Book picks similar to
The Way It Is by Nicole Jackson


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urban-fiction
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Sins of Thy Mother


Niki Jilvontae - 2015
    Come on this emotional roller coaster with the Lewis sister's and find out whether the sins of a mother can be visited upon her child.

The Conglomerate


Danielle Santiago - 2014
    Best friends since childhood they have experience highs, lows, and everything in between together. Evan is one of the country's most sought after wedding and event planners. Cee is an a-list celebrity hair stylist. Joey is the East Coast's most popular female club promoter. Combining their talents they form The Luxe Group Conglomerate. At the height of The Conglomerate's success a series of mysterious fatal events. It is soon discovered that the secret past of one of the girls has come back to haunt them. In this tale of luxury, betrayal and lies, the girls friendship is put to the ultimate test. Lives are forever changed as the future of their lucrative conglomerate hangs in the balance.

Rise of an American Gangstress


Kim K. - 2012
    But when havocenters the picture and the Feds seize her family's ill-gotten gains,Fancy's lavish Caribbean trips are traded in for cold winter nightsin the heart of the hood.When the gravity of Fancy's situation causes her to crumble, it'sher roots that put her back together. Unwilling to stay down, Fancyrealizes that she was born to hustle, and this American Gangstressis reborn. What emerges is a fierce contender the streets aren'tready for.

It's Like Candy


Erick S. Gray - 2007
    When she falls in love with Eric, one of her victims, all she wants is to find her baby sister, and settle down with her new love. But River soon becomes a prisoner of her dangerous world. And escaping it may cost her more than her life.By the time she turns sixteen, Starr is working for a pimp and turning tricks daily. But when an assault by one of her "dates" lands her in the hospital, Starr meets a woman who wants to help her change her life. Starr's heart is too hardened to believe in second chances, but soon she begins to long for more than selling her body just so she can survive. However the game does not give up its players so easily.Enter Eric's cousin, Yung Slim, fresh out of jail after seven years. He's looking to reclaim the streets and take care of some old grudges. When Yung Slim goes to battle, Eric—torn between his love for River, his ties to his cousin, and the lure of the streets—gets in too deep. When the war breaks out on the battlefield of the streets, who will be left standing?

Treat Me Like Somebody


Nikki Simms - 2015
    In Jazmyn's case the bad outweighed the good .This isn't your ordinary love story. Jazmyn was in love with her boyfriend Prince of four years, but after the constant cheating and being his human punching bag, she is finally fed up. The only problem is she is too scared to leave. Prince is your average pretty boy type. The kind that thinks he can have any woman he wants just with the lick of his lips. He is deadly in love with Jazmyn and won't let nothing or no one get in his way or try to take his girl. That is until Justice Carter comes into the picture. Fresh out the pin and back home to claim what is rightfully his, Justice is a force to be reckoned with. While serving a four year bid, he left to his best friend Diesel who tried to take him for everything he made a name for. But with the help of his brother Harlem they make Diesel wish he never crossed him. Harlem is handling his business and locking down his brothers territory. He has another side to him that nobody wants to meet. After years in therapy, he learns how to control his anger. He is in love with a chick he thinks is too scared to love. But after realizing she's not the woman he thought she was, things get deadly. Samya and Jazmyn are best friends. With a mother as a crack head and a dead beat for a father, Jaz's mother Tuesday takes her in and raises her as her own. She is hard working and don't take no shit but is far from perfect herself. She has secrets and skeletons in her closet so big that she is to scared to tell anyone including Jaz. She is in love with Harlem but even he don't know about her past. Treat me like somebody is filled with drama and suspense. Secrets will be revealed and love will be tested. Will friendship get in the way or will love conquer all?

This Is Life


Shakara Cannon - 2012
    Sequel to This Can't Be Life

Mama, I'm In Love With A Thug


Mercy B. - 2015
    However, nothing ever came of the sparks that had been ignited. Four years and a college degree later, Sanchez is finally ready to stake his claim. Against her mother's wishes, Kamey takes a daring chance on falling in love with a Thug. Drugs, jail, and a slew of deranged side chicks quickly become Kamey's reality. With the odds stacked against her, will her love for a Thug prevail?

It's Either Me Or Her 2: A Side Bitch Story


Tiece - 2016
    With a new hit single out, featuring a sexy rapper by the name of Yung Gunner, she’s certainly making waves of her own. She’s in a good place, and just wants to live drama free while enjoying her life. However, with Brooke using she and Chase’s unborn baby as a ticket back in his life, things can get real ugly at any given time. Chase is feeling good about the decision he’s made. Being with Rayne makes him happy and it keeps him focused. Now all he wants to do is be the hottest producer around, while taking Rayne’s career to the top. And with the signing of Yung Gunner to his record label the only way from here should be up. But dark secrets began to surface that threatens to end his relationship with Rayne and bring his entire empire down. Brooke is quickly learning that she can’t play with fire without getting burned. Skeletons in her closet start falling out all over the place leaving Brooke feeling vulnerable. With her ex-lover, Q popping up in Atlanta things quickly spiral out of control as she attempts to run from her past. There is only one problem with that. Q is not letting her out of his eyesight until he gets what she owes him and some. Will Chase and Rayne hold it together? Or, will Brooke find a way back into his life? Find out what happens when two women are both in a race for one man’s heart in, It’s Either Me Or Her 2.

Every Love Story Is Beautiful, But Ours Is Hood: The Savage Brothers


Jessica N. Watkins - 2017
    They were taught to get money, not fall in love, so they left a wreckage of broken hearts on their road to getting money. Yet, now, as mature men, they realize that you’re not rich until you have something that money can’t buy. And money certainly cannot buy the women that have stolen these brothers’ hard and stubborn hearts. Taye “City” Savage and Akira White’s love story started in the projects. Ten years ago, they met when Akira was only a young girl and City was a grown man getting his hustle started. City and Akira’s bond was strong, and their fate was inevitable, so they thought. However, before their bound could be sealed, life happened. They were torn apart by unimaginable circumstances, and they never saw one another again until a decade later. Yet, by that time, both City and Akira were involved, but they weren’t so loyal to Nova and Davion that they could ignore the passion in their hearts that they still harbored for one another. The only thing that ever mattered to Keandre “Money” Savage was the hustle. He had never fallen in love, not even with his girlfriend of five years, Zoe Moore. Money and Zoe had the typical hood love that involved lots of fussing, fighting, and other women. Yet, Zoe was the only one in the relationship that was in love. Money only kept her by his side because she was the last woman standing. Along the way, he had ruined Zoe with every woman that he cheated on her with, and every lie he told. Now, Money is finally ready to shed his immature ways and settle down. Yet, Zoe finds herself in a desperate state of mind when she realizes that she is not the woman that Money has chosen to settle down with. Shamar Savages’ only love has been his love for art. When his brothers financed his baby, Savage Ink, his only focus was his tattoo shop. Yet, he soon realizes that despite not even wanting it, he was falling for his friend and frequent dip, Taraji Green. However, Taraji had the same mindset as Shamar. Her only focus was becoming the baddest hair stylist in Chicago; not love. The last thing she wanted was a committed relationship with anyone, not even one of the infamous Savage brothers. Sometimes, the last thing a person wants to do is fall in love, but love sucks them in any way. That is exactly what happens with these Savage brothers and the women that adore them. As life always has it, love ain’t that easy to obtain, especially when loving a man that was raised by the streets and whose first love is the hustle. In yet another urban tale by Jessica N. Watkins, death, sex, and chaos leads to unforeseen tragedy and unexpected love.

Love At Last


Sharon C. Cooper - 2016
    After two failed marriages and numerous short-term relationships, she’s ready to wave the white flag and give up on love. Yet, with Christmas quickly approaching, she dreads spending the holiday alone. Will a chance encounter with a handsome stranger make all of her Christmas wishes come true? After thirty years of a nearly perfect marriage, widower Lincoln Richwood struggles to move on with his life. The idea of dating at his age seems daunting … until he meets the vivacious Carolyn Jenkins. Normally a straitlaced kind of guy, there’s just something about the woman that tempts him to walk on the wild side. Opposites attract, but will their differences derail their relationship and keep them from embracing the love they both desire? A Jenkins Family Novella

Married To Ben Frank ("Changes Are Possible")


YungLit - 2011
    Nene does what she wants and gets her money by any means necessary even if that means sleeping with married men , blackmailing or anything else that comes with getting paid. The story starts off with her meeting Tavion " Tone " Smith , one of the cites most notorious Kingpins and she ends up birthing his child. Once they start their family and everything hits the fan Nene finds her self doubting giving Tone the benefit of the doubt. With her daughter by her side will Nene give up on her love for Tone to benefit her and her daughter or will she fall victim of the " Baby Daddy Love " syndrome . Find out in this installment of " Married To Ben Frank "

Bruised - PT 1


Azárel - 2005
    She is a nice girl with an attraction to the wrong types of men. No one seems to understand why she would get involved with a notorious criminal. After settling into a dangerous relationship with Devon, her life takes a drastic change for the worse. Caught between his material gifts and controlling behavior she searches for a way out. The battle to save Carlie from Devon's grip puts the lives of many people in jeopardy. By the time she realizes that force is needed when going up against Devon, it is too late. Carlie's fight to stay alive will keep you on edge. Will she give in? Or die trying?

Keyshia and Cashmere: A Jersey Hood Love Story


Karma Monae - 2015
    And with beauty, education, and a hustler’s ambition, she proved just about everyone who doubted her wrong. Making it to the top wasn’t easy, but with her brother Ru, and his crew behind her, she was destined to make it happen. But she soon learns what goes up must come down and that having a few secrets of her own may just come back and bite her in the ass along with tearing her relationship with her brother apart at the same time.Ru had been raising Keyshia since she was a little girl, ever since their crack head mother ran off and left them for dead. After he steps up and does what he knows best, which is getting money, it’s only fair he takes his right hand man Cashmere with him. But what happens when they both end up facing 20 years in the feds? With his wifey Tandy by his side, Ru is prepared for anything as long as she is riding. But will she ride when she finds out Ru’s been hiding secrets of his own? Cashmere was the hoods hot commodity for as long as he could remember. Fast cars, pretty bitches, and racks of money were nothing new to him. Neither was going to jail. But after getting done dirty by his baby momma, he realizes the only person he ever loved was Keyshia, but being with Keyshia meant betraying his right hand man something he wasn’t sure he wanted to do. What happens when Keyshia’s big secret is revealed, will Cash still want her or will he write her off like all the other bitches who done him dirty?It’s a thin line between loyalty and love, and with secrets on the horizon not everyone is strong enough to make it. Take a ride with the crew in the first installment of “Keyshia and Cashmere: A Jersey Hood love Story”

Diamond Life


Aliya S. King - 2012
    . . Set in the highest ranks of the music industry’s fame machine, Diamond Life is an intoxicating story of love, sex, ambition, money, betrayal, and the surprising realities of making it big. Alex Maxwell’s career as a journalist and celebrity ghost writer is taking off, despite the slightly embarrassing authorship of hip-hop super-groupie Cleo Wright’s memoir. And while Alex’s star is on the rise, it pales in comparison to her husband Birdie’s multiplatinum debut and world tour. Slowly but surely, everything they swore would never happen begins to come true, like leaving Brooklyn for a mansion in suburban Jersey and letting a reality TV crew into their home. Birdie is confronted time and again by the sexy groupies who pursue famous rappers like heat-seeking missiles and he’s forced to make some life-changing choices. Meanwhile, aging rapper Z, in recovery from drug addiction, is too busy trying to repair his marriage to leave much time for his son Zander, newly signed to Z’s label and struggling to maintain his appeal in the wake of a domestic violence scandal with his diva girlfriend Bunny. Record label president Jake is trying to deal with the death of his wife, multiplatinum R&B artist Kipenzi Hill, by drowning his sorrows in alcohol and women. When he meets Lily, a beautiful, quiet waitress, he can’t get her out of his head. But Lily has her own problems to handle and she wants nothing to do with the fame, drama, and baggage that Jake carries with him. This juicy follow-up to Aliya S. King’s Platinum is a scintillating roman à clef that takes readers behind the curtain once again for the real scoop on the biggest players in the hip-hop game—and the first ladies who hold them together.

The Cocaine Princess Part 1


Rio - 2013
    Raised by her father, a ruthless Mexican drug cartel boss, and her mother, a strong-spirited black woman with an MBA from Harvard, it's no surprise that when Alexus graduates from high school text books to kilos of cocaine and heroin, she quickly becomes one of the best to ever do it in the dope game. After her father, Juan "Papi" Costilla, is sent away to federal prison, Alexus soon finds herself in Michigan City, Indiana with her mother, Rita Mae Bishop. With $250,000 in cash and 48 kilos of pure cocaine--stuffed inside large soup cans and smuggled into the country through her family's drug tunnel-- Alexus sets out to build herself a BMF-like drug-dealing ring, utilizing the connections of her numerous lovers to maximize her bankroll. But will she survive the wrath of the Costilla cartel when a portion of it turns against her? Find out in...