African American Family Fiction

Six generations of Mason Family men have maintained the black stone bridge that once led to the sugarcane fields of Dieffenbach Plantation, but now leads to a barbed-wire fence separating the town of Diffenbourg, Louisiana from Caesar Oil Company’s petroleum tank farm. Warren Mason was to be the bridge’s next guardian, but his departure has left its upkeep in the hands of his ailing father who has spent his life preserving it, and his myopic older brother who would sacrifice it to settle a class action with Caesar.

After World War II, Needham family members migrated north to Philadelphia from South Carolina, leaving behind the tragic injustice surrounding the violent death of their patriarch, King. His devoted widow, Selma, remains on the old home place. Over the years, she raises King's children, including his great-grandson, Rayne, on whom falls the responsibility to bring the family together to save the family land and mend the rift between him and his mother.

The story carries a profound message about embracing unexpected events with a positive attitude. Lysis's brother is inspired by Nana's resilience and aspires to emulate her ability to find happiness even in challenging situations. With the story lingering in their hearts, the children snuggle up in their cozy blankets, cherishing the lessons of laughter and optimism.

Roux is a novel that brims with family, secrets, and love. Award-winning author Tamika Christy writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of relationships, and the family ties that bond. Written in the vein of Steel Magnolias, the story takes us into the lives of African American families with their unique hardships, triumphs in relationships, culture, and values. It is relatable, comforting, and challenging.

A trio of women bond in friendship as a neighborhood tries to seek justice from a system that has forgotten them. “The Shape of Dreams is a powerful prayer, a novel that indicts the injustice for which there is no quick solution. . . . [It is] a song of furor and tenderness that will leave its...

Shannon Sanders’s sparkling debut brings us into the company of the Collins family and their acquaintances as they meet, bicker, compete, celebrate, worry, keep and reveal secrets, build lives and careers, and endure. Moving from Atlantic City to New York to DC, from the 1960s to the 2000s, from law students to drag performers to violinists to matriarchs, Company tells a multifaceted, multigenerational saga in thirteen stories.

Grandma BB, the unofficial matriarch of the Jamieson clan, is getting her house in order for the perfect homegoing celebration. After all, she’s eighty-something. She summons Parke Jamieson VI, his brothers, cousins, and their families to play a part in the practice funeral program—only if they follow her instructions to the letter. Since the Jamiesons are at her house with bodyguards Chip and Dale, they might have an impromptu family game night. The evening is full of surprises, especially when an unexpected visitor shows up to steal the show.

A grieving Hector Peterson and his estranged father Winston Telemacque arrive on the lush island of Dominica in 2017 to spread his mother’s ashes when Hurricane Maria strikes. Amid the devastation, the fragile peace between father and son is tested as long-buried family secrets at the heart of Hector’s identity are unearthed. Hector faces down his failed marriage, shipwrecked career, and his own failures as a father, while Winston, after three decades of striving as an immigrant in Boston, seeks to reclaim the losses from a painful childhood and the bloody betrayal by his one true love.

A sweeping family saga about inheritance and the enduring legacy of Southern Black cowboy culture, from the acclaimed author of Redwood Court, a Reese’s Book Club Pick A sprawling landscape of sand, red clay, and pine trees, South Carolina’s Fairfield County is the only place the Bolton...

Ein Mann, dessen Welt plötzlich zusammenbricht. Der Paläontologe Zach Wells hat sich in seiner selbstironischen Abgeklärtheit bequem eingerichtet: Idealen misstraut er - ob an der Universität, wo er, selbst Afroamerikaner, sich nicht für Gleichberechtigung einsetzt, oder zu Hause in der erkalteten Beziehung zu seiner Frau. Einziges Licht in seinem Leben ist die zwölfjährige schachspielende Tochter Sarah. Als diese ihr Sehvermögen verliert und eine erschütternde Diagnose folgt, flieht Zach in die Wüste New Mexicos.

The drama and dangerous secrets continue to build in the lives of the Georgetown house members. Gloria Towson is keeping her secret from David Carter. Melissa Charles does everything in her power to keep her secret, as well as simultaneously hold on to the love of her life, Alan Lightfoot. However, Alan knows he must let Melissa go to serve the tenets of his Indigenous American heritage.

The son of Maya Angelou, Guy Johnson is a critically acclaimed author and poet in his own right. Echoes of a Distant Summer is the story of Jackson St. Clair Tremain, a San Francisco civil servant who thought he had left his old life far behind. In 1982, Jackson is summoned to Mexico to confer with his dying grandfather, the brutal hustler King Tremain. When King dies, Jackson inherits $50 million - and the unwanted attentions of a malevolent bayou crime lord named Pug DuMont.

After making big-boy moves to get from under his billionaire father, Banks Wales, Ace proves he has the tenacity to live on his own in Baltimore. With millions at his disposal, he doesn’t miss a beat, trading mansions on the beach for penthouses in the city. Soon he misses his twin brother, Walid, and unknowingly allows his ego to present itself in dangerous ways when he’s rejected. This pushes his relationship with his fiancé, Arbella Valentine, into dangerous territories. All the while, it’s clear that Banks knows all and manipulates moves in the background.

This story was told to Anthony Weathers years ago. Upon hearing it, he felt compelled to write a story based on these true events. Why Ruin Another Life is set in the 1950s in Black Mississippi. It is a generational journey about how lives can be altered by an event or person. Hattie sets in motion a chain of events that unravel, that induced a domino effect. This single event had a profound and lasting impact, triggering a thunderstorm for years to come, and the lessons learned came at a high cost.

What would you do if you were close to hitting rock bottom? Would you exhaust every possible option to better your situation? Or would you accept defeat and throw in the towel? Meet Pete and Terrence. Both fathers are of a similar age and live in the same city, but their lives are profoundly different. Though they share the unquestionable love a father has for their children, what challenges await them? Will they end up making the right decisions or make their situation worse?

Jonah Winters has it all. An Ivy Leaguer born to expatriate parents, he is never in want for money and calls both New York City and Paris his home. Aware that his fortunes are rare for a Black man like himself, he attempts to give back by teaching English at a New York City public school only to be profoundly disillusioned by his apathetic students. When a friend offers Jonah a chance to escape down to South America, he accepts, ready to leave the struggling African American community to solve their own problems.

Pain has traveled through the Robertson women family line for generations and Kerry vows to break and destroy any and every generational curse that has controlled her family, but of course the challenge isn’t easy. From deaths, to imprisonment, to rapes and miscarriages, Kerry and her nieces struggles to find peace at last.

Raised by a widowed mother, Jill Reed has come a long way from her difficult youth. But while she may not have had money, Jill never doubted she was rich in love. Her mother, Connie, made Jill the center of her world. Now, even though she has a young family of her own, it’s Jill’s turn to care for her ailing mother. When early dementia begins to set in, Connie starts talking about Jill’s “other life.” Jill assumes it’s just rambling confusion. Still, Connie’s stories about Jill’s childhood, and her father’s early death, never quite added up.

She's a brilliant Senate candidate, a tech mogul's loving wife, and mother to two precious daughters. As a member of one of the country's most prominent families, Kimberly Maitland grew up having it all - and fighting to help those who need help most. But when journalist Zoie Crawford reveals her family's best-hidden, most shattering secret, the media firestorm and personal fallout are beyond devastating....

When 18-year-old Raina Reed is given an ultimatum - her family or her first love - she chooses the latter, leaves the rigid cult community she's grown up in and finds herself shunned, ex-communicated - ghosted. Raina is happy for more time with her sweet, talented boyfriend Bryce, and enjoys the freedom found in living with him, his free-spirited cousin, Jackie, and Jackie's mom Valerie, a struggling attorney. But her heart breaks at the thought of not seeing her baby sister. Abby is 10 years younger and they've never spent one day apart - until now.