American Literature

Meg Pero has been assisting her photographer father since she was big enough to carry his equipment, so when he dies she is determined to take over his profession - starting with fulfilling the contract he signed to serve on an Army survey of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in 1871. What she doesn't realize is that the leader of the expedition is none other than the man she once refused to marry. Captain Ben Coleridge would like nothing more than to leave without the woman who broke his heart, but he refuses to wait even one more day to get started.

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.

Carl Weber is the New York Times best-selling author of Baby Momma Drama and Player Haters. To be a member of the Big Girls Book Club, there's just one requirement: be a size 14 - at least.

Now that she's happily married-for-security, there's nothing Mercedes Crystal won't do to hold on to what she's got. She didn't sweat it when her rich businessman husband had a down-and-dirty ego-boosting affair. But she's not going to stand for him falling in love with luscious Arizona Remington - or Arizona unleashing all kinds of shenanigans to keep him. And Mercedes' take-no-prisoners ways are just what her siblings need to take down all those out to game them.

Light-skinned Selina Standish lives a life of emotional pain and torment. In 1906, at the age of eight, she is convinced by her mother, actress Lavinia Standish, the daughter of a slave, to pass as white. Although Selina yields to her mother's insistence to pass, she refuses to cut ties completely with her Negro relatives, including her twin brother, a child her mother deems too dark. However, at age 17, in the year 1915, Selina meets wealthy Southerner Jack Cosgrove, the man of her dreams. Keeping her ancestry a secret, Selina is conflicted by Jack's negative attitude toward her race.

It's 1876 and Dr. Viveca Lancaster is frustrated by the limits placed upon female physicians of color. When she is offered the chance to set up a practice in the small all-black community of Grayson Grove, Michigan, she leaves her California home and heads east. The very determined Viveca knows all about fighting for her rights. But she may need more than determination to face down the distractingly handsome Nate Grayson, the Grove's bull-headed mayor.

When it comes to love, hate, trust, honesty, lying, cheating, deceit, betrayal, drama, money, power, respect, and backbreaking, limitless, raw, and uncut sex, this monthly urban soap, Single Ladies, takes you to a whole nother level of play. There will be no holding back, no biting of the tongue, and best believe the gloves are coming off when five childhood friends take you through the everyday life of living as a female in the hood. Expect everything...but boredom!

Former "player" Terrell thinks he's got it going on. Then the past comes calling, and suddenly his best prospects are endangered.

In Amanda Skenandore's provocative and profoundly moving debut, set in the tragic intersection between white and Native American culture, a young girl learns about friendship, betrayal, and the sacrifices made in the name of belonging. Told in compelling narratives that alternate between Alma's childhood and her present life, Between Earth and Sky is a haunting and complex story of love and loss, as a quest for justice becomes a journey toward understanding and, ultimately, atonement.

The beloved #1 Essence best-selling authors of Tryin' to Sleep in the Bed You Made now deliver a novel in which you'll meet their most unforgettable characters yet. Carmen, Jewel, and Regina could not be more different. When they meet as freshmen at Columbia University, they're pretty confident that a friendship among them isn't in the cards.

A handsome young tribal warrior and sage, Yikaas has traveled across the sea to hear stories of the Whale Hunter and the Sea Hunter peoples. Around the fire, Qumalix, a beguiling and beautiful storyteller, barely old enough to be a wife, catches the eye of Yikaas, and so begins their flirtation through storytelling, which brings to vivid life tales of the Near River and Cousin River tribes.

Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht—the night his family loses everything. As her child’s safety becomes ever harder to guarantee, Samuel’s mother secures a spot for him on a Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England. He boards alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin.

Justin and Toni were friends. Besties, with a whole list of life rules developed over a friendship that started when they were kids. As long as they stuck to the rules, even when they blended a business relationship into the friendship, things went off without a hitch. But then one of them broke the rules - it was Justin. Justin broke the rules - and Toni has been mad about it ever since.

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!

For months, Mitch Rapp has been steadily working his way through a list of men, bullet by bullet. With each kill, the tangled network of monsters responsible for the slaughter of 270 civilians becomes increasingly clear. He is given his next target: a plump Libyan diplomat who is prone to drink and is currently in Paris without a single bodyguard. Rapp finds him completely unprotected and asleep in his bed. With confidence in his well-honed skills and conviction of the man’s guilt, he easily sends a bullet into the man’s skull. But in the split second it takes the bullet to leave the silenced pistol, everything changes.

When Ian Blackheath and Lucy have an altercation in Emily d'Autrecourt's millinery shop, the lovely Englishwoman is horrified at Blackheath's insensitivity toward his ward. Then Lucy steals a doll from Emily's shop-secreted inside the plaything is evidence of Emily's role as a spy. Accepting Ian's offer that she be Lucy's governess is dangerous, but how else can Emily search for the doll without arousing suspicion?

Stories of Your Life and Others presents characters who must confront sudden change-the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens-while striving to maintain some sense of normalcy. In the amazing and much-lauded title story (the basis for the 2016 movie Arrival), a grieving mother copes with divorce and the death of her daughter by drawing on her knowledge of alien languages and non-linear memory recollection.

Jubal Sackett’s urge to explore drove him westward, and when a Natchez priest asks him to undertake a nearly impossible quest, Sackett ventures into the endless grassy plains the Indians call the Far Seeing Lands. He seeks a Natchez exploration party and its leader, Itchakomi. It is she who will rule her people when their aging chief dies, but first she must vanquish her rival, the arrogant warrior Kapata. Sackett’s quest will bring him danger from an implacable enemy...and show him a life - and a woman - worth dying for.

In a hood loaded with sex, brutality, and crime, three friends are at a turning point. They can surrender to the streets - and the murderous men who rule there - or walk a totally different path. But nothing is simple for women addicted to life on the edge. And everything has consequences.... Angel, Jaz, and Kyra are all leading double lives, torn between working hard to leave the ghetto behind and being dragged back in by the lying, pimping, drug-dealing men they can't seem to let go.

In Secrets of a Side Bitch 2, Simone is struggling to keep together the web of lies that she has woven, all in attempts to be the number one woman in Omari Sutton's life. She continues to pull one devious and demented trick after another to maintain her role as Omari's leading lady. Her tower of lies begins crashing down as intricate parts of her schemes begin to unfold. Chance reemerges, threatening Simone's connection to the murder.