
Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys.
Provocative and fast-paced, S. A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears is a story of bloody retribution, heartfelt change – and maybe even redemption.
One of Barack Obama’s Recommended Reads for Summer • New York Times Notable Book • NPR’s Best Books • Washington Post’s Best Thriller and Mystery Books of the Year • TIME Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books
Reason by Becky DeWitt
THE CONTEMPT 3-BOOK SERIES BY BECKY DEWITT
The Contempt Series including sequels Reasons and Sabotage, is a maze of mystery with twists and turns that will keep the readers on the edge. The character connections involve murder, suicide, deception, deliverance and salvation.
The series is filled with questions that keeps readers rapidly flipping pages yearning for answers. All three are available on Kindle. Listen to Becky read from the series: https://www.audioacrobat.com/note/C4Vn42bX
Watch the book trailer for The Trilogy – Contempt, Reasons, & Sabotage by Becky DeWitt
Watch the YouTube video: https://youtu.be/S2YnB83f9Xo
Contempt: Lies Deceit and the Miracles by Becky DeWitt
Contempt is the riveting journey through deceit, death, and betrayal which was a way of life. It is the journey of the twists and turns of life, taking toil, leaving one in devastation. Only the arrival of a miracle just in time changes everything. Nothing just happens. Becky DeWitt leads the readers through a maze of mystery and intrigue capturing ones’ fascination.
Who is that girl? The intrigue continues the lives of Tristan, Arianna and Takeshi are exposed in the web of many secrets from their past through their children. Reasons answers the many questions of who, what, when, where and why that were left unanswered at the ending of Contempt. The truth is embedded in every page as the reader attempts to find the conclusion of this story. Contempt lured and captivated readers into a world of a thought-provoking drama. Becky DeWitt has responded to the unanswered questions of the destiny of many lives from Contempt with the sequel, Reasons. Is this really the end?
Sabotage: The Final Chapter by Becky DeWitt
SABOTAGE, The Final Chapter pieces together the dark side of Tristan, Arianna and Takeshi’s lifestyle of murder, intrigue, contempt and lies, while experiencing God’s mercy, grace, eye-opening revelation and truth. The readers who have followed the drama in the previous books, Contempt and Reasons, will experience the conclusion in the maze of mystery that captured their attention. The story ends with answers to the many questions about the life of each character and their unfolding destinies. Your heart will skip a beat as you discover the answers to the truth.
Purchase the Contempt 3-Book Series by Becky DeWitt
ReQuiem (Clairvoyance – Poetic Vault Series) by Marc Lacy
ReQuiem: Poetic Canticles Producing Personal Revivals offers a creative hardline approach to everyday and ordinary life situations that people may endure from time to time.
Although it tends to pull no punches in the aims of the poetry, it can easily be deemed a sweet escape from the harsh conclusions that life can sometimes present. Lacy journeys to the edges of the creative window with which God has blessed him and creates a figurative-looking glass through which the reader can gaze intensely at the messages.
Once the eyes zero in on the stanzas, the rhythm of the rhymes are locked into a sequence of beats like a metronome. In essence, the flow is so silky that no head will go unbobbed.
ReQuiem provides the reader with 73 opportunities to catch the flow, feel the vibes, and get moved to a higher version of self through the lyrics. This particular collection is a beneficiary of Marc Lacy’s timeless vault of poetic secrets. He reached way back in the stash to pull pieces that have been highly anticipated. But alas, there are also a few new pieces and yes, one will also be able to tell them apart based on the writing style.
ReQuiem is like a rent-a-car, once you pick it up, it can take you anywhere you want to go…that is…if you stay focused on the smooth highway of pages that awaits you. Check out the entire Poetic Vault Series – https://a.co/d/0ggNVSI
RestoreHER 7 Steps to Healing Enlightenment, and Renewal by Cheryl Lacey Donovan
RestoreHER 7 Steps to Healing Enlightenment, and Renewal by Cheryl Lacey Donovan
We spend our days rushing from one task to another at work and home only to drop into our beds at midnight , completely exhausted. Our society has changed a great deal since our parents were in their prime.
Today we are addicted to speed, see busyness as a status symbol, take care of not only our children, but also our aging parents, and work as many hours as possible to keep ahead of the Jones’. It’s no wonder most of us ignore ourselves and our own needs. It seems like there is simply not the time to do more than grab food on the go and snag a few hours of sleep before starting it all again.
Read excerpts from the book and order your copy, go here: http://bit.ly/RESTORECLD
About the Author
Cheryl Lacey Donovan lives an authentic life as a multi-talented preacher, teacher, mentor, motivational speaker, entrepreneur, and author. She is a woman of integrity with a keen level of wisdom and humor that is nothing short of refreshing.
An award-winning bestselling author Cheryl has influenced the lives of thousands in the U.S. and abroad through her powerful life-changing messages. Desiring to see the saints efficiently armed with the knowledge of God, Cheryl’s passion is assisting those in the kingdom, especially women, in discovering their authentic purpose and destiny.
After more than 20 years of educating and advising allied health care professionals, Cheryl followed her passion for bringing out the best in other people by choosing to be more involved in the vision and direction their lives were taking.
This culminated in the launch of Cheryl Lacey Donovan LLC, a coaching and mentoring program which is one facet of her multi-level group of projects which includes Worth More than Rubies Ministries, Cheryl Lacey Donovan Ministries, Worth More than Rubies Productions, and Imni Publishing Unlimited.
Cheryl presents a powerful message with a conversational style that’s just like sitting around chatting with one of your sisters – one who is filled with pearls of wisdom and whose heart is filled with giving. Some of us long for that kind of sister or friend who will just sit you down, tell you the truth about life, share her experiences, and then give you access to a greater more meaningful purpose in life.
You will want to sip a warm cup of your favorite drink, bring a note pad and enjoy a candid and educational presentation with Cheryl Lacey Donovan.
Read more here: https://www.cherylspeaks.org
Rhythm Bay Love by Patricia A. Bridewell
Antoine Bailey AKA DJ Ant is one of the wealthy heirs to his father’s prominent real estate business. He enjoys his wealth, but life is not perfect. Antoine is ready to move past the drama of his family issues, and ex-girlfriend’s infidelity. Relocation from the San Francisco Bay area to Los Angeles for a new position is a godsend. Within a year, DJ Ant’s ratings are over the top, and he’s one of the most popular DJs on the West Coast.
Disputes with Jada Carson, a co-worker, becomes a challenge. Even more challenging is their conflict transitions into an attraction that he can’t resist.
Jada Carson’s life has not been easy. Thrust into the parenting role of teenage sisters, at age twenty-two she’s the head of household. Ten years later, she is the Traffic Director at a radio station where she did her college internship. After her love-life dives, so does her trust in men. Then along comes Antoine, who becomes the nail in her side. But he’s oh, so gorgeous.
Although she’s attracted to him, she dismisses the notion of a relationship because she doesn’t want any part of that arrogant man. When Cupid steps in, a romance between Antoine and Jada ignites.
Will Jada and Antoine survive the turmoil that hovers over their blossoming love? Only God knows the answer.
Listen to a reading from Rhythm Bay Love:
http://www.audioacrobat.com/note/CRt29ybX
Purchase Rhythm Bay Love by Patricia A. Bridewell
https://www.amazon.com/Rhythm-Bay-Love-Patricia-Bridewell/dp/1732130922
Sabotage: The Final Chapter by Becky DeWitt
THE CONTEMPT 3-BOOK SERIES BY BECKY DEWITT
The Contempt Series including sequels Reasons and Sabotage, is a maze of mystery with twists and turns that will keep the readers on the edge. The character connections involve murder, suicide, deception, deliverance and salvation.
The series is filled with questions that keeps readers rapidly flipping pages yearning for answers. All three are available on Kindle. Listen to Becky read from the series: https://www.audioacrobat.com/note/C4Vn42bX
Watch the book trailer for The Trilogy – Contempt, Reasons, & Sabotage by Becky DeWitt. Watch the YouTube video: https://youtu.be/S2YnB83f9Xo
Contempt: Lies Deceit and the Miracles by Becky DeWitt
Contempt is the riveting journey through deceit, death, and betrayal which was a way of life. It is the journey of the twists and turns of life, taking toil, leaving one in devastation. Only the arrival of a miracle just in time changes everything. Nothing just happens. Becky DeWitt leads the readers through a maze of mystery and intrigue capturing ones’ fascination.
Who is that girl? The intrigue continues the lives of Tristan, Arianna and Takeshi are exposed in the web of many secrets from their past through their children. Reasons answers the many questions of who, what, when, where and why that were left unanswered at the ending of Contempt. The truth is embedded in every page as the reader attempts to find the conclusion of this story. Contempt lured and captivated readers into a world of a thought-provoking drama. Becky DeWitt has responded to the unanswered questions of the destiny of many lives from Contempt with the sequel, Reasons. Is this really the end?
Sabotage: The Final Chapter by Becky DeWitt
SABOTAGE, The Final Chapter pieces together the dark side of Tristan, Arianna and Takeshi’s lifestyle of murder, intrigue, contempt and lies, while experiencing God’s mercy, grace, eye-opening revelation and truth. The readers who have followed the drama in the previous books, Contempt and Reasons, will experience the conclusion in the maze of mystery that captured their attention. The story ends with answers to the many questions about the life of each character and their unfolding destinies. Your heart will skip a beat as you discover the answers to the truth.
Purchase the Contempt 3-Book Series by Becky DeWitt
Sankofa: A Novel by Chibundu Onuzo
Named a Best Book of the Month by Entertainment Weekly, Harper’s Bazaar, and Time • Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Month by Goodreads, PopSugar, PureWow, LitHub, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and Buzzfeed
A woman wondering who she really is goes in search of a father she never knew—only to find something far more complicated than she ever expected—in this “stirring narrative about family, our capacity to change and the need to belong” (Time).
Anna is at a stage of her life when she’s beginning to wonder who she really is. In her 40s, she has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up, and her mother—the only parent who raised her—is dead.
Searching through her mother’s belongings one day, Anna finds clues about the African father she never knew. His student diaries chronicle his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. Anna discovers that he eventually became the president—some would say dictator—of a small nation in West Africa. And he is still alive…
When Anna decides to track her father down, a journey begins that is disarmingly moving, funny, and fascinating. Like the metaphorical bird that gives the novel its name, Sankofa expresses the importance of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bringing it into the present to address universal questions of race and belonging, the overseas experience for the African diaspora, and the search for a family’s hidden roots.
Examining freedom, prejudice, and personal and public inheritance, Sankofa is a story for anyone who has ever gone looking for a clear identity or home, and found something more complex in its place.
Saying Goodbye by Patricia A. Saunders
Saying Goodbye by Patricia A. Saunders
Have you lost someone?
Have you experienced grief?
Are you trying to pick up the pieces?
Saying Goodbye is the book for you!
In the heartfelt pages of her memoir, Patricia A. Saunders, the youngest in a family of thirteen siblings, reveals the profound reverberations of losses to cancer that have left an indelible mark on her life.
Within her narrative, she sensitively explores the depths of grief accompanying the departure of a cherished family member, navigating the distinctive connection between the eldest and the youngest. Patricia eloquently traces the path toward accepting her sister’s passing, bravely sharing the intimate details of her personal journey.
In this courageous exploration, Patricia extends solace and inspiration to those grappling with the challenge of saying goodbye to their loved ones, fostering a sense of comfort and resilience in the face of loss.
Patricia A. Saunders is an author, poet, blogger, and motivational speaker. Visit her website at https://patriciaasaunders.com
Saying Goodbye by Patricia A Saunders
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1665748265
Self-Love in Action: Practical Ways to Bring Self-Compassion Into Work, Relationships & Everyday Life by Zo Crook
A practical approach to self-love with evidence-based therapy skills to trust your inner voice, make confident decisions, and live with greater personal empowerment in your relationships, career, and everyday life.
Many studies show that self-love is central to good mental health. Self-Love in Action helps you cultivate compassion, accountability, and self-respect in all areas of your life. In this practical, everyday guide, self-love becomes a verb–a moving declaration towards personal empowerment. This psychology-driven book offers proactive strategies to redirect you back to your authentic self by learning to listen to the voice within. Guided by a therapist, you’ll confront the past, examine the present, and prepare for the future by setting boundaries, taking accountability, and practicing the ultimate act of self-love.
Boost confidence with small rituals that shift the focus from “them” to “me”–reminding you that true love flows from the inside out.
Implement “Time to Practice” exercises to pause, set boundaries, say no, and invest in yourself.
Take self-love quizzes to reflect on the ways current habits might impede self-love action.
Explore real examples of clients who have overcome common hardships through their commitment to self-love.
Shift into a Higher Gear by Delatorro McNeal
Shift into a Higher Gear: Better Your Best and Live Life to the Fullest by Delatorro McNeal
Kick fear-based living to the curb and discover exactly how to manifest the life of your dreams!
Is there another level of life that you want to live? Are there goals you’ve been struggling to achieve? Are there areas of your life where you’ve settled for excuses instead of excellence?
With close to two decades of experience working with high achievers globally, peak performance expert Delatorro McNeal II is passionate about teaching people how to live life full throttle. A motorcycle enthusiast, McNeal uses biking metaphors to vividly illustrate how to reject the monotony of living on cruise control. Packed with exercises, journaling activities, compelling questions, and thought-provoking stories, analogies, and examples, this book teaches you the psychology and methodology of shifting into a higher gear. Each of the twelve chapters starts with the word Shift and invites you to make a simple but profound change that will accelerate your results and expand the horizons of your possibilities. You’ll discover how to
• Lean into the curves of life and business
• Sever your dependency on the “kickstands of life”
• Put your weight into the changes you desire most
• Steer the flow of your emotional states
• Shift your core relationships to invite the right posse to your biker club
• Drive defensively to avoid the potholes that stop most people from succeeding
From the introduction all the way through to the conclusion, this book is a transformational seminar on paper. Join Delatorro McNeal as he takes you on the personal development journey of a lifetime.
Shine Bright: Black Women in Pop by Danyel Smith
Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop by Danyel Smith
American pop music is arguably this country’s greatest cultural contribution to the world, and its singular voice and virtuosity were created by a shining thread of Black women geniuses stretching back to the country’s founding. This is their surprising, heartbreaking, soaring story—from “one of the generation’s greatest, most insightful, most nuanced writers in pop culture” (Shea Serrano)
“Sparkling . . . the overdue singing of a Black girl’s song, with perfect pitch . . . delicious to read.”—Oprah Daily
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Publishers Weekly
A weave of biography, criticism, and memoir, Shine Bright is Danyel Smith’s intimate history of Black women’s music as the foundational story of American pop.
Smith has been writing this history for more than five years. But as a music fan, and then as an essayist, editor (Vibe, Billboard), and podcast host (Black Girl Songbook), she has been living this history since she was a latchkey kid listening to “Midnight Train to Georgia” on the family stereo.
Smith’s detailed narrative begins with Phillis Wheatley, an enslaved woman who sang her poems, and continues through the stories of Mahalia Jackson, Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, and Mariah Carey, as well as the under-considered careers of Marilyn McCoo, Deniece Williams, and Jody Watley.
Shine Bright is an overdue paean to musical masters whose true stories and genius have been hidden in plain sight—and the book Danyel Smith was born to write.
Shorty and The Sullivans by Lynda Jones-Mubarak
Meet The Sullivans, an African American couple in their early 50s. They do not have children, but they do have a big, black dog named Ebony Joyce who they sometimes call Ebony J. In this story, The Sullivans discover that sympathy, empathy and compassion can emerge from very small events, and that sometimes, the best friendships can develop from very unusual circumstances.
BOOK REVIEW
Skin of the Sea by Natasha Bowen
Skin of the Sea (Of Mermaids and Orisa) by Natasha Bowen
Teen Young Adult › SciFi & Fantasy Grades: 9 – 12
The must-read Black mermaid fantasy series that #1 NYT bestselling author Nicola Yoon calls “epic and original,” in which one mermaid takes on the gods themselves. Perfect for fans of Children of Blood and Bone and anyone who can’t wait for the live-action The Little Mermaid.
A way to survive.
A way to serve.
A way to save.
Simi prayed to the gods, once. Now she serves them as Mami Wata—a mermaid—collecting the souls of those who die at sea and blessing their journeys back home.
But when a living boy is thrown overboard, Simi goes against an ancient decree and does the unthinkable—she saves his life. And punishment awaits those who dare to defy the gods.
To protect the other Mami Wata, Simi must journey to the Supreme Creator to make amends. But all is not as it seems. There’s the boy she rescued, who knows more than he should. And something is shadowing Simi, something that would rather see her fail . . .
Danger lurks at every turn, and as Simi draws closer, she must brave vengeful gods, treacherous lands, and legendary creatures. Because if she fails, she risks not only the fate of all Mami Wata, but also the world as she knows it.
Somebody’s Daughter: A Memoir by Ashley C. Ford
“This is a book people will be talking about forever.” ―Glennon Doyle, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Untamed
“Ford’s wrenchingly brilliant memoir is truly a classic in the making. The writing is so richly observed and so suffused with love and yearning that I kept forgetting to breathe while reading it.” ―John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author
One of the most prominent voices of her generation debuts with an extraordinarily powerful memoir: the story of a childhood defined by the looming absence of her incarcerated father.
Through poverty, adolescence, and a fraught relationship with her mother, Ashley C. Ford wishes she could turn to her father for hope and encouragement. There are just a few problems: he’s in prison, and she doesn’t know what he did to end up there. She doesn’t know how to deal with the incessant worries that keep her up at night, or how to handle the changes in her body that draw unwanted attention from men. In her search for unconditional love, Ashley begins dating a boy her mother hates. When the relationship turns sour, he assaults her. Still reeling from the rape, which she keeps secret from her family, Ashley desperately searches for meaning in the chaos. Then, her grandmother reveals the truth about her father’s incarceration . . . and Ashley’s entire world is turned upside down.
Somebody’s Daughter steps into the world of growing up a poor Black girl in Indiana with a family fragmented by incarceration, exploring how isolating and complex such a childhood can be. As Ashley battles her body and her environment, she embarks on a powerful journey to find the threads between who she is and what she was born into, and the complicated familial love that often binds them.
Song Below Water by Bethany C Morrow
Song Below Water by Bethany C Morrow
Teen & Young Adult › Science Fiction & Fantasy
Bethany C. Morrow’s A Song Below Water is the story for today’s readers ― a captivating modern fantasy about Black sirens, friendship, and self-discovery set against the challenges of today’s racism and sexism.
In a society determined to keep her under lock and key, Tavia must hide her siren powers.
Meanwhile, Effie is fighting her own family struggles, pitted against literal demons from her past. Together, these best friends must navigate through the perils of high school’s junior year.
But everything changes in the aftermath of a siren murder trial that rocks the nation, and Tavia accidentally lets out her magical voice at the worst possible moment.
Soon, nothing in Portland, Oregon, seems safe. To save themselves from drowning, it’s only Tavia and Effie’s unbreakable sisterhood that proves to be the strongest magic of all.
“It’s beautiful and it’s brilliant.”–Jason Reynolds, #1 New York Times bestselling author and National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature
“An enthralling tale of Black girl magic and searing social commentary ready to rattle the bones.” ― Dhonielle Clayton, New York Times bestselling author of The Belles
Sounds Like a Plan: A Novel by Pamela Samuels Young and Dwayne Alexander Smith
Sounds Like a Plan: A Novel by Pamela Samuels Young and Dwayne Alexander Smith
Pub Day July 9, 2024. Purchase here: https://a.co/d/d4iOU9G
Reluctantly joining forces after discovering they’ve both been hired on the same missing person case, two rival Black private investigators find their mutual dislike evolves into an undeniable attraction in this rollicking, romantic thrill ride told in alternate perspectives from award-winning authors Dwayne Alexander Smith and Pamela Samuels Young.
Jackson Jones and Mackenzie Cunningham have a lot in common. They are both hard-working private investigators with their own firms in Los Angeles. They are both Black, happily single, and very good at their jobs. But when they’re together, they are like oil and water.
When they find themselves working the same missing persons case, the idea of collaborating seems about as likely as a blizzard in Beverly Hills. But once it’s clear that they have been set up to take the fall for a murder, they have no choice but to work together.
Bickering their way from Century City to Malibu and beyond, it becomes increasingly hard for them to deny the sparks flying between them. But with a small army of killers in hot pursuit, there’s no time to sort through their complicated feelings in this witty, fast-paced, and swoon-worthy mystery.
Speak: Find Your Voice, Trust Your Gut and Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Tunde Oyeneyin
From Tunde Oyeneyin, the massively popular Peloton instructor, fitness star, and founder of SPEAK, comes an empowering, inspiring book that shows how she transformed grief, setbacks, and flaws into growth, self-confidence, and triumph—for fans of Shonda Rhimes, Brene Brown, and Glennon Doyle.
On any given day, thousands of devoted people clip into their bikes and have their lives changed by Tunde Oyeneyin. From her platform in a Peloton studio, she encourages riders with her trademark blend of positivity, empathy, and motivational “Tunde-isms,” to push themselves to their limits both on and off the bike.
Now, fans and readers everywhere can learn about her personal journey, and discover how they too can “live a life of purpose, on purpose” with Speak, a memoir-manifesto-guide to life inspired by her immensely popular Instagram Live series of the same name.
Taking us through each step of the SPEAK acronym—Surrender, Power, Empathy, Authenticity, and Knowledge—Oyeneyin shares the lessons she has learned about loss, love, body image, and how she has successfully created an intentional, joyful life for herself, offering an accessible blueprint for anyone looking to make a positive change in their lives.
Spice and Spectrum, Recipes for Resilience by iCan Dream Center and Chef Jerome Brown
Chef Jerome Brown has partnered with Tinley Park, Illinois-based nonprofit iCan Dream Center (www.icandreamcenter.com) in the creation of Spice & Spectrum. He is donating proceeds of the book to the organization which serves students in the south suburbs of Chicago who are marginalized by neurodiversity, disabilities, trauma, and other learning challenges.
Spice & Spectrum is a collection of Chef Jerome Brown’s most recent recipes broken into five sections that align with the iCan Dream Center mission. Throughout the Dream, Restore, Empower, Amplify, and Mobilize sections of the book, Dr. Evisha Ford, the founder and executive director of iCan Dream Center, shares the mission of the organization, stories of students navigating trauma, and the healing benefit of the organization’s culinary program that is highlighted throughout the book.
Students with autism (neurodiversity) and disabilities are nearly twice as likely to be suspended or expelled from school than their non-disabled peers. What’s more, 35% of inmates in juvenile lockups have some form of neurodiversity (autism, ADHD, et. all) or other learning disability.
iCan Dream Center seeks to empower students with autism and other learning deficits with the skills needed to thrive in life and to defy the statistics. Whether it is giving students opportunities to grow as student leaders, gaining vocational skills, self-advocacy, and self-care skills like cooking, the organization works with students individually to thrive. iCan Dream Center is a 501c3 nonprofit therapeutic school endorsed by the Illinois State Board of Education and serves dozens of school districts throughout the suburbs of Chicago.
Chef Jerome Brown, who has championed the iCan Dream Center cause, has shared his passion for cuisine with a variety of A-list entertainers, dignitaries, and elite professional athletes such as President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama, Shaquille O’Neal, the late Collin Powell, Priscilla Presley, Star Jones, Raymond Felton, Lamman Rucker, Carl Gustaf (King of Sweden), Byron Cage, Mike Bibby, Cam Newton and more.
Chef Jerome Brown appeared in the United States Army series “I’ve Got Skills” that aired on ESPN. Throughout his journey, Chef Jerome Brown has always maintained a desire to help others and has given back to aspiring chefs and marginalized youth.
Dr. Evisha Ford is an experienced speaker on educational equity and is available to discuss her students’ involvement in Chef Jerome Brown’s book and the intersection of trauma, disability, and the incarceration/school-to-prison pipeline.
Dr. Evisha Ford and Chef Jerome Brown are available for joint or individual media interviews on the release of Spice & Spectrum: Recipes for Resilience. The authors can be contacted at https://icandreamcenter.com/contact
Purchase your copy today:
https://icandreamcenter.com/product/spice-and-spectrum-recipes-for-resilience-coming-soon/
STATIONS: Changing Your Life – Changing Your Career by Lynda Mubarak
Is your child a first generation college student? Are you a first generation college student? If you are a teen parent, school counselor, Student Affairs Coordinator, Upward Bound student, high school student, parents of elementary students, teens, young adults, or a teen worker, STATIONS is the quick resource guide that offers suggestions or recommendations to teens, parents and professionals as you engage in life and the workplace of the 21st century.
STATIONS examines childhood academic and social skills, and addresses the challenging task of teaching children to be healthy and financially sound while preparing them to thrive and survive in a global workforce driven by cutting edge technology and ongoing competition.
STATIONS is concise, amusing, informative and frank in its discussion of life’s everyday circumstances including social media and proactive workplace practices that affect all of us from childhood through adulthood.
Stella Knox FBI Mystery Series by Mary Stone
Killer Smile (Stella Knox FBI Mystery Series Book 1) by Mary Stone
If looks can kill, a smile can be deadly.
Special Agent Stella Knox became an FBI agent to find the dirty cops responsible for her father’s murder and make them pay. But fresh out of Quantico, her first case has her seeking justice for a different victim—three of them, in fact.
The bodies of three teenage boys have turned up in a sleepy town outside of Nashville, TN. There’re no fingerprints, no DNA, and very little to connect the murders, except for a smiley face drawn in blood near two of the bodies. But why only two? The case makes zero sense, and the questions outnumber the answers.
Are the crimes related? Could it be the work of one calculating serial killer, or are they looking for three separate assailants?
One thing Stella knows for sure: someone is threatening the teenagers of small-town Cherry Farms, and they aren’t finished. As she and the team race against the clock to stop the nightmare that has descended upon this rural community, Stella has one more question…who will be next?
Enigmatic and gripping, Killer Smile is the first book in the new Stella Knox Series by bestselling author Mary Stone and Stacy O’Hare—a nail-biter that will make you wonder just how safe small towns really are.
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.
Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains’ toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store’s security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.
But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix’s desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix’s past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other.
With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone “family,” and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.
Sweet Baby Mine by Maria Daversa
“My whole life I’ve wanted someone to believe in me, to believe I was worthy of love. I never thought that someone would be me.”
~Quote from Sweet Baby Mine
“Why is it all the bad things we’ve done in the past never stay in the past?”
Ana will do anything to hold on to Tony. He’s the love of her life–the Heathcliff to her Catherine, the Rivera to her Kahlo, the Sid to her Nancy. Without him, she’s nothing.
But Ana also has a secret–a youthful indiscretion that shouldn’t have happened. So, when her estranged daughter, Chloe, calls in the middle of the night to say she wants to come home, Ana finds herself caught in a web of deceit as mother and daughter share a secret so troubling it could destroy her marriage.
Set in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, Sweet Baby Mine is an adult coming of age tale about the collateral damage left behind when a marriage fails spectacularly. Told in real time and from the perspectives of the two main characters: Ana and Tony, the story documents the toll secrets, lies, betrayals, and mental illness can have on a couple who once believed they’d found in each other true love.
The tale is brutal, oftentimes heartbreaking, but always hopeful as it never deviates from its message. On the road to self-discovery, you will eventually learn that no matter what anyone says—no matter what flawed message you believed about yourself growing up, you are a good person and deserving of love.
A dark psychological drama, Sweet Baby Mine is unputdownable.
Swing (Blink) by Kwame Alexander
In this YA novel in verse from bestselling authors Kwame Alexander and Mary Rand Hess (Solo), which Kirkus called “lively, moving, and heartfelt” in a starred review, Noah and Walt just want to leave their geek days behind and find “cool,” but in the process discover a lot about first loves, friendship, and embracing life . . . as well as why Black Lives Matter is so important for all.
Best friends Noah and Walt are far from popular, but Walt is convinced junior year is their year, and he has a plan that includes wooing the girls of their dreams and becoming amazing athletes. Never mind he and Noah failed to make their baseball team yet again, and Noah’s crush since third grade, Sam, has him firmly in the friend zone. While Walt focuses on his program of jazz, podcasts, batting cages, and a “Hug Life” mentality, Noah feels stuck in status quo … until he stumbles on a stash of old love letters. Each one contains words Noah’s always wanted to say to Sam, and he begins secretly creating artwork using the lines that speak his heart. But when his art becomes public, Noah has a decision to make: continue his life in the dugout and possibly lose the girl forever, or take a swing and finally speak out.
At the same time, American flags are being left around town. While some think it’s a harmless prank and others see it as a form of protest, Noah can’t shake the feeling something bigger is happening to his community. Especially after he witnesses events that hint divides and prejudices run deeper than he realized.
As the personal and social tensions increase around them, Noah and Walt must decide what is really important when it comes to love, friendship, sacrifice, and fate.
If you enjoy Swing, check out Solo by Kwame Alexander and Mary Rand Hess.
Swirl Girl: Coming of Race in the USA by TaRessa Stovall
SWIRL GIRL: Coming of Race in the USA reveals how a hard-headed Mixed-race “Black Power Flower Child” battles society—and sometimes her closest loved ones—to forge her identity on her own terms.
As the USA undergoes its own racial growing pains, from the 1968 riots after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, to the historic 2008 election of the nation’s first Biracially Black president, TaRessa Stovall challenges popular stereotypes and fights nonstop pressures to contort, disguise, or deny her uncomfortable truths.
Early Praise for Swirl Girl: Coming of Race in the USA by TaRessa Stovall
Zjien Relician says:
TaRessa Stovall, thank you for baring your soul, telling your story…and concentrically, the story of so many others…of us. You grabbed our hands and hearts, and with unwavering and unabashed conviction, traversed the turbulent and often unrelenting waters of racial identity, racism, discrimination, self actualization, externalized self loath of others, forgiveness, and transparent self reflection. It was an emotional roller coaster; but it was so worth it! EVERYONE: If you have not read this book as of yet, I strongly suggest you click the link, and get you some. You will not regret it!
Janice Liddell says:
TaRessa Stovall’s SWIRL GIRL: Coming of Race in the USA is a juicy must-read memoir that hits all the touch points of growing up as a mixed-race person in America, especially a mixed-race woman. This work should actually be required reading for interracial parents or prospective parents. It is both a preparatory and cautionary tale that seeks to navigate the potential difficulties and obstacles that unsuspecting parents can’t even envision for the future of their biracial offspring.
While Stovall recognizes that no story will be identical to hers, she nevertheless offers an unbridled examination and expose’ of complexities related to racial and cultural identities; hence, the work can serve as an understanding companion to biracial youth seeking to find their way through the maze of prejudice, biases, confusion and/or plain misunderstanding. But the memoir is also relevant for us “single-race” folks who likely never had a clue what it was REALLY like to be a ”mulatto”, a “half-breed”, a “mongrel”, a “mutt” in such a hyper-bigoted environment as the US of A. Whether we are on the white or the black side of the racial divide, we leave the book with a more sympathetic understanding of what it’s like to straddle that racial fence in a society that is almost as racially polarized in the 21st century as it was in the 19th.
Stovall’s language is lyrical and tight with crisp images of people, places and things that have affected her own development as a politically conscious AND Afrocentric biracial woman. While being laser-specific to the realities of the mixed-race population, Stovall’s messages throughout the book are also applicable to all of us who are forging stronger identity politics in our respective communities, be they racial, ageist, cultural, gender or whatever. This is likely a personal confrontation with these issues that is long over-due.
Howard Weisberg says:
Where do I begin!? I started to do my normal speed-read, but stopped after page 101 an hour later. I had to go back and read every word. Page 101 spoke to me as a white person. It should speak to everyone, no matter their color. Now, after reading the whole 202 pages, one word at a time, I have so much praise for this book and its author, that I cannot write it all here. It would take another book to comment on it all!! So, whether it’s Auntie Ozzie (Rosalyn), Kelly (Dad), Auntie Shirley, Big Ernie, Ms. Gonzalez, Greg, et.al., I was mesmerized! I lived in and out of that world. Of course, I’m TaRessa’s white cousin, but that doesn’t mean I only felt emotions because we’re related. I could not miss the message to all of humanity, and the help this book could bring to people of all skin tones! To summarize, TaRessa nailed it!
S.M. Delacroix says:
One of the things that I really enjoyed about this book was the fact that Ms. Stovall wove information about the census into almost every chapter. But I am getting ahead of myself. First of all, I have to stop calling the book Swirl Girl. The proper name of the book is Swirl Girl: Coming of Race in the USA. This is important because the book is about more than people being “down with the swirl” or being of mixed parentage/heritage.
Ms. Stovall expertly discusses the social, political and sometime economic ramifications of being Black and Jewish (or “Blewish”) as a child, a teenager, and as an adult. She talks about what happens to her as she attempts (and ultimately succeeds) to define herself, for herself.
The information about the U.S. Census intrigued me because I am fascinated by how people’s identity (both outwardly defined and self-described) are altered by societal events. I anticipated seeing how the census changed over time and how those changes connected to the author’s experiences.
I was impressed by the honestly and bluntness of her writing. I appreciated the fact that she called the U.S. and all of us folks (Black, white, Latinx and otherwise) on our MESS tied to being members of the identity police.
The short of it is that I love the book and I will use it in my sociology courses when possible. I will recommend it everyone, but especially to people who have children and grandchildren who are mixed, because whether Ms. Stovall knows it or not, she offers a blueprint for us “outsiders” into the world of the Swirl Girl (and boy) who are Coming of Race in the USA.
Purchase Swirl Girl: Coming of Race in the USA by TaRessa Stovall published by Alchemy Media Publishing Company, is available now at www.taressastovall.com, and on Amazon.
The Author in You: New Writers Searching for a Theme by Dr. Lynda J. Mubarak
You are an aspiring author, but you can’t decide on a topic or theme. Too many story ideas on your plate? Too many choices? You are torn between several subjects and you need assistance deciding what’s best. The Author in You will save time and provide some insight on selecting a theme that works for you. Your story is ready when you are!
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazon Book Review
This is a Great How to Book! I enjoyed reading this book because it has so many tools for an author to get their book off the ground. This book is full of insightful and knowledgeable information that is needed to continue anyone’s writing journey. Thank you, Dr. Lynda, for providing a book that is sure to be helpful to all and any author or new author. Thank you for this book! Very helpful! —Reviewed by Vera Harris
About the Author
Dr. Lynda J. Mubarak is a retired special education teacher, Army veteran, and adult ESL adjunct. She is a graduate of Texas Christian University, Texas Wesleyan University, and Nova SE University.
She is the author of seven books and was nominated as “Up and Coming Author” at the 2017 Indie Author Literary Awards for her first book, STATIONS. Carver Park, Maxine’s New Job, and Maxine Listens were certified as Great Reads in 2018-19 by the Reading With Your Kids Program. Maxine’s New Job won the prestigious Henri Award in the children’s category at the 2018 Christian Literary Awards.
Dr. Lynda was selected to be a featured author at the 2019 Telisoma Book Fair sponsored by the African American Museum of Dallas, TX. Dr. Lynda and her Stations for Kids Books have established a lifetime partnership with the Community Food Bank of Fort Worth, TX to assist families in need.
The Black Girl’s Guide to Financial Freedom: Build Wealth, Retire Early, and Live the Life of Your Dreams by Paris Woods
Are you tired of spinning your wheels following financial advice that leaves you feeling broker than before? Are you pulling your hair out trying to follow the complicated instructions offered by the gurus? In The Black Girl’s Guide to Financial Freedom, Paris Woods takes the guesswork out of wealth-building and presents a plan that anyone can follow.
Paris spent years working in education and wanted to find a way to build wealth without changing careers or taking the traditional real estate or business routes. This book is the result of years of research and practice that helped her find a simpler path. Through real-life stories coupled with clear and actionable advice, you will learn to:
Build generational wealth
Avoid common financial traps
Earn your next degree debt-free
Achieve financial independence and retire early
Design a dream life you can start living today
This book is perfect for Black women of any age, including young professionals just starting to set financial goals and mid-career women who are tired of following the same old rules and are ready to live life on their own terms. If freedom is your goal, then this is the book for you.
The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
This “powerful and disturbing history” exposes how American governments deliberately imposed racial segregation on metropolitan areas nationwide (New York Times Book Review).
Widely heralded as a “masterful” (Washington Post) and “essential” (Slate) history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law offers “the most forceful argument ever published on how federal, state, and local governments gave rise to and reinforced neighborhood segregation” (William Julius Wilson).
Exploding the myth of de facto segregation arising from private prejudice or the unintended consequences of economic forces, Rothstein describes how the American government systematically imposed residential segregation: with undisguised racial zoning; public housing that purposefully segregated previously mixed communities; subsidies for builders to create whites-only suburbs; tax exemptions for institutions that enforced segregation; and support for violent resistance to African Americans in white neighborhoods.
A groundbreaking, “virtually indispensable” study that has already transformed our understanding of twentieth-century urban history (Chicago Daily Observer), The Color of Law forces us to face the obligation to remedy our unconstitutional past.
The Deep by Rivers Solomon
Octavia E. Butler meets Marvel’s Black Panther in The Deep, a story rich with Afrofuturism, folklore, and the power of memory, inspired by the Hugo Award–nominated song “The Deep” from Daveed Diggs’s rap group Clipping.
Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu.
Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago.
Yetu will learn more than she ever expected about her own past—and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are.
The Deep is “a tour de force reorientation of the storytelling gaze…a superb, multilayered work,” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) and a vividly original and uniquely affecting story inspired by a song produced by the rap group Clipping.
The Designated Ones: From Jerusalem to Ethiopia by Karen Sloan-Brown
It’s 2014. Grieving the loss of family members and friends killed in a plane crash, renowned megachurch pastor Priscilla Sinclair sits on her patio, prepared to take her own life. But before she can end it all, a stranger shows up at her Virginia home and changes everything.
Trying to strengthen her faith, the stranger challenges Priscilla to lean on God’s promises and on the examples of faith left to her by her ancestors. He tells her a story she has never heard before. The story goes back over 3,000 years, beginning with Aaron, God’s designated high priest during the Exodus, and explores the line of designated ones through the times of King David, Solomon, the exile in Babylon, the crossing of the Arabian Desert into Saba, the migration across the Red Sea into Axum, the birth of Christ, and the lives of the generations that have followed.
In this thrilling journey through history, Priscilla is given a chance to go from failure to faith and live to fight another day. But will she accept the stranger’s challenge?
The Dictionary of Lost Words: A Novel by Pip Williams
“A marvelous fiction about the power of language to elevate or repress.”—Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of People of the Book
Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means “slave girl,” begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.
As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and common folks’ experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.
Set during the height of the women’s suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story.
The Dictionary of Lost Words is a delightful, lyrical, and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world.
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
Book 1 of 2: The Gilded Ones
“A dark feminist tale spun with blood and gold. Must read!” –Dhonielle Clayton, New York Times bestselling author of The Belles
Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs.
But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity–and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death.
Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki–near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire’s greatest threat.
Knowing the dangers that lie ahead yet yearning for acceptance, Deka decides to leave the only life she’s ever known. But as she journeys to the capital to train for the biggest battle of her life, she will discover that the great walled city holds many surprises. Nothing and no one are quite what they seem to be–not even Deka herself.
The start of a bold and immersive fantasy series for fans of Children of Blood and Bone and Black Panther.
The Girls in the Wild Fig Tree by Nice Leng’ete
An “elegant and inspiring memoir” by the human rights activist who changed the minds of her elders, reformed traditions from the inside, and is creating a better future for girls and women throughout Africa (Sonia Faleiro, New York Times).
Nice Leng`ete was raised in a Maasai village in Kenya. In 1998, when Nice was six, her parents fell sick and died, and Nice and her sister Soila were taken in by their father’s brother, who had little interest in the girls beyond what their dowries might fetch. Fearing “the cut” (female genital mutilation, a painful and sometimes deadly ritualistic surgery), which was the fate of all Maasai women, Nice and Soila climbed a tree to hide.
Nice hoped to find a way to avoid the cut forever, but Soila understood it would be impossible. But maybe if one of the sisters submitted, the other would be spared. After Soila chose to undergo the surgery, sacrificing herself to save Nice, their lives diverged. Soila married, dropped out of school, and had children–all in her teenage years–while Nice postponed receiving the cut, continued her education, and became the first in her family to attend college.
Supported by Amref, Nice used visits home to set an example for what an uncut Maasai woman can achieve. Other women listened, and the elders finally saw the value of intact, educated girls as the way of the future. The village has since ended FGM entirely, and Nice continues the fight to end FGM throughout Africa, and the world.
Nice’s journey from “heartbroken child and community outcast, to leader of the Maasai” is an inspiration and a reminder that one person can change the world–and every girl is worth saving.
The Hair Adventures of Princess Lindsey Sidney by Eartha Dunston
The Hair Adventures of Princess Lindsey Sidney is a simple, yet powerful tool for parents, educators, and children. It teaches self-love and instills a positive self-image. Vivid illustrations provide the backdrop for this much-needed conversation piece that teaches children to love their hair texture. It will aid in the constant dialogue of self-esteem issues surrounding “good” hair and “bad” hair.
Join Princess Lindsey for a week of “hair adventures” as her hair transitions from straight to frizzy and all style in between!
BOOK REVIEW
The Housemaid: Psychological Thriller by Freida McFadden
“Welcome to the family,” Nina Winchester says as I shake her elegant, manicured hand. I smile politely, gazing around the marble hallway. Working here is my last chance to start fresh. I can pretend to be whoever I like. But I’ll soon learn that the Winchesters’ secrets are far more dangerous than my own…
Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.
I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.
I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out… and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.
But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.
They don’t know what I’m capable of…
An unbelievably twisty read that will have you glued to the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train won’t be able to put this down!
The Island of Missing Trees: A Novel by Elif Shafak
Winner of the 2022 BookTube Silver Medal in Fiction * Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction
“A wise novel of love and grief, roots and branches, displacement and home, faith and belief. Balm for our bruised times.” ―David Mitchell, author of Utopia Avenue
A rich, magical new novel on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.
Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.
Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited— her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.
A moving, beautifully written, and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history, and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet.
The Last Thing You Surrender: A Novel of World War II by Leonard Pitts Jr.
Pulitzer-winning journalist and bestselling novelist Leonard Pitts, Jr.’s new historical page-turner is a great American tale of race and war, following three characters from the Jim Crow South as they face the enormous changes World War II triggers in the United States.
Could you find the courage to do what’s right in a world on fire?
An affluent white marine survives Pearl Harbor at the cost of a black messman’s life only to be sent, wracked with guilt, to the Pacific and taken prisoner by the Japanese . . . a young black woman, widowed by the same events at Pearl, finds unexpected opportunity and a dangerous friendship in a segregated Alabama shipyard feeding the war . . . a black man, who as a child saw his parents brutally lynched, is conscripted to fight Nazis for a country he despises and discovers a new kind of patriotism in the all-black 761st Tank Battalion.
Set against a backdrop of violent racial conflict on both the front lines and the home front, The Last Thing You Surrender explores the powerful moral struggles of individuals from a divided nation. What does it take to change someone’s mind about race? What does it take for a country and a people to move forward, transformed?
Publishers Weekly Editorial Review for The Last Thing You Surrender
Leonard Pitts Jr., a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, turns again to America’s fraught history of race relations in this unflinching, gritty WWII saga. It centers on a trio of finely drawn characters, two black and one white, all from Alabama, whose worlds collide because of Pearl Harbor.
Marine Private George Simon—wealthy, religious, white—survives the sinking of his ship because Eric Gordy, a black messman, rescues him. Eric dies, and while George recuperates, he pays a condolence call on Eric’s widow, Thelma. She and her brother, Luther Hayes, a bitter alcoholic, are living with the memory of their parents’ lynching 20 years earlier.
George and Thelma begin a correspondence after he returns to active duty; she takes a job in a shipyard. Luther, deciding this is a white man’s war, tries to evade the draft but ends up serving with a tank battalion in Europe. George endures horrific conditions in the Pacific as Thelma faces growing racial hostility at work, culminating in a brutal moment of violence that compels her to make a difficult decision.
While remaining true to his characters, Pitts brings the story lines to realistic conclusions even as he holds out hope for the future, resulting in a polished, affecting novel.
About the Author
Leonard Pitts, Jr. is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who pens one of the most popular newspaper columns in America, weighing in twice weekly on controversies of race, gender, politics and popular culture. He is the author of a series of critically-acclaimed novels, including “Freeman,” “Before I Forget” and his latest, “The Last Thing You Surrender.” Website: http://leonardpittsjr.com
The Last Thing You Surrender by Leonard Pitts Jr.
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Thing-You-Surrender-Novel/dp/1572842458
Barnes & Noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-last-thing-you-surrender-leonard-pitts-jr/1128941167
The Legend of Diddley Squatt: A Novella from a Brother Fella by Duane Lance Filer
Sometime during the middle of the twentieth century, a black child is born in Rundown City, Mississippi, to rundown parents. After Diddley Squatt’s sixteen-year-old mother splits the scene and leaves him in the care of his grandmother, Momma Squatt, Diddley settles into a new life within her three-story hotel/brothel, the Copp-A-Squatt Inn.
As he grows older and is nicknamed Young Didd, the boy is unfortunately bullied because of his unusual name and life circumstances. Luckily Diddley develops a thick skin and learns that love is better than hate, thanks to the nurturing, lessons, and mentoring provided by his grandmother and the strong ladies who, along with a goo-gaggle of Inn customers that include famous musicians, soldiers on leave, and politicians, visit the brothel.
While on his unique coming-of-age journey, Diddley also uncovers the mystical powers behind a magical harmonica that allow him to bond with creatures he never imagined could become his best friends, and who could somehow lead him to a new destiny.
In this urban novella, a black boy growing up in the south must somehow learn to find his way in life after his mother abandons him, with help from well-meaning people.
About the Author
Duane Lance Filer is a retired funkster extraordinaire, writer, painter and musician who grew up in Compton, California with six brothers and sisters. He and his wife, Janice, have two adult children and currently reside in Carson, California. This is his seventh book. For more about Duane and his artist endeavors, visit him at: http://duanelancefiler.wixsite.com/duanelancefiler
LISTEN TO DUANE FILER ON BAN RADIO SHOW
He reads from The Legend of Diddley Squatt: http://tobtr.com/s/10457297
The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama
The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times by Michelle Obama
In an inspiring follow-up to her critically acclaimed, #1 bestselling memoir Becoming, former First Lady Michelle Obama shares practical wisdom and powerful strategies for staying hopeful and balanced in today’s highly uncertain world.
There may be no tidy solutions or pithy answers to life’s big challenges, but Michelle Obama believes that we can all locate and lean on a set of tools to help us better navigate change and remain steady within flux. In The Light We Carry, she opens a frank and honest dialogue with readers, considering the questions many of us wrestle with: How do we build enduring and honest relationships? How can we discover strength and community inside our differences? What tools do we use to address feelings of self-doubt or helplessness? What do we do when it all starts to feel like too much?
Michelle Obama offers readers a series of fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power, including her belief that when we light up for others, we can illuminate the richness and potential of the world around us, discovering deeper truths and new pathways for progress. Drawing from her experiences as a mother, daughter, spouse, friend, and First Lady, she shares the habits and principles she has developed to successfully adapt to change and overcome various obstacles—the earned wisdom that helps her continue to “become.” She details her most valuable practices, like “starting kind,” “going high,” and assembling a “kitchen table” of trusted friends and mentors. With trademark humor, candor, and compassion, she also explores issues connected to race, gender, and visibility, encouraging readers to work through fear, find strength in community, and live with boldness.
“When we are able to recognize our own light, we become empowered to use it,” writes Michelle Obama. A rewarding blend of powerful stories and profound advice that will ignite conversation, The Light We Carry inspires readers to examine their own lives, identify their sources of gladness, and connect meaningfully in a turbulent world.
The Merciless Ones by Namina Forna
The Merciless Ones by Namina Forna
Book 2 of 2: The Gilded Ones
The epic, hotly anticipated sequel to the instant bestseller The Gilded Ones about a girl with the power to remake her world—or destroy it.
“Fans of Children of Blood and Bone, Mulan, and the Dora Milaje from Black Panther are going to adore [The Gilded Ones].”—BuzzFeed
It’s been six months since Deka freed the goddesses in the ancient kingdom of Otera and discovered who she really is… but war is waging across the kingdom, and the real battle has only just begun. For there is a dark force growing in Otera—a merciless power that Deka and her army must stop.
Yet hidden secrets threaten to destroy everything Deka has known. And with her own gifts changing, Deka must discover if she holds the key to saving Otera… or if she might be its greatest threat.
The Merciless Ones is the second thrilling installment of the epic fantasy series in which a young heroine fights against a world that would dare tame her.
The Mountain We Climb by Wayne Swan
This Book is the Road Map to the Kind of Life You Deserve
Most people want to accomplish great things—improve their own lives and make the world better in some way. You might be thinking, But why does it have to be so hard?
Life can seem like a constant battle—helping a loved one who just won’t listen, paying the light bill when there’s not enough money to go around, finding happiness when everyone around you says it’s impossible.
Yet some people make “impossible” things happen: someone becomes a millionaire; somebody breaks a world record; someone else reaches the summit of a mountain; one person inspires millions while many struggle to even influence a single person.
What Draws Out the Greatness We Have Inside?
Contrary to popular belief, we all have the potential to do great things, to create the kind of life and happiness we desire. If you felt even the slightest doubt as you read that, you need to read this book!
You don’t have to be told that there is a lot of negativity and opposition in life; if not from the people and things around us, then from our own insecurities from within.
Seeing the accomplishments of others gives us hope . . .it inspires and motivates us. We are able to see that “doing the impossible” is in fact possible. But this isn’t enough. We need to know how!
The Secret
There is one thing that every person who achieves something great has, and it is how to tap into the mother lode of power and unstoppable greatness that lies mostly dormant within us all! The answer is having a GUIDE.
Many things seem impossible to us; especially when trying to solve them with no real guidance, no know-how to doing it right. The smart way to proceed is by learning from those who can show you the road map. The Mountain We Climb is your secret road map to the life you deserve.
“I can only compare the experience of reading The Mountain We Climb to being guided through life’s challenges by a wise mentor, a loving father, and a caring best friend. Dr. Swan has achieved that rare feat of successfully combining inspirational and practical guidance with a moving personal story.” — Liana Hall, Esq., Writer and Mental Health Activist
View an excerpt from The Mountain We Climb on Amazon – http://a.co/gFwA4Or
The Mountain We Climb by Wayne Swan tour page: https://www.smore.com/yr1pt
About the Author
Dr. Wayne Swan is a Motivational Speaker, Mentor, Life Coach, Entrepreneur & Certified Divorce Coach. He regularly speaks to and works with clients in Bermuda as well as internationally in places such as: Africa, Europe, UK and the USA.
Wayne has accomplished the feat of reaching the summit of the world’s tallest free-standing mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro. Returning to the base of the mountain a different man, he shares his revelations and learnings for overcoming “impossible” odds in life, as they apply to mountain climbing or life’s daily struggles.
Visit his website today: http://drwayneswan.com
The Perfect Stranger by Charlotte Byrd
The Perfect Stranger (5 Book Series) by Charlotte Byrd
From USA Today Bestselling Author Charlotte Byrd comes a twisted dark second-chance romance about a secret billionaire, second-chances and escaped prisoner identities.
After a few bad relationships, I have given up on love until a man from my past shows up on my doorstep and puts a knife to my throat. He doesn’t want me to know his real identity because then I would get involved and try to protect him. What I don’t yet know is that taking this chance will lead me to an adventure of a lifetime and a love that I will never forget. But what happens when the authorities start to close in? What if we can’t prove his innocence?
****
A man breaks into my home and puts a knife to my throat. Who is he? What does he want? He takes a step closer and I realize that I know him. I haven’t seen him in years but I’ve never stopped thinking about him.
He is dark, rich and powerful and he has a secret. Anger rushes through me.
Who does he think he is coming here? But when I open my mouth to yell at him, our lips touch and I can’t pull away…
Young love doesn’t last forever but neither of us ever forgot each other. What I didn’t know, however, was that he had spent the last few years serving time for a murder he didn’t commit. He found a way to escape from prison and came to see me, the one person who could help. But what if I can’t?
From 1.5+ million books bestselling author Charlotte Byrd comes an extra steamy romance featuring forbidden love, second-chances, and secret billionaire identity. This complete series ends with a happily ever after.
The Pride of an African Migrant by Massocki Ma Massocki
The Pride of an African Migrant: In Remembrance of Jimmy Mubenga, a Martyr of Globalisation, Murdered by the UK Border Regime on a British Airways Flight to Angola by Massocki Ma Massocki
Why was this book written and what is the mission behind this project?
The Pride of an African Migrant outlines barbaric acts of torture to which African asylum seekers are being subjected to in the United Kingdom.
The book was written in remembrance of Jimmy Mubenga, an African asylum seeker who was tortured and killed by the UK border regime at London Heathrow Airport on a British Airways flight to Angola on October 12, 2010, after resisting his deportation.
Having peacefully protested against the killing of Mubenga, a fellow asylum seeker, Massocki Ma Massocki, the author, was arrested and detained naked in a cold cell. After some time, even the place he was staying at was set on fire, ready to kill him.
Despite this, each year, the terrifying Mediterranean Sea and the dreadful Sahara desert claim the lives of at least 5,000 African migrants en route to Europe. And those who have conquered the sea and the desert still have to survive, in the land of Europe, the barbarism and inhumanity of immigration officers.
The Pride of an African Migrant aims to fight xenophobia and promote harmonious coexistence between all living beings, in particular, between migrants and Europeans, and heighten people’s compassion and wisdom, which are imperative for world peace. The book’s goal is also to make Africans aspiring to migrate to the European Union or the US be more informed of the issues related to their plans so that they can be better prepared.
The Pride of an African Migrant is a frank expository conversation for today and of all time. It is a book that every immigration player should read—from potential migrants to diplomatic staff, immigration officials, foreign policy advisors… every person with a migrant family member or neighbour.
PUBLISHER’S REVIEW
‘Where is the human in migration? In an age of immigration as political posturing and propaganda, Massocki presents a collage of dreams, journeys, tears, wills… even death. This book is an intimate retelling of lives and stories that strips migrants of convenient agenda-driven labels, baring them stark to the reader. With blood running in their veins, vulnerable to fear, driven by ambition—the emotive human is at the centre of Massocki’s latest work.
The Pride of an African Migrant is a frank expository conversation for today and of all time. It is a book that every immigration player should read—from potential migrants to diplomatic staff, immigration officials, foreign policy advisors… every person with a migrant family member or neighbour.’ —Pierced Rock Press
WHERE TO PURCHASE BOOKS
The Pride of an African Migrant: In Remembrance of Jimmy Mubenga, a Martyr of Globalisation, Murdered by the UK Border Regime on a British Airways Flight to Angola by Massocki Ma Massocki will be published via Ingramspark and will be available and will be available at Ingramspark, Amazon, Kobo, Applebooks, etc…
Purchase books from the Pierced Rock Press publisher’s website: www.piercedrockpress.com
The Pride of an African Migrant: In Remembrance of Jimmy Mubenga, a Martyr of Globalisation, Murdered by the UK Border Regime on a British Airways Flight to Angola by Massocki Ma Massocki is available on Amazon:
Paperback:
https://www.amazon.com/Pride-African-Migrant-Remembrance-Globalisation/dp/995646502X
Hardcover:
https://www.amazon.com/Pride-African-Migrant-Remembrance-Globalisation/dp/9956465011
https://www.amazon.com/Pride-African-Migrant-Remembrance-Globalisation/dp/9956465011/
The Secret Women: A Novel by Sheila Williams
The author of Dancing on the Edge of the Roof, now a Netflix film starring Alfre Woodard, returns with a riveting, emotionally rich, novel that explores the complex relationship between mothers and daughters in a fresh, vibrant way—a stunning page-turner for fans of Terry McMillan, Tayari Jones, and Kimberla Lawson Roby.
Elise Armstrong, Carmen Bradshaw, and DeeDee Davis meet in a yoga class. Though vastly different, these women discover they all have one thing in common: their mothers have recently passed away. Becoming fast friends, the trio make a pact to help each other sort through the belongings their mothers’ left behind. But when they find old letters and diaries, Elise, Carmen, and DeeDee are astonished to learn that each of their mothers hid secrets—secrets that will transform their own lives.
Meeting each month over margaritas, the trio share laughter, advice, and support. As they help each other overcome challenges and celebrate successes, Elise, Carmen, and DeeDee gain not only a better understanding of the women their mothers were, but of themselves. They also come to realize they have what their mothers needed most but did not have during difficult times—other women they could trust.
Filled with poignant life lessons, The Secret Women pays tribute to the power of friendship and family and the bonds that tie us together. Beautiful, full of spirit and heart, it is a thoughtful and ultimately uplifting story of unconditional love.
The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton
A powerful, revealing story of hope, love, justice, and the power of reading by a man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit.
In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. Stunned, confused, and only twenty-nine years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free.
But with no money and a different system of justice for a poor black man in the South, Hinton was sentenced to death by electrocution. He spent his first three years on Death Row at Holman State Prison in agonizing silence—full of despair and anger toward all those who had sent an innocent man to his death. But as Hinton realized and accepted his fate, he resolved not only to survive, but find a way to live on Death Row.
For the next twenty-seven years he was a beacon—transforming not only his own spirit, but those of his fellow inmates, fifty-four of whom were executed mere feet from his cell. With the help of civil rights attorney and bestselling author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, Hinton won his release in 2015.
With a foreword by Stevenson, The Sun Does Shine is an extraordinary testament to the power of hope sustained through the darkest times. Destined to be a classic memoir of wrongful imprisonment and freedom won, Hinton’s memoir tells his dramatic thirty-year journey and shows how you can take away a man’s freedom, but you can’t take away his imagination, humor, or joy.
The Trilogy – Contempt, Reasons & Sabotage by Becky DeWitt
THE CONTEMPT 3-BOOK SERIES BY BECKY DEWITT
The Contempt Series including sequels Reasons and Sabotage, is a maze of mystery with twists and turns that will keep the readers on the edge. The character connections involve murder, suicide, deception, deliverance and salvation.
The series is filled with questions that keeps readers rapidly flipping pages yearning for answers. All three are available on Kindle. Listen to Becky read from the series: https://www.audioacrobat.com/note/C4Vn42bX
Watch the book trailer for The Trilogy – Contempt, Reasons, & Sabotage by Becky DeWitt
Watch the YouTube video: https://youtu.be/S2YnB83f9Xo
Contempt: Lies Deceit and the Miracles by Becky DeWitt
Contempt is the riveting journey through deceit, death, and betrayal which was a way of life. It is the journey of the twists and turns of life, taking toil, leaving one in devastation. Only the arrival of a miracle just in time changes everything. Nothing just happens. Becky DeWitt leads the readers through a maze of mystery and intrigue capturing ones’ fascination.
Who is that girl? The intrigue continues the lives of Tristan, Arianna and Takeshi are exposed in the web of many secrets from their past through their children. Reasons answers the many questions of who, what, when, where and why that were left unanswered at the ending of Contempt. The truth is embedded in every page as the reader attempts to find the conclusion of this story. Contempt lured and captivated readers into a world of a thought-provoking drama. Becky DeWitt has responded to the unanswered questions of the destiny of many lives from Contempt with the sequel, Reasons. Is this really the end?
Sabotage: The Final Chapter by Becky DeWitt
SABOTAGE, The Final Chapter pieces together the dark side of Tristan, Arianna and Takeshi’s lifestyle of murder, intrigue, contempt and lies, while experiencing God’s mercy, grace, eye-opening revelation and truth. The readers who have followed the drama in the previous books, Contempt and Reasons, will experience the conclusion in the maze of mystery that captured their attention. The story ends with answers to the many questions about the life of each character and their unfolding destinies. Your heart will skip a beat as you discover the answers to the truth.
Purchase the Contempt 3-Book Series by Becky DeWitt
The Violin Conspiracy: A Novel by Brendan Slocumb
Ray McMillian is a Black classical musician on the rise—undeterred by the pressure and prejudice of the classical music world—when a shocking theft sends him on a desperate quest to recover his great-great-grandfather’s heirloom violin on the eve of the most prestigious musical competition in the world.
Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. But Ray has a gift and a dream—he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music.
When he discovers that his beat-up, family fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach, and together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition—the Olympics of classical music—the violin is stolen, a ransom note for five million dollars left in its place.
Without it, Ray feels like he’s lost a piece of himself. As the competition approaches, Ray must not only reclaim his precious violin, but prove to himself—and the world—that no matter the outcome, there has always been a truly great musician within him.
The Way Champs Play by Naomi Osaka
In a rhythmic celebration of sport and play, four-time Grand Slam champion and tennis superstar Naomi Osaka shares key steps to becoming a true champ, including being kind, working as a team, doing your best, and most importantly, having fun.
At Play Academy,
We love to move.
That’s why we play.
We are champs and we play all day!
Inspired by Osaka’s game-changing program Play Academy, which instills confidence in and provides resources to young girls through sports, The Way Champs Play is an exciting and inspiring anthem for all kids in and out of the classroom who want to PLAY ALL DAY!
Use this book to:
Discuss different types of sports.
Talk with children about good sports(wo)manship.
Encourage kids to engage in sport and play for their overall health and happiness.
And more!
The Wishing Pool and Other Stories by Tananarive Due
In her first new book in seven years, Tananarive Due further cements her status as a leading innovator in Black horror and Afrofuturism
“Due masterfully maintains suspense all the while delineating her characters with a psychological realism that makes the unbelievable credible.”—Washington Post Book World
“Tananarive Due’s characters quietly move into your heart and take up residence. You love them, you fear for them, and they scare you half to death.”—Nalo Hopkinson, author of Skin Folk
“An eerie epic . . . I loved this novel.” —Stephen King on My Soul to Keep
American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due’s second collection of stories ranges from horror to science fiction to suspense. From the mysterious, magical town of Gracetown to the aftermath of a pandemic to the reaches of the far future, Due’s stories all share a sense of dread and fear balanced with heart and hope.
In some of these stories, the monster is racism itself; others address the monster within, or other universal struggles set against the supernatural or surreal. All of them are written with Due’s trademark attention to detail and deep characterization. In addition to previously published work, this collection contains brand-new stories, including “Rumpus Room,” a supernatural horror novelette set in Florida about a woman’s struggle against both outer and inner demons.
The Woman in My Home by Kerry Fisher
I was starting to believe it might be my turn for the fairy tale. A man who adored me, someone to return to at the end of the day and to share my life with. And Rebecca. Capable, reliable Rebecca who could help me to manage my busy home…
Finally, Cath has met someone: a man she loves, Robin, and who adores her in return. And after years of managing fine on her own, running a successful business, raising her son, and caring for her elderly mother, she feels she deserves some happiness. And who better to provide it than charming, fun-loving Robin?
She expected everyone to be delighted for her. But her friends and family are suspicious of Robin. And Rebecca, a desperate single mother who Cath has hired as a live-in housekeeper, doesn’t trust him either. He’s too slick, he’s too perfect and it all happened too fast… how well does Cath really know him?
Cath is used to taking care of herself; she’s nobody’s fool. But when things start to go wrong in the house that’s been her haven for all these years, she’s forced to ask herself whether the man she loves is really what he seems… And having let Rebecca in to every part of her life, is Cath ready to face the secrets she might find there?
From the Amazon charts bestselling author of The Silent Wife and The Woman I Was Before, The Woman in My Home is a gripping read about family secrets and lies. Perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty and Diane Chamberlain.
Then They Came for Mine by Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts
Then They Came for Mine: Healing from the Trauma of Racial Violence by Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts
Black Americans’ resilience during centuries of racially-motivated violence is beyond remarkable. But continuing to endure this harm allows for generations of trauma to fester and grow. Healing has to be the priority going forward.
For decades, Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts clung to her upbringing in the church, believing that racial reconciliation would come through faith and discipline, being respectable, and doing what’s right. But when her cousin became the victim of a white supremacist’s hateful rampage, her body and soul said, “no more.”
The trauma of America’s racial history, wreaking havoc on not only Black and Brown folk but white people too, in its own way, will not be alleviated without the will to face it head-on. We must name the dehumanization that plagues us, practice truth-telling and self-care, and make space for our vulnerability–to do the hard work of healing ourselves and our communities.
This book is written with that healing in mind. It unpacks how American systems and institutions enable the kind of violence we’ve seen connected to white supremacy and nationalism. It examines the way media has created a desensitization to violence against Black bodies.
It outlines what it looks like for a person who claims to follow Jesus to be anti-racist. But more than anything, it offers a blueprint for healing and reconciliation that includes the necessity of white people untangling from an ancestral mandate of colonization and false notions of supremacy, and Black and Brown people reckoning with the impact of trauma and feeling free to grieve in whatever way grief shows up.
They Can’t Take Your Name: A Novel by Robert Justice
Laced with atmospheric poetry and literature and set in the heart of Denver’s black community, this gripping crime novel pits three characters in a race against time to thwart a gross miscarriage of justice—and a crooked detective who wreaks havoc…with deadly consequences.
What happens to a deferred dream—especially when an innocent man’s life hangs in the balance? Langston Brown is running out of time and options for clearing his name and escaping death row.
Wrongfully convicted of the gruesome Mother’s Day Massacre, he prepares to face his death. His final hope for salvation lies with his daughter, Liza, an artist who dreamed of a life of music and song but left the prestigious Juilliard School to pursue a law degree with the intention of clearing her father’s name. Just as she nears success, it’s announced that Langston will be put to death in thirty days.
In a desperate bid to find freedom for her father, Liza enlists the help of Eli Stone, a jazz club owner she met at the classic Five Points venue, The Roz. Devastated by the tragic loss of his wife, Eli is trying to find solace by reviving the club…while also wrestling with the longing to join her in death.
Everyone has a dream that might come true—but as the dark shadows of the past converge, could Langston, Eli, and Liza be facing a danger that could shatter those dreams forever?
This Too Shall Pass by Patricia A. Saunders
This Too Shall Pass is a book of poetry spans the journey of life, death, grief, love, and weathering all storms. When life has thrown you curve balls and you think that it’s over, no one is there for you, or no one can love you, it is in those moments when you have to hang on. There is hope, there is love, and there is a second chance. You just have to believe that this too shall pass!
About the Author
Two-Sided Heart by Patricia Anne Phillips
For Randal, it is love at first sight when he lays eyes on Leah. After a short, whirlwind romance, Leah leaves all she knows behind in New Orleans and moves to Savannah, Georgia to marry her newfound love, only to exist in secrets. Now seven years of bliss, Leah and Randal welcome beautiful, twin daughters—Leanne and Brooklyn. After several hours of intense labor, Leah falls madly in love with her babies. Randal, on the other hand, not so much.
With a heart of ice, Randal makes an unconscionable decision that changes Leah’s life forever and eventually determines his demise. After Randal being the breadwinner and taking care of everything, Leah now finds herself heartbroken, clueless, betrayed, and alone.
With only Brooklyn by her side, she embarks upon a new life, with Randal’s secret constantly haunting her. “Two-Sided Heart” is a mother’s worst nightmare. Read an excerpt from the book.
Undefeated Woman by Desange Kuenihira
Undefeated Woman by Desange Kuenihira (Memoirs of Women)
Sometimes, it takes a journey to find your voice.
As a young girl, Desange Kuenihira was told repeatedly that she was meaningless. An arranged marriage and motherhood before twenty—guaranteeing a life in poverty—were all she was told to expect. But Desange knew she had more inside her, and that education was the key to unlocking her potential.
In Undefeated Woman, Desange Kuenihira takes us on the challenging journey of her childhood. She recalls fleeing with her siblings from the civil war raging in Congo and the daily struggle of life in a refugee camp in Uganda, where she suffered many forms of abuse. She relates her journey to America, the culture clash of living with American foster families, and her quest for her education and the ability to control her own life. Now a college graduate and determined to pay forward the kindness of those that helped her through, Desange has launched the nonprofit UnDEfeated to empower women and girls in Uganda.
Desange’s inspirational story shows us all how we can overcome any odds through education, determined perseverance, and the kindness of caring people.
Unlawful Desires (Lawyers in Lust Book 1) by Sassy Sinclair
BEST EROTIC ROMANCE: Unlawful Desires (Sassy Sinclair)
Viral Xgressions: Tainted Souls, Hacked Spirits, Wretched Deals, and Flatlines (Whiskey House Trilogy Book 2) by Marc Lacy
Viral Xgressions: Tainted Souls, Hacked Spirits, Wretched Deals, and Flatlines (Whiskey House Trilogy Book 2) by Marc Lacy
The Unraveling Saga Continues in the Heart of Lazarus, Alabama
Viral Xgressions (pronounced transgressions ) is the second book of the Whiskey House Trilogy whose first book, Curse of the Whiskey House set the tone of the trilogy with a thunderous boom. Viral Xgressions picks right up where its predecessor left off with non-stop action, front-to-back drama, and edge-of-your-seat anticipation of what’s taking place on the next page.
At what point do you say enough is enough and forget about friendships, relationships, and perceptions, especially if they are impeding the path of justice?
Welcome back to Hawthorne County!
In the riveting sequel to “Curse of the Whiskey House,” author Marc Lacy delves even deeper into the enigmatic city of Lazarus, Alabama, where darkness and turmoil seem to have taken root. “Viral Xgressions” continues the gripping narrative of the Whiskey House Trilogy, propelling readers on a rollercoaster of suspense, moral reckoning, and unyielding determination.
As the story unfolds, the once-peaceful city of Lazarus grapples with the aftermath of the cataclysmic events at the Hawthorne County Whiskey House. The community finds itself at the crossroads of despair and desperation, its wounds still fresh, its spirit battered. In the midst of this turmoil, questions arise, reverberating through the streets: Can redemption be found in a place marred by violence and tainted souls? Can the city’s wounds heal in the face of unprecedented challenges?
The Lazarus Police Department and Hawthorne County Sheriff’s Office stand as guardians of the city, burdened by the weight of their recent trials. False prophets and violent deaths have shaken the very foundation of law and order, leaving scars that run deep. The truth has been exposed: The curse surrounding the whiskey house is no mere legend. The price of entry is high – a life forever changed, a spirit irrevocably altered.
As the narrative unfurls, “Viral Xgressions” draws readers into the heart of Lazarus, where the aftermath of spring’s turmoil continues to cast a long shadow. The scars, both seen and unseen, have left an indelible mark on the community. With budget constraints, leadership vacuums, and wounds that refuse to heal, Lazarus faces an uncertain future.
In an era of viral phenomena, the city grapples not only with physical wounds but also with the insidious spread of transgressions that threaten to engulf its spirit. “Viral Xgressions” delves into the concept of transgressions as an infectious force, exploring the impact of malevolence that spreads like an incurable virus.
With relentless action and heart-stopping drama, “Viral Xgressions” takes readers on a pulse-pounding journey. The suspenseful narrative picks up seamlessly where its predecessor left off, plunging readers into a world of high-stakes choices and unwavering pursuit of justice. As Lazarus stands on the precipice of its own destiny, readers are forced to confront a challenging question: When do friendships, relationships, and perceptions become impediments to the pursuit of truth and justice?
Marc Lacy’s “Viral Xgressions” is an electrifying testament to the power of storytelling, weaving a tapestry of suspense, redemption, and resilience. As the saga continues, the boundaries between light and darkness blur and Lazarus’s fate hangs in the balance. Welcome back to Hawthorne County, where the battle for the city’s soul wages on, and the echoes of the past reverberate through every choice made in the present.
Check out Viral Xgressions by Marc Lacy – https://a.co/d/dldK9xu
Walk in Your Authority (Unleashing the Divine Power from Within) by Allison Gregory Daniels
Listen to the BAN Radio Show interview with Ella D. Curry and Allison Gregory Daniels: http://tobtr.com/s/11240813
In Walk in Your Authority: Unleashing the Divine Power From Within author Rev. Allison Gregory Daniels instills how acceptance of a loving and protective God allows anyone to achieve a prosperous life. Part memoir of Daniels’s own journey through the tests of the Wilderness to the glory of salvation, this book is also a guide that offers powerful tips, strategies, and tools to reach one’s divine potential.
Furthermore, Daniels records specific Bible verses that may support us through a variety of difficult situations, whether you are a woman feeling insecure in motherhood, a person walking in your calling, or a child trying to survive the trauma of bullying.
No matter your age or circumstances, your past or mistakes, the words in this book are here for you now to walk in confidence and faith, always under the grace of God, towards the only direction that matters: the future.
We Lie Here: A Thriller by Rachel Howzell Hall
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.
“In We Lie Here, Rachel Howzell Hall gives us a tight, lean, eye-level look at the Gibson family—flawed, normal, abnormal, and each affected by a deadly secret left buried for years—while weaving a page-turning tapestry of dread, cold-blooded murder, and nail-biting tension. What a ride. What a wonderful writer. More, please.” —Tracy Clark, author of the Chicago Mystery series
“Rachel Howzell Hall continues to shatter the boundaries of crime fiction through the sheer force of her indomitable talent.” —S. A. Cosby, author of Blacktop Wasteland
Well Behaved Wives: A Novel by Amy Sue Nathan
Well Behaved Wives: A Novel by Amy Sue Nathan
Perfect wives, imperfect lives, and upending the rules of behavior in 1960s America.
Law school graduate and newlywed Ruth Appelbaum is acclimating to life and marriage in a posh Philadelphia neighborhood. She’ll do almost anything to endear herself to her mother-in-law, who’s already signed up Ruth for etiquette lessons conducted by the impeccably accessorized tutor Lillian Diamond. But Ruth brings something fresh to the small circle of housewives—sharp wit, honesty, and an independent streak that won’t be compromised.
Right away Ruth develops a friendship with the shy Carrie Blum. When Carrie divulges a dark and disturbing secret lurking beneath her seemingly perfect life, Ruth invites Lillian and the Diamond Girls of the etiquette school to finally question the status quo.
Together they form an unbreakable bond and stretch well beyond their comfort zones. For once, they’ll challenge what others expect from them, discover what they expect from themselves, and do whatever it takes to protect one of their own—fine manners be damned.
Where There Was Fire by John Manuel Arias
A lush and lyrical debut novel about a Costa Rican family wrestling with a deadly secret, from rising literary star John Manuel Arias.
Costa Rica, 1968. When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company’s most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up, the future of Teresa Cepeda Valverde’s family is changed forever.
Now, twenty-seven years later, Teresa and her daughter Lyra are still picking up the pieces. Lyra wants nothing to do with Teresa, but is desperate to find out what happened to her family that fateful night. Teresa, haunted by a missing husband and the bitter ghost of her mother, Amarga, is unable to reconcile the past.
What unfolds is a story of a mother and daughter trying to forgive what they do not yet understand, and the mystery at the heart of one family’s rupture, steeped in machismo, jealousy, labor uprisings, and the havoc wreaked by banana plantations in Central America.
Brimming with ancestral spirits, omens, and the anthropomorphic forces of nature, John Manuel Arias weaves a brilliant tapestry of love, loss, secrets, and redemption.
John Manuel Arias is a queer, Costa Rican-American poet and writer. He is a Canto Mundo fellow & alumnus of the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop. His prose and poetry have been published in PANK, The Rumpus, F(r)iction, Joyland Magazine, and Akashic Books. He has lived in Washington D.C., Brooklyn New York, and in San José, Costa Rica with his grandmother and four ghosts. Where There Was Fire is his debut novel.
Where You Are Is Not Who You Are: A Memoir by Ursula Burns
The first Black female CEO of a Fortune 500 company looks back at her life and her career at Xerox, sharing unique insights on American business and corporate life, the workers she has always valued, racial and economic justice, how greed is threatening democracy, and the obstacles she’s conquered being Black and a woman.
“I am a black woman, I do not play golf, I do not belong to or go to country clubs, I do not like NASCAR, I do not listen to country music, and I have a masters degree in engineering. I, like a typical New Yorker, speak very fast, with an accent and vernacular that is definitely New York City, definitely Black. So when someone says I’m going to introduce you to the next CEO of Xerox, and the options are lined up against a wall, I would be the first one voted off the island.”
In 2009, when she was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of the Xerox Corporation, Ursula Burns shattered the glass ceiling and made headlines. But the media missed the real story, she insists. “It should have been ‘how did this happen? How did Xerox Corporation produce the first African American woman CEO?’ Not this spectacular story titled, “Oh, my God, a Black woman making it.”
In this smart, no-nonsense book, part memoir and part cultural critique, Burns writes movingly about her journey from tenement housing on Manhattan’s Lower East Side to the highest echelons of the corporate world. She credits her success to her poor single Panamanian mother, Olga Racquel Burns—a licensed child-care provider whose highest annual income was $4,400—who set no limits on what her children could achieve.
Ursula recounts her own dedication to education and hard work, and how she took advantage of the opportunities and social programs created by the Civil Rights and Women’s movements to pursue engineering at Polytechnic Institute of New York.
Burns writes about overcoming the barriers she faced, as well as the challenges and realities of the corporate world. Her classmates and colleagues—almost all white males—“couldn’t comprehend how a Black girl could be as smart, and in some cases, smarter than they were. They made a developed category for me. Unique. Amazing. Spectacular. That way they could accept me.” Her thirty-five-year career at Xerox was all about fixing things, from cutting millions to save the company from bankruptcy to a daring $6 billion acquisition to secure its future. Ursula also worked closely with President Barack Obama as a lead on his STEM initiative and Chair of his Export council, where she traveled with him on an official trade mission to Cuba, and became one of his greatest admirers.
Candid and outspoken, Ursula offers a remarkable look inside the c-suites of corporate America through the eyes of a Black woman—someone who puts humanity over greed and justice over power. She compares the impact of the pandemic to the financial crisis of 2007, condemns how corporate culture is destroying the spirit of democracy, and worries about the workers whose lives are being upended by technology. Empathetic and dedicated, idealistic and pragmatic, Ursula demonstrates that, no matter your circumstances, hard work, grit and a bit of help along the way can change your life—and the world.
Why Am I Like This by Kobe Campbell
Why Am I Like This?: How to Break Cycles, Heal from Trauma, and Restore Your Faith by Kobe Campbell
Why does our past pain have a way of terrorizing us and keeping us in fear, while baiting us with the lie that we will never experience healing, freedom, or love?
Though many of us can point to patterns of brokenness in our lives, we don’t know why they’re there. No matter how hard we work, we can’t seem to outrun the very things that break our hearts. That’s because our everyday setbacks are rooted in our unaddressed wounds.
Guided by seminary-trained licensed trauma therapist Kobe Campbell, Why Am I Like This? will help you develop courage as you dare to turn your heart toward your brokenness, uncover uncomfortable truths, and learn how to invite God into your past and present pain as you move from the terror of trauma into the tender embrace of the Father.
In the book Why Am I Like This?, you will:
gain an understanding of what trauma and healing really are,
explore the roots of your dysfunctional patterns,
learn how your trauma shows up in your everyday life, and
find trauma-informed, faith-based coping mechanisms to heal your mind and deepen your intimacy with God.
You already know that God is good. Here, you’ll discover that He’s good to you. You already know that God responds to the cry of His children. Here, you’ll see just how he responds to your cries of desperation, hopelessness, and despair. Healing won’t look like what you thought it will be, but it will come, and it will be beautiful.
Women Lie Men Lie by A. Roy Milligan
Women Lie Men Lie: A Gritty Urban Fiction Novel by A. Roy Milligan
JC is an ex-convict. In a city hit hard with recession, women with money are his new hustle. But when his new gig lands him in a sordid love triangle, will he survive and come out unscathed?
JC is thrust into the perils of a city without prospects. That is, unless he wants to go back to crime and dealing drugs.
Poor and faced with the reality of urban decay, JC needs to find a way out. But recession has a choke hold on the city. Crime, larceny, and street violence are rampant. It seems he doesn’t have a choice until he finds his footing, a means out of the dangers of street life.
JC’s new game is supreme, second to none. He will use his street ways to win the hearts of unsuspecting women. Gullible women with money are his new hustle! A hustle that requires a licentious tongue. One that could pierce the soul and capture any heart.
But for every king of spades there’s a queen in waiting, and Diamond is that queen. She’s JC’s equal in every way. Once JC’s partner in crime, she’s grown to become a woman spoiled by men and riches.
The duos dangerous game, however, soon reaches a crossroads. A steamy love triangle threatens everything they’ve worked for, throwing them into a tangle of deception and sordid lies.
Women Lie Men Lie is an original urban tale plotted and told like none other. Each breath taking page will leave you wondering what’s next!
Word Food for Doods by Duane Lance Filer
Are you hungry for a fresh, soul quenching new taste in word food?
If women can have a chick lit genre, what about a dood food happy hour? Word Food for Doods is a guys night out buffet comprised of three short stories, two funky one-act plays, and two essays that sprout about important men banes. In addition, there are twenty-three eye-popping illustrations. Women, these stories will help you understand our warped minds. These stories will enthrall both sexes. Enjoy pardners!
A bonus is the twenty-three eye-popping/old-school/black/white/brown illustrations that help bring flavor to each story. You will be amazed at how these old-fashioned pictures bring life to the characters.
Word Food for Doods by Duane Lance Filer
Action & Adventure > Mystery >Thriller & Suspense
Wrath: A Novel (The Seven Deadly Sins Book 4) by Victoria Christopher Murray
The award-winning author of Lust, Envy, and Greed—soon to be Lifetime movies—delivers a passionate and unforgettable exploration of a marriage caught in the crossroads of rage.
When Chastity Butler and Xavier Owens first meet, they instantly connect over their shared dedication to activism. After all, Xavier is a civil rights attorney and Chastity uses her business degree to work with a local foundation that helps battered women. Together, they work to make the world a better place and find themselves falling deeper in love. Even though friends and family warn them to slow down, Xavier and Chastity marry within a year.
But their marriage is soon strained by the intense differences between their backgrounds. Chastity, the only child of a prominent popular pastor in Philadelphia, was raised with privilege. Xavier, meanwhile, never knew his father, was abandoned by his mother, and shuffled between houses, leaving him feeling isolated and inadequate. As an adult, he was determined to leave his past behind.
As time goes on, Xavier is slowly overcome with resentment about his past. Soon, Chastity finds herself on the receiving end of his increasing rage. It starts with verbal abuse and escalates until the physical abuse makes Chastity feel like she’s living in a prison. She has built a career on helping women in similar situations, but her religious upbringing, her position at the domestic violence foundation, as well as her family’s high social profile all work to keep her in their home, praying that Xavier will change.
Things only get worse when the local Democratic Party asks Chastity to run for office, and Xavier can’t handle the amount of attention his wife is suddenly getting. When his rage explodes at a level Chastity has never seen, will their marriage survive or is this finally the last straw?
Purchase Wrath: A Novel (The Seven Deadly Sins Book 4) by Victoria Christopher Murray
https://www.amazon.com/Wrath-Novel-Seven-Deadly-Sins/dp/1982142928/
Read the entire Seven Deadly Sins series at: https://amzn.to/2T7BMW7
Lust: A Seven Deadly Sins Novel (The Seven Deadly Sins Book 1)
Envy: A Seven Deadly Sins Novel (The Seven Deadly Sins Book 2)
Greed: A Seven Deadly Sins Novel (The Seven Deadly Sins Book 3)
Wrath: A Seven Deadly Sins Novel (The Seven Deadly Sins Book 4)