African Urban

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 Named a Best of the Year by The New Yorker, Publishers Weekly, Vogue, Elle...

Jada left home at the age of sixteen, running from her own demons and the horrors of physical abuse inflicted by her mother’s boyfriend. She partied hard, and life seemed good when she was with Born, the neighborhood kingpin whose name was synonymous with money, power, and respect. But all his love couldn’t save her from a crack addiction. Jada goes from crack addict and prostitute to survivor and back again before she finds the strength to live for herself and come out on top.

At the end of When the Side N*gga Catch Feelings, Part 1, all hell breaks loose. The two side dudes that Heaven and Treasure have fallen for pretended as if they could play second to another man. Now, their feelings are in the way, secrets have been revealed, and Vegas and Ross are determined to make sure that the outcome is deadly.

In the early 1990s, Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory and his brother, Terry "Southwest T", rose up from the slums of Detroit to build one of the largest cocaine empires in American history: the Black Mafia Family. They socialized with music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, did business with New York's king of bling Jacob "The Jeweler" Arabo, and built allegiances with rap superstars Young Jeezy and Fabolous. Yet even as BMF was attracting celebrity attention, its crew members struck fear in a city.

Yoshi is young, fine, and larcenous. She lives her life playing on men's hearts as well as their pockets. But she learns the hard way that all that glitters isn't gold. Billy, a former high school basketball star, is at the end of her rope with the opposite sex. To her, all men are dogs, so she secretly seeks comfort in the arms of women - until she meets a man who makes her reevaluate her feelings.

In Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, Saidiya Hartman examines the revolution of black intimate life that unfolded in Philadelphia and New York at the beginning of the 20th century. Free love, common-law and transient marriages, queer relations, and single motherhood were among the sweeping changes that altered the character of everyday life and challenged traditional Victorian beliefs about courtship, love, and marriage.

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.

A menace, I was, the duration of my life. Unsure of what was next, who was next, or where I was headed next. The only for-sure shit in my world was my paper and my people. The ice around my heart was still intact, never being penetrated or as much as tapped.

Love should burn slow, but with Ezra "Ethic" Okafor it is always fast and fleeting. After an accidental killing affects Alani, the woman he loves, she thinks he's a monster. Separated by tragedy, the pair endure a loss like nothing they have ever felt, and their connection is impossible to repair. Ethic is reduced to misery and raising his children alone once again. With Morgan in the throes of a passionate love affair and Bella in need of guidance that he can't provide, Ethic is in turmoil. He's failing as a man, and the fingerprint he is leaving on the world is a bloody one.

Miamor is fighting for her life in the belly of the beast. She’s been kidnapped, and she’s staring death in the eye. Is the reign over for the head of the Murda Mamas? Carter is in federal custody and leaves the Diamond empire to Zyir and Mecca. When the past comes back to haunt Mecca and the truth finally comes to light, will the Cartel rise or fall? Breeze is in the clutches of the crazed Ma’tee, and she desperately searches for a way out. Will she escape or die his love slave? The answers are revealed here.

The Dopeman: Memoirs of a Snitch is a complex tale about the life and times of one the biggest drug traffickers the Midwest has ever seen. In the summer of 2009, the FBI has launched an intricate plot to take down one of the most prolific drug organizations, and Seven Smith is their main target. Seven establishes a relationship with an up-and-coming hustler and takes him under his wing. But unbeknownst to Seven, his protégé works for the authorities.

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.

People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn't there. Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father's head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case...

They say when it comes to hood love it’s double or nothing and all is fair when it comes to the streets. Although it may not show up in a fairytale fashion, love shows up when you least expect it. After dealing with a heartbreak, Jania learns the hard way until an unexpected love drops in her lap during one of the most fearful nights of her life. Jania would do anything to get her ex off of her mind just for something to do until she realizes just how official her new love interest proves to be.

When San Francisco Police Officer Mickey Driscoll is gunned down in the driveway of his suburban Bay Area home in broad daylight, the suspects are numerous. Was the murder committed by someone close to him? An arrestee seeking revenge? Or was it one of the many rioters, activists, and militant groups harassing his family since he accidentally shot and killed an unarmed African American honor student? TV investigative reporter Topher Davis, the only Black journalist on that beat, has exactly three weeks to do one final story before his position is eliminated due to corporate budget cuts.

Can a good girl find love in a thug? For Lei Fifer, that’s the hundred-thousand-dollar question. When Lei, an introverted homebody, invites her girls over for a spa day, she isn’t expecting their conversation to shift to men in prison. As an advocate for rehabilitated people receiving the love, companionship, and support those who haven’t committed crimes receive, Lei doesn’t hesitate to put her money where her mouth is and bet that she can find a good friend or great love with someone through the pen pal program her father created.

My name is Kennedy Desiree Carter. I met the love of my life, Damion "King" Carter, five years ago. Back then, you would not have been able to convince me of the way that he would change my life, in good ways and bad. I was a good girl; on my way to college with a high GPA and big dreams of becoming a child psychologist. Yet, as soon as I met King, I also dreamed of being the best rider that any street nigga had ever seen. I was a good girl with a bad boy fetish, and King was the ultimate bad boy that came to love me in ways that I had never felt before.

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.

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.

Remy Morgan, a young girl born and raised in the heart of the ghetto, gets caught up in the life when she meets a drug lord who offers her the world. Young and naive, she is trapped in a game of lies, deception, and greed and learns the hard way that everything that glitters ain't gold. After her love is slain, Remy is forced back into the life that she desperately tried to forget. Remy has kept a diary of her life for the past two years. What she writes inside is a tale of love, passion, money, and secrecy - and ultimately a witness to her tragic end.