African American Literature Fiction

Trick Baby tells the story of White Folks, a blue-eyed, light-haired con artist whose pale skin allows him to pass in the streets as a white man. Folks is tormented early in life, rejected by other children and branded a "trick baby," a child conceived between a hooker and her trick. Refusing to abandon his life in the ghetto and a chance at revenge, Folks is taken under the wing of an older mentor, Blue. What happens next is unbelievable.

The protagonist of Percival Everett's puckish new novel is a brilliant professor of mathematics who goes by Wala Kitu. (Wala, he explains, means "nothing" in Tagalog, and Kitu is Swahili for "nothing.") He is an expert on nothing. That is to say, he is an expert, and his area of study is nothing, and he does nothing about it.

Set in 1950s New Orleans, Little Black Girl Lost is a powerful tale filled with sex, greed, and the explosive political and social climates of an America long gone. Fifteen-year-old beauty Johnnie Wise lives her life devoted to God. But her innocence is shattered when her mother, who has been a prostitute for years, sells Johnnie's body to lecherous insurance man Earl Shamus.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE Named one of the Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year One of Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of the Year" Named a Best of the Year...

With Yoshon finding out more about Golden’s past, he has a decision to make. Does he want to continue to learn more about her? Or does he end things because she broke his one rule—don’t lie to him? Except, Yoshon hasn’t been truthful when it comes to Golden either. Will their lies bring them closer together or pull them apart?

When souls are tied, it's never goodbye. A boy I was that summer evening I met you, pulling your belongings out of the truck and into your new home. I knew it was love then. A whole man I was the day that you met me at the altar and agreed to love me until death do us part. A shell of a man I've become since it did, unable to move on, move forward, or progress in any way until I discovered that not even death was permanent enough to keep us apart. A better man I'm destined to be, knowing that, at some capacity, you're still with me. Our love is one that never dies.

Cartel Jareau has always been the protector of his siblings. The handsome chef has a bit of a roughness to him. Aside from his family, very few people get to witness his sensitivity. When he met Adina Harold a year ago, he had no idea that intervening in an embarrassing exchange would lead to falling in love with a woman he could never truly have. She was spoken for. Forbidden, yet during turmoil brewing within her home, they somehow fell in love.

African American history is the part of American history that looks at the history of African Americans or Black Americans. Of the 10.7 million Africans who were brought to the Americas until the 1860s, 450 thousand were shipped to what is now the United States. Most African Americans are descended from Africans who were brought directly from Africa to America and became slaves. The future slaves were originally captured in African wars or raids and transported in the Atlantic slave trade.

Helen wasn't just born the devious vixen of New Day Temple of Faith. There had to be something rooted deep within her to make her inflict and feed off other people's pain. Perhaps it was her own pain that she had suppressed for so many years - an unimaginable pain - that created an internal prison of which her mind was the only captive. But once the demons within her break free, those around her better beware, as Helen surely becomes the epitome of the saying, "Hurt people, hurt people".

Don't miss this acclaimed audiobook, read by the author—winner of an Odyssey Honor and an AudioFile Earphones Award winner! The Poet X is also the winner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Michael L. Printz Award, and the Pura Belpré Award. Fans of Jacqueline...

Family ties no longer bind the once close King siblings, Zach and Jay. Their desire for the same woman transforms them from loving brother and sister to bitter arch rivals. Jamaican beauty Jillian Bessette is Jay's lover, but Zach's uncontrollable yearning to have her overpowers him, causing him to commit the ultimate act of betrayal against his flesh and blood. For his sin, Jay orders a hit on her brother, but her plan for revenge backfires, and she is exposed. Her only way to avoid justice is to flee. In exile, Jay's hatred and resentment for Zach and Jill consumes her every waking moment.

Tabitha Knicely is overwhelmed with sorrow and exhaustion caring for her beloved great-aunt, whose dementia is getting worse. When her neighbor Marcus Whittington accuses Tabitha of elder neglect, he doesn't realize how his threats to have Aunt Tweet taken away add to Tabitha's pain. Then Marcus gets to know the exuberant elderly lady and sees up close how hard Tabitha is fighting to keep everything together. Tabitha finds herself leaning on Marcus more and more. And he's becoming more than happy to share her burdens.

Welcome to Detroit, Michigan, home of the grittiest, illest, most hardcore, crime-infested, poverty-stricken neighborhoods in the country. It's sometimes referred to as the Murder Capital because of the huge murder rate that never ceases to surprise us, the Murder Mitten, or the Dirty Glove because of the state's shape on the US map.

With a drug addict mother and a drug lord father, Aphtan learns how to fend for herself at an early age. Being the princess of an empire has its perks - until her father gets arrested. From stealing clothes and food to committing fraud, Aphtan does what she has to do to take care of her mother and herself. But when her schemes prove problematic, she turns to a new hustle: dancing at Pearl Tongue, the most notorious strip club in Texas.

In the wake of a major loss, five sisters agree to meet on the regular to keep it real. But secrets they never saw coming will challenge them and everything they counted on. Savvy and decisive, Burgundy Reeves feels blessed with a good husband and a successful career. She is the sister everyone envies. Since her beloved mother's death, she's given troubled youngest sister, Elyse, a stable home when she needs it most. And she's taken it on herself to keep her contentious siblings together.

For college graduate Sidney Temple, the Roaring '20s bring opportunities even members of his accomplished black bourgeois family couldn't have imagined. His impulsive marriage to independent artist Loretta is a happiness he never thought he'd find. And when he's tapped by J. Edgar Hoover to be the FBI's first African American agent, he sees a once-in-a-lifetime chance to secure real justice.

When Miriam's fireman husband, Chauncey, dies while rescuing students from a school fire, Miriam feels like her life is over. How is she going to raise her three children all by herself? How will she survive without the love of her life? Luckily, Miriam's sister-friend Emily and Emily's husband, Jamal, are there to comfort her. But all the time that Miriam and Jamal spend together - grieving, sharing, and reminiscing - brings the two closer in ways they never planned...

Karlie Houston hasn't seen a raise in forever, but the payday loan office she manages is raking in the cash. So why not get what she's rightfully owed by masterminding a heist? Once her lover Sidney's boys hit all the company's locations at one time, there's a fortune to split. But suddenly bodies start dropping - and Karlie better devise the perfect plan to survive.

Only one thing stands between Frank Mason and his $20-million inheritance - a wife. When he finds Lisa, he doesn't waste any time marrying her, but their fairy-tale romance is not built to last. Lisa's infidelity doesn't go unnoticed, but Frank has his reasons for maintaining his silence - until he uncovers some new information about his Stepford wife that lands him in jail. Only then does their picture-perfect life start to unravel, dragging every last skeleton out of his closet.

Tressie faithfully prays every night that God will send her a thug. It isn't long before her prayers are answered, and she meets a handsome ex-convict named Payce Boyd. He is a fine roughneck, everything Tressie imagined and more - that is until Tressie experiences firsthand the reality of being a thug's girl. Seeking solace and comfort in the sanctuary, Tressie soon learns valuable lessons and shocking truths about herself and others.