African American Family Fiction

Marilyn Grimes is a wife, mother, sister, and daughter. Today she's decided to be something different: herself. First, she has to find out who that is...

Growing up poor in Texas, Vera Lomax used every gold-digging trick in the book to land a rich husband. Now living in the lap of luxury in San Francisco, her only job is to fawn over her much-older husband, so it's been easy for her to balance a life of shopping and affairs with younger men with a major secret: the 16-year bribery of one of her husband's mistresses to keep her pregnancy under wraps. Vera figures that a little hush money every month will ensure her husband's fortune is hers alone....

WINNER OF THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER OF THE CORETTA SCOTT KING AUTHOR AWARD National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson's stirring novel-in-verse explores how a family moves forward when their glory days have passed and the cost of professional sports on Black bodies. For as long as ZJ can...

ONE OF TIME’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 ONE OF BUZZFEED’S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 An electrifying, dazzlingly written reckoning and an essential addition to the national conversation about race and class, Survival Math takes its name from the calculations...

Framed in a drug sting by the person he trusted most, grad student Jean emerges from seven months at Rikers Island into a pandemic-ravaged New York City. His parents won't speak to him. His girlfriend has moved on. And Marcus, the friend who betrayed him, has vanished. Working as a food delivery cyclist through the empty streets of 2020, Jean pedals between his shattered past and an uncertain future. But as the city erupts in protests over George Floyd's murder, he's forced to confront not just personal betrayal, but the injustices that have shaped his life as a young Black man in America.

After Winna's little sister breaks her glasses, her grandfather gives her an old-timey pair of spectacles that belonged to her great-aunt Estelle. The specs are silver and perfectly circular, with tiny stars on the bridge and earpieces that curl all the way around her ears. Best of all, they're magic. Because when Winna makes a wish beginning with the words "What if"—that is, when she speculates—the spectacles grant it.

Long live the Queen of Hip Hop Lit! Nikki Turner is back with another explosive, page-turning sequel to her #1 bestselling novels A Hustler’s Wife and Forever a Hustler’s Wife. Yarni Taylor is a successful corporate attorney who wants nothing more than for her husband, Des, to...

Through the darkest tunnel comes the light, but for Caesar King, there is nothing but more darkness on the other side. After the failed attempt on his life, he is afraid that the Pact of the Five Families is no more. He can trust nobody. Whoever murdered Barry is now aiming for Caesar's crown, and the only way to flush them out and figure out who's responsible is to go to war...with everybody.

An incisive, intersectional essay anthology that celebrates and examines romance and romantic media through the lens of Black readers, writers, and cultural commentators, edited by Book Riot columnist and librarian Jessica Pryde. Romantic love has been one of the most essential elements of...

June Hanson: Calix Moore was like nothing I’d ever experienced in this life. He stormed in with no regard for what it might do to my heart, only his own. I wanted to open up and give him a chance, same as I had the first night we met—the night we threw all caution to the wind and spent twelve passionate hours behind closed doors. But when the sky brightened, and I looked next to me, I knew I could never allow him to see me again. Except fate had other plans and now he’s standing in front of me, at my place of business, with a knowing smirk pulling at his lips.

It was a long, hard-fought battle for Judge Kristen Catherine Bryant to be appointed by the President of the United States to a judgeship on the DC Circuit Federal Court of Appeals. She endured Congressional interrogations, press and news media interviews, speaking engagements, and grips and grins with intestinal fortitude and no little amount of patience and guile. That was all now behind her. She had a month to decompress before she had to move from Chicago, Illinois, to Washington, DC, to assume her new post.

The dead are relentless gossips, or at least these dead are. An impulsive and heartbroken woman inherits her father’s share of a Tennessee farm that is rich in family secrets and occupied with busybody ghosts in this sweeping family portrait. At thirty-two, Aubrey Lamb is stumbling into...

From acclaimed author Terah Shelton Harris comes a poignant story of survival and redemption that questions what it means to stop existing and start living. Leigh is the last of the Wildes. She knows this because she watched them all die. Grief never truly fades and even as the tragedy haunts...

A gripping novel about two trailblazing women on opposite sides of the law—a prosecutor and a madam—who team up to bring down notorious mob boss Lucky Luciano in 1930s New York, from the New York Times bestselling authors of the million-copy bestseller The Personal Librarian. Eunice Carter...

A fake summer fling between a stand-in girlfriend and a handsome business heir becomes way too real in this glittering new romance by USA Today bestselling author Kristina Forest. Noelle Lewis doesn’t have time for long walks on the beach, brunch with the girls, or summer vacations. She’s...

Dr. Cade Mathis learned early that he was not the son of the man who raised him. His adoptive father, a cruel, bitter man, had always been quick to tell him that he was a bastard and an embarrassment to the rich society family whose daughter got pregnant with him. So when Cade received a full scholarship to college, he was only too happy to leave the only home he had ever known behind and never looked back. Now a successful doctor and one of the best neurosurgeons in the state, the only thing he still wants are answers about where he came from.

In this gripping, emotionally-layered novel set in Prohibition-era Martha’s Vineyard, a young woman from a Black seafaring family plunges into the dangerous world of rum-running to save her home and uncover the truth about her father’s death. Martha’s Vineyard, 1923. The sea is a gift...

A searching, atmospheric novel that celebrates Southern cowboy culture and the Black people who have always been a part of it, from the acclaimed author of Redwood Court, a Reese’s Book Club Pick A sprawling landscape of sand, red clay, and pine trees, Fairfield County is the only place the...

“A vibrant and moving debut that takes to heart our deferred dreams and the value of remaining hopeful.”—Diane Marie Brown, author of Black Candle Women How much of their lineage is one family willing to unearth in order to participate in the nation’s first federal reparations program?...

Raging Waters is a compelling novel that delves into the complexities of marital infidelity within a relationship that began with the best of intentions. The authors reveal how understanding the root causes of betrayal can help rebuild trust and strengthen relationships . While infidelity is the core focus, the story also touches on the importance of mentoring adult children and the profound impact of role modeling within the family dynamic.