African American Literature Fiction

Alana Powers is a triple threat. Brains, beauty, and intelligence. As a smart and savvy businesswoman, Alana's drive and passion for ensuring the success of Powers Construction is unparalleled. Nothing and no one can get in her way—except marriage. Noah Tate is caring, compassionate, and driven by his need to succeed. Fresh out of jail, past mistakes are now behind him, and Noah is determined to prove that he has learned valuable lessons about life. This time, he refuses to allow anything to stand in his way. Unfortunately, his record is proving to be more of a hindrance than he expects.

"There's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it." The men and women in these eight short fictions grasp this truth on an elemental level, and their stories, as told by James Baldwin, detail the ingenious and often desperate ways in which they try to keep their heads above water.

Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, Silver Sparrow revolves around James Witherspoon's two families - the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode when secrets are revealed and illusions shattered. As Jones explores the backstories of her rich yet flawed characters - the father, the two mothers, the grandmother, and the uncle - she also reveals the joy, as well as the destruction, they brought to one another's lives.

Loving hard doesn’t do anyone any good when the love isn’t reciprocated. If Rondo Simpson could have a do-over in his love life, he would jump at the opportunity. The woman he’s loved for over ten years has committed the ultimate betrayal and has convinced him that love just isn’t in the cards for him. Even attempts at love before her seemed to be one-sided and left him heartbroken. However, unexpectedly, the type of woman he’s been longing for walks into his life when everything is in disarray, stealing his attention from the word go.

How far would you go to see justice done? How far is too far? For Madisun, the answer is simple. There are people in this world who need killing, and she's just the woman for the job!

Seth Garrett's family taught him that anything less than the best simply isn't an option. Now he's out to prove he can be the most successful Garrett - and Rachel McNeal fits the bill. She's pretty, hard-working, good in bed - and willing to finance his dreams. He thinks she's perfect wife material - until he meets her relatives and discovers they're far from perfect. No problem, Seth's got a replacement lined up to give him the good life he's entitled to...

Kimera Davis finds comfort in dating married men. It's easier that way. Her needs are taken care of, and she doesn't have to give more of herself than she wants to. No messy feelings involved. But when the man she's seeing poses an unexpected question, Kimera quickly realizes she's not the only woman pulled in by his charm. Their new arrangement doesn't require much from Kimera, but she soon discovers someone else is pulling the strings. She's not looking for complications, yet she can't help feeling there's something devious at play.

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Essence® best-selling authors Kiki Swinson and De’nesha Diamond are two rising stars in the world of urban fiction. Heist presents two novellas starring young women hustling their way to the top of the game through daring robbery schemes. In Swinson’s The Ultimate Heist, pampered Shannon Marshall is accustomed to a big-money lifestyle. Her world is shattered, however, when her man is thrown into prison for gun running.

Cassandra, grandniece to Woodson and Ivy Lisle, is a college student caught up in the highly charged atmosphere of the days following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. When the granddaughter of Woodson and Ivy's friends goes missing, Cassandra is sucked into a dangerous mystery that threatens to expose long-buried secrets and jeopardize the life of anyone who asks too many questions.

It's been a year since Binti and Okwu enrolled at Oomza University. A year since Binti was declared a hero for uniting two warring planets. A year since she found friendship in the unlikeliest of places. And now she must return home to her people, with her friend Okwu by her side, to face her family and face her elders. But Okwu will be the first of his race to set foot on Earth in over a hundred years, and the first ever to come in peace.

With a newborn in tow, Bubbles Jones escapes a brutal sanctuary for “wayward girls” to confront the hypocritical shame of her pastor father and the betrayal of a lover. But Bubbles is accompanied by a woman who offers her shelter and a dream. Forging an unpredictable path ahead, Bubbles will not yield and will not hide in her unwavering commitment to make a big life real in a world determined to keep her small.

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Georgina Wilcox, a wallflower with hidden musical talents, is furious when her reclusive older sister—the recently widowed Viscountess—refuses sorely needed help from the Duke of Torrance, the only gentleman who has shown kindness to the bereft Wilcox sisters. Georgina decides to get back at her sister and shock the Viscountess by kissing the first willing stranger she meets in the enchanting gardens of Anya House. Unfortunately, her sister is not the sole witness. A group of reporters and the ton's leading gossips catch Georgina in a passionate embrace with a reticent composer.

Before there was E.L. James’s 50 Shades of Grey, there was Zane’s Addicted. Once described as “the hottest paperback in the country” by The New York Times and now a major motion picture, this wildly popular novel by the Queen of Erotica follows one woman’s life as it spirals out of...

Blossom Baker has watched her sisters find love one by one. And just when she began to wonder when her Prince Charming would show his face, Roman Fields entered the picture, helping to bring all of her deepest desires to fruition.

Dash Everly aka D-Roc, to his fans, is living his dreams. Growing up in the projects wasn't easy, but the scars of his past fueled his drive for success. It's all falling into place, but something's missing. Some unexpected news leads him back to the woman who left a mark on his heart all those years ago. He's determined to stake his claim regardless of her circumstances.

Genevieve Francis, a 25-year-old Black reporter, assumed she’d go into her fourth year at her newspaper job with a bigger story than the latest seasonal ice cream flavor. Instead, she’s relegated to doing copy edits and sensitivity reads on the articles her white colleagues write. So when Gen finally gets the opportunity to cover a prominent CEO’s gala, she leaps at the chance—this will be her biggest assignment to date. The only problem: The CEO is her ex, Jude, whose marriage proposal she publicly rejected four years prior.

Three years after narrowly escaping a one way trip to the gas chamber, the fugitive known only as Animal finds himself drawn back to the scene of the crime: Harlem. Throughout his entire time in exile, the only thing that kept Animal going was the thought that he would one day be reunited with his soul mate, Gucci - but one bullet changed everything. When his enemies tried to murder Gucci, they crossed the line, so he vowed to cross them all.

Tony Wacko and his beloved Camarih return for one more go-round of endless drama. Although the couple has proven time and time again that their bond is unbreakable and not to be toyed with, jealous old lovers, lovesick flings, and confident newcomers seem to have a hard time getting the message. Dating a man in an industry where women constantly throw themselves at him is hard for any woman to deal with. While most simply chalk it up to being just a part of the game, Camarih refuses to accept such, taking things into her own hands.