African American Historical Fiction

Inspired by a real-life scandal that was shocking even for the tumultuous Roaring Twenties, this captivating novel tells the story of a secret marriage by a New York elite that ignites an explosive battle over race and class—and three very different women struggling for truth, legitimacy, and the futures they risked everything to shape.

Billed as the Little Girl with the Big Voice, blues singer Lucille Arnetta Love always dreamed of life under the lights. From traveling family gospel band to lead singer in a riotous vaudeville troupe, Lucille is on the rise. But a devastating family secret, one that’s poised to shatter every dream she’s ever had, casts an inescapable shadow over Lucille’s career. Decades ago, a botched robbery ended in a suspicious death—and all signs point to Lucille’s own father as the culprit. It’s a secret that Lucille’s family is determined to keep buried—even from Lucille herself.

Of Rizpah's Daughters is the story of an American enslaved African woman named Margaret. When her master gave her toddler daughters away as gifts, she was so devastated that in her grief, she made "graves" for her daughters. She topped the graves with flowers and knelt at the graves daily. Her master thought it was funny and sarcastically re-named the woman Rizpah. Of Rizpah's Daughters is a story about the evils of slavery, love, grief, friendship, loyalty, adultery, the supernatural, death, and victory.

Cassius, a virile slave, avenges the murder of his kind master and must flee with his pregnant wife and son via the Underground Railroad. The journey is endangered by greedy bounty hunters and harsh weather. When he discovers his ex-lover in a safe house, he is torn between desire and fidelity—and the pull of freedom.

A powerful story about love, courage, sacrifice, resilience, and hope, True Grace, set in 1924 during the Harlem Renaissance and Roaring Twenties, chronicles the journey of an immigrant, mixed-raced woman from the Congo, England, and Jamaica, fighting for her family's survival. Inspired by real people and events, Grace must navigate the misogyny and racism of the courts, banks, child welfare system, and bad actors to hold her family together. Calling on her grit, determination, and grace, she must overcome harrowing circumstances.

Annamitta enters the story as a six-year old as her “Sonatina” begins with a Polonaise North with her Mama Minnie Lou, where she learns dignified protest and discovers a talent for sewing. Annamitta’s adult dance kicks-off in what I like to call the “Honey Pot Suite” where a visit with her big sister Suzie Mae in Miami leads to an altercation with Trixie Dupree causing concern over Mr. Buddy J.

Read about a genius slave who name George; also known in the 1800’s as, The Black Magician, for his remarkable tactics of helping slaves escape North into freedom. George uses his witty inventions, brilliant disguises and crafty tricks to help slaves escape slavery. George is instructed and guided by his grandmother, a Nubian princess, stolen from Africa. While setting out on the mission to set slaves free, George has to contend with a money hungry slave catcher, dishonest friends and many other trials and tribulations.

The World is Full of Champions spans more than thirty years from the ’60s to the late ’90s in race-torn Philadelphia as two proud Black families—one wealthy, the other not—confront major change when tragedy strikes and the daughter of the working-class Smythe family falls in love with the son of the affluent Whitman family.

Por toda a América as plantações de tabaco floresceram e trouxeram riqueza aos senhores de terra durante o século XIX. Quando a bonança começa seu declínio, Howell Walker já vislumbra o próprio fim e sabe que precisará de um substituto para administrar os últimos dias de Lockless, sua propriedade no coração da Virgínia, Estados Unidos. Logo fica claro que seu único herdeiro, Maynard, não tem a menor aptidão para a missão. E mesmo o jovem Hiram, com sua resiliência e memória infalíveis, não poderia fazê-lo―além de filho ilegítimo de Walker, ele é um escravo.

When a bloody carriage appears at the front gate, Black’s greatest fear is realized. Mayhem has found its way to his doorstep, forcing him and the people to examine everyday life. In this fifth installment of The Black Series, the legendary Black is tasked with leading the people to a freer existence. He must also solve a deadly game of cat and mouse, while keeping the people from peril. Join Joan Vassar, Black, and the men, as they uncage the people from physical bondage, emancipate the people’s thoughts, and unshackle the people from fear.

Beautiful and brilliantly talented Celia DeMille is a 19th-century concert artist who has garnered fame, sung all over the world, and amassed a fortune. But prejudice bars her from achieving her place in history as one of the world’s greatest singers, and she dies in poverty and obscurity.

Betrayed and left for dead, a soldier in 13th-century East Africa winds up in hiding as a monk in Roha (Lalibela). He soon gets romantically entangled with a wealthy heiress as he struggles to maintain his monastic vows. However, when old enemies resurface and threaten those he has come to care for, he secretly picks up the sword again, offering salvation by day with the Bible, but secretly exacting deadly vengeance and justice by night with the sword.

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.

On the day that Minister Peters boards a train from South Carolina heading north, he has nothing left but ghosts: the ghost of his murdered wife, the ghost of his drowned daughter, the ghosts of his father, and his grandmother, and the people who disappeared from his town without trace or explanation. In the cramped car, Minister finds himself in close quarters with three passengers also joining the exodus from the South - people seeking a new life, whose motives, declared or otherwise, will change Minister's life with devastating consequences.

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.

Roo, as he is affectionately known by family and friends, experiences a dual journey: the conscious journey via the Atlantic Railroads and the eerie journey through his dreary and murky dream state. Both of these "pathways" ultimately lead him to the same profound and soul-jarring destination—a catastrophic event that all but decimates a successful Black community where many of its residents earned more that the average United States citizen...only 56 years after the abolition of slavery.

Harlem, 1936. Clyde “The Viper” Morton boards a train from Alabama to Harlem to chase his dreams of being a jazz musician. When his talent fails him, he becomes caught up in the dangerous underbelly of Harlem’s drug trade, leaving him to decide what he's willing to give up and what he wants to fight for.

Valiant Jackson always gets what he wants - and he's wanted Mae for years. The door finally opens for him when Mae strikes a bargain: seduce her virginal young cousin, Cecily, who is engaged to Frank Washington. Frank values her innocence above all else. If successful, Val's reward will be a night with Mae. But Val secretly seeks another prize. Elizabeth Townsend is fiercely loyal to her church and her civil rights attorney husband. Little does she know that her worst mistake will be Val's greatest triumph.

Harlem, 1936: Lena Aldridge grew up in a cramped corner of London, hearing stories of the bright lights of Broadway. She always imagined that when she finally went to New York City, she’d be there with her father. But now he’s dead, and she’s newly arrived and alone, chasing a dream that has quickly dried up. When Will Goodman—the handsome musician she met on the crossing from England—offers for her to stay with his friends in Harlem, she agrees.

A streetwise African American teenager hastily departs bigoted Anderson, South Carolina in the 1940s. During her travels over a span of nearly eighty years, she assumes the identity of her alter ego while living a good life as a nationally respected media mogul. But it is marked with deep-rooted secrets: One involving the murder of a White man and the other dealing with the disappearance of a prominent Black man, both from her past life in the Deep South.