African American Mystery Thriller Suspense

Eli "Maestro" Lewis has prepared himself to run the kingdom of Smoke Enterprises. The plan was to allow his father time to rest and live out his golden years with his new love, but someone wanted his father back in the game, and his father, Smoke, was all too happy to show Pittsburgh how he earned his name. They said where there's Smoke, there's fire, and now the city was up in flames. Eli had major problems with that.

Raven loves the night life, chasing women and her next high. Men and women fall under her spell at first sight, but she only has eyes for women. She accepts all shapes, sizes, and forms, for they are mere pawns in the quest to feed her cravings. She has a little secret, though - one that could have catastrophic results for anyone who encounters her, one that could lead Raven into a sticky situation - but her cravings are too powerful for her to resist. Will her little secret come back with a vengeance?

Torn between her proud African-American family and colleagues who still can't deal with diversity, L.A.P.D. homicide detective Charlotte Justice returns to an investigation she once had to leave behind. Thirteen years before, Justice's husband and child were murdered in their own driveway. Now Charlotte is on edge again, bedeviled by bloody memories, a violent incident involving a fellow officer, and a cold case that turns red-hot.

Niles has just returned from eight years of serving his country as a Special Forces sniper. He's looking forward to a consulting job with Dynamic Defense and spending time with his family, including his bipolar mother, Lorna, and his hard-drinking uncle, Willie. What Niles doesn't know is that Dynamic Defense is actually a CIA front. He's not interested in joining them, but they won't take no for an answer.

Just weeks after tracking down a killer known as the Angel of Death, Detective Mike Coletti stands at Mary Smithson’s grave, mourning the woman whose betrayal nearly cost him his life. He’s joined there by Mary’s beautiful half sister, Lenore. Moments later, a gunshot splits the air, placing Coletti on a collision course with the Gravedigger, a killer hellbent on deciphering the secret of life and death. As bodies drop and tensions mount, clues are plucked from the victims, and one thing is abundantly clear—Lenore is the killer’s ultimate target.

Having earned starred reviews and a fervent following for her urban Christian fiction, Leslie J. Sherrod delivers the first in a riveting new series. In Losing Hope, Sienna St. James thinks she’s finally close to getting over her long-lost, globetrotting husband. Or so she thinks. One Tuesday, everything begins to come apart when a succession of strange events - including the mystery surrounding a girl named Hope - brings her past, present, and future into question.

Enzo and Angel are back and this time with a vengeance. Micah was hell-bent on forcing their hands and pushing them back into the lifestyle they'd left behind after Damien Orlando's demise. With time ticking away along with Enzo's desire to keep his career and family intact, he will become the monster Micah accused him of being. Enzo will embrace the darkness that flows freely through his veins and make Micah rue the day he awakened the sleeping giant.

On a cold December evening, Autumn Spencer's twin sister Summer walks to the roof of their shared Harlem brownstone and is never seen again - the door to the roof is locked, and no footprints are found. Faced with authorities indifferent to another missing woman, Autumn must pursue answers on her own, all while grieving her mother's recent death. With her friends and neighbors, Autumn pretends to hold up through the crisis. She falls into an affair with Summer's boyfriend to cope with the disappearance of a woman they both loved.

A successful businesswoman who used to play by the rules. A cautious single mother who never took chances. A gorgeous rebel out of money and almost out of time. Each loves a man unjustly sentenced to long prison terms by former prosecutor Hammond Grey. They've tried every legal remedy to get justice-only to see Hammond climb ever higher up the political ladder and secure himself behind power and privilege. So when Kim, Jayda, and Harley meet in a support group, they've got no options left. It's time for them to launch Plan B.

Knox Baker has been missing for weeks. When his cell phone is discovered in Farah Cotton’s possession, his family wants to know how she obtained it. Always deceitful, Farah quickly devises a clever lie to buy time. The problem is that there is one living person who knows the truth - Eleanor McClendon. Della Baker, Knox’s mother, senses that Farah is lying. To help discern her son’s whereabouts, she calls upon two deadly family members from Mississippi. They waste no time converging on Platinum Lofts to find their lost family member, no matter who they must kill in the process.

For Paris Minton, a knock on his door is often the first sign of trouble. With family like Useless, who needs enemies? Yet trouble always finds an open window, and when Useless' mother, Three Hearts, shows up to look for her son, Paris has no choice but to track down his wayward cousin.

Now that Nate Kenny has ex-wife Monica back in his arms, it's time to give marriage a second chance. Yet those plans are shattered when Nate and Monica are gunned down in their home. Nate recovers, but Monica falls into a coma. When she eventually regains consciousness, she awakens to a world of infidelity, duplicity, and scheming that could once again lead to spilled blood.

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.

Beverly Holland is romantically involved with an older businessman Eric Fox. He gives her everything she craves - except for sexual satisfaction. Frustrated, she picks up sexy stranger Dante at a hotel bar and engages in a steamy one night stand. She unaware of his intentions or the danger she is in from an unlikely source. Eric is a hired killer who murdered Dante's brother. What he hadn't counted on was falling for the gorgeous Beverly and wondering how that might impact his mission.

Born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, Ronnie and Ahli have been raised to do the unthinkable to survive. With their father setting up all of their dangerous hits, the two have easily stolen over $200,000 over the years. Still, they feel a void. They want to live normal lives while they still can. Before they can perform their last job, which their father has promised will get them out of the game for good, a prior hit comes back to haunt them. It leaves their father with his throat slit and the girls in fear for their lives. With no money and no safe place to go, the girls have no choice but to agree to do one last hit.

Raised on the deadly streets of New Orleans, James Johnson is displeased and disheartened by the drug game and the sickness it's inflicting on his race. Unexpectedly, James has befriended America's most wanted and deadliest fugitive, Osama Bin Laden. Now he and Osama have joined forces in an effort to eliminate the nation's drug trade.

Sand Cove is a beautiful secret haven tucked away from the city, entirely off-limits to everyone except for its residents. Sand Cove seems like the picture-perfect place to live, but when Luca Moretti is found dead in his home, FBI agents Tyler and Stanton expose the residents' deepest secrets to find his killer.

A hard-working daddy's girl, Precious Cummings is sure she's going to college. But when her father is murdered, she discovers he lied for years about money they never had - and hid a shocking family secret. Shattered and lost, she starts hangin' with savvy hood chick Keisha - and falls hard for DaVon, LA's most powerful drug dealer. As his new lady, Precious soon gets the best of every luxurious thing - and fast learns the ropes of her lover's lethal hustle.

In this suspenseful Southern tale, we are introduced to King, a Southern born and bred hustler who is determined to take the drug empire handed to him by his father into the legitimate world of the music industry. Little does he know that when the streets birth you, trying to leave can be deadly. King's life is looking good when he meets a beautiful, classy queen.

When Sheriff Mapes is summoned to a sugarcane plantation to find a dead Cajun farmer, he knows who committed the crime. Mapes finds himself powerless, however, when nearly 20 elderly black men confess to the murder. Can justice be served, or will the dead man's brutish father pass judgment his way?