American English Fiction

Gospel comedy queen Pat G'orge-Walker regales listeners with the hilarious antics of Sister Betty and her South Carolina friends, big-hearted Ma Cile and redhaired Sister Connie Fuse. But things don't really start shakin' until on-the-make Deacon Laid Handz, manhungry Sister Carrie Onn, and conniving Reverend Knott Enuff Money get into the act. And yet for all of its rollicking humor, this book is brimming with profound and, at times, pointed truths about church life.

It’s been over a year since The Day. Morgan and his companions have fought to stay alive and he finally managed to get to his parents and bring them back. Their situation is getting better every day, but there are still challenges ahead of them. With a desire to return to a normal life on everyone’s mind, the group starts taking steps to do just that. Thinking bigger they tackle some major projects that will provide valuable resources. However, there are others out there making plans for them as well.

As a child, Hester Wyatt escaped slavery, but now the dark-skinned beauty is a member of Michigan's Underground Railroad, offering other runaways a chance at the freedom she has learned to love. When one of her fellow conductors brings her an injured man to hide, Hester doesn't hesitate...even after she is told about the price on his head. The man in question is known as the "Black Daniel," a vital member of the North's Underground Railroad network.

This hilarious novel describes one year spent on a small university campus in the United States by an Indian student. His English is comically Indian, and his initial notions of America are absurdly inadequate and stereotyped. The theme of the novel is his comic discovery of America and his own growth and maturing through the diverse adventures he encounters.

The Black household is swiftly deteriorating. Frustrated and angry at her prosperous preacher husband's obvious infidelities, Tanya cannot believe the man she once loved has been replaced by this pathological liar obsessed with material wealth.

Essence best-selling author Pat G'Orge-Walker delights millions with her hilarious send-ups of church life. On a road trip, Sister Betty and a gaggle of colorful characters discover what matters most. Sister Betty determines to carry out her friend's last wishes by delivering million-dollar checks to three pastors in Baltimore. Others give chase - hoping to convince her to spread the wealth.

Jessamyn Teoh is closeted, broke, and moving back to Malaysia, a country she left when she was a toddler. So when Jess starts hearing voices, she chalks it up to stress. But there's only one voice in her head, and it claims to be the ghost of her estranged grandmother, Ah Ma. In life Ah Ma was a spirit medium, the avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she's determined to settle a score against a gang boss who has offended the god - and she's decided Jess is going to help her do it.

In a voice both haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri describes her life as a geisha. Taken from her home at the age of nine, she is sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. Witness her transformation as you enter a world where appearances are paramount, virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder, women beguile powerful men, and love is scorned as illusion.

Secular humanism has triumphed. Everything the late Victorians and Edwardians believed would bring human happiness has been achieved: Technology has made it so no one needs to work for a living, the social sciences ensure a smooth-running social order, and, in the name of tolerance, religious beliefs have been uprooted and eliminated except for a single holdout - a largely discredited and rapidly shrinking Catholic Church. Yet people are unhappy.

Set in the 1920s and 1930s, Honolulu explores the stark contrast between the image of the glamorous Hawaiian paradise portrayed to the mainland and the harsh reality of life on the island. With characters as vivid and richly descriptive as the history of Hawaii itself, this novel is sure to enthrall listeners.

Joe doesn't care about politics, or what happened. The grid is down, and every day is a struggle to survive. He just knows his world went to Hell when the EMPs ended life as he knew it. Joe scrambled to hide from all of the craziness, but kept his sanity, and improved his lot in life by reading some witty survival notes that his dead grandma had left him. She'd been a prepper all her life, and she had been close to Joe. Joe grows and learns, but can he survive? Listen to this complete series to find out how a regular guy survives in a post-apocalyptic world.

With his drama-filled marriage behind him, Evan Murdoch has finally found happiness with his longtime friend turned fiancee, Leila Hawkins. But when his party boy brother, Terrence, is seriously injured in a car accident, a gossiping press puts the family back in the spotlight. Soon Terrence could face a lawsuit - and much worse if his vengeful half brother, Dante, has his way. Terrence's only bright spot is journalist C. J. Aston - but is she really on his side, or does she have another motive?

Flight for Life is the heart-stopping account of one of the most gripping rescue missions in African history, told by a doctor involved in saving the lives of Nigerian workers who became victims of a tragic American chemical company explosion. Dr. Stewart and his colleague moved mountains and cut red tape to fly patients to one of the premiere burn centers in the United States.

Kylie Macklin is eager to live a normal life. Freshly moved from Florida to Alabama and finally in remission from cancer, the optimistic nine-year-old is used to dodging her overprotective mom’s warnings. So when a new playmate invites her to hang out, the happy girl thinks nothing of the playground being located in a graveyard for young victims of the Spanish Flu… and a local serial killer.

Lala Reyes’ grandmother is descended from a family of renowned rebozo, or shawl-makers. The striped (caramelo) is the most beautiful of all, and the one that makes its way, like the family history it has come to represent, into Lala’s possession. The novel opens with the Reyes’ annual car trip - a caravan overflowing with children, laughter, and quarrels - from Chicago to “the other side”, Mexico City. It is there, each year, that Lala hears her family’s stories, separating the truth from the “healthy lies” that have ricocheted from one generation to the next.

Set in 1944 Chicago, Edgar Award-winner Naomi Hirahara’s eye-opening and poignant new mystery, the story of a young woman searching for the truth about her revered older sister's death, brings to focus the struggles of one Japanese-American family released from mass incarceration at Manzanar during World War II.

Morgan and his extended family could see the light at the end of the tunnel, dim though it may be. There was the promise of power once again. The plant was being repaired, and it looked as though it may actually run. While it meant lots of hard, sweaty work, the reward was worth the investment. The farm was growing strong, and community involvement was good. People were finally coming to terms with the fact that they needed to work together. So far Mother Nature had been on their side. But that, too, was about to change.

When Louis Trevelyan's young wife meets an old family acquaintance, his unreasonable jealousy of their friendship sparks a quarrel that leads to a brutal and tragic estrangement.

During the civil rights movement, the state of Mississippi created an elaborate spy network. Its mission was to preserve segregation by any means necessary—including voter interference, sponsorship of white supremacy groups, and even murder.

When the body of an anonymous young Hispanic woman dressed as Queen Marie Antoinette is dredged from the Detroit River, the Detroit Police Department wants the case closed out fast. Wayne County coroner Dr. Bobby Falconi gives the woman’s photo to his old pal August Snow, insisting August show it around his native Mexicantown. August’s good friend Elena recognizes the woman immediately. Her story is one the authorities don’t want getting around - and she’s not the only young woman to have disappeared during an ICE raid only to turn up dead a few weeks later.