Book picks similar to
Daughter of the Game by Kai


urban-fiction
black-authors
fiction
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The Replacement Bridesmaid


Laurie Ralston - 2012
    But she has no purpose, nothing to do. She is resigned to this safe and boring existence when she gets a chance to chuck it all for just a little while and run off to Ireland to be a replacement bridesmaid.Once in Ireland, her old dreams and aspirations come back to her, and so does love. Jill rediscovers herself and ends up finding herself having do choose between her old safe life, or her new risky life and the possibility of heartbreak - or love and fame.Authors note: The first edition of this book had a multitude of mistakes, but this version has been professionally proofread. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did dreaming it up.

Blind Ambitions


Lolita Files - 2000
    The place people go to fulfill their dreams. But its reality is a cruel one: Opportunities are few and the competition ruthless. Innocent hearts can suddenly turn dark, and the most loyal of friends can become bitter enemies. Desi, Sharon, and Bettina are three black women struggling to make names for themselves amid the glitz, glamour, and deception. Before each woman can be swept away by the intrigue and intensity of the entertainment industry, they must answer to the desperate calls from the ghosts of their pasts. But if they do, will the shadows of infidelity, abandonment, and murder destroy everything they've worked for?

All I Want is Everything


Daaimah S. Poole - 2007
    Poole took readers on a wild, sexy ride with her novel Ex-Girl to the Next Girl. Now in All I Want is Everything we meet a young woman with a hot voice and superstar dreams... Talented Kendra Michelle Thomas always dreamed of becoming a singing sensation. At high school talent shows, she moved people to tears. Everyone thought she'd be the next Mariah Carey. But between Kendra's father abandoning her mother, her mother's alcoholism, and a tragedy that lands Kendra and her siblings in foster care, there's not much opportunity for making dreams come true. Before Kendra knows it, she's twenty-five-years-old, working as a bartender, and trapped in a relationship of convenience. She knows something's gotta give... Determined to break into the industry, Kendra takes her small savings and makes a demo. Her gift and personality soon get her a manager, a series of gigs, and finally a recording contract- plus a check fat enough to move her family into a house, and then some. But when a turn of events lands her right back where she started from, she'll have to make a choice: sink back into obscurity- or discover what she's really made of...

Before I Let Go


Darren Coleman - 2004
    Nate is a D-O-G with an obsession for conquering as many women as possible. But when he breaks his own rules and falls for two women at the same time, all hell breaks loose. Brendan is the type of man every woman claims to want -- at least until she gets one. Will he ever find a woman as sweet as he is, or is he doomed to be the poster child for "Good Guys Who Love Bad Girls"? Cory is successful, smart, and handsome. He's never gotten over his first love, and when he moves back to his hometown, he has to face secrets and make decisions that will change his life forever. Before I Let Go is a sizzling, entertaining tale of how men come to terms -- in the most startling ways -- with lust, love, and life.

The Circle: The Beginning


Ashley Antoinette - 2013
    A family of criminals at the highest level. On the eve of their exile from the life of crime...It all goes bad. These brothers and sisters ho on the run from the law and are on a wild run to the border before they authorities capture them. This page turning, face paced, and sexy short gives you the introduction to a legendary series.

Unfaithful


Devon Scott - 2008
    He's smart, successful, happily-married-and has the best of everything. But ambitious business executive Ryan can't stop thinking about the woman he can't have: Olivia. She's his friend, his co-worker...and his best friend Miles's wife. It only takes one irresistible moment, one luscious taste, to ignite their relationship into an insatiable fire... CAN BECOME YOUR WORST NIGHTMARES... But Ryan's erotic fantasies are slowly unraveling his career, marriage, and friendships as he discovers his mind-blowing tryst was nothing more than a treacherous charade. Now his obsession and sexual escapades threaten to ruin all he's worked so hard for, trapping him deeper into a web of illicit desire, deceit, and danger...

Single Ladies


Blake Karrington - 2013
    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!!!

Carl Weber's Kingpins: Philadelphia


Brittani Williams - 2015
    The third installment continues with veteran Urban Books author Brittani Williams. Dontay had it rough growing up in the projects with a mother who forced him to become a man at the young age of fifteen. His father was a rolling stone, having multiple children with many women. He always fought for his father’s attention, until taking his spot became more important than gaining his love. Now Dontay is the leader of one of the most successful and most feared drug organizations in the city of Philadelphia. From the outside looking in, he appears to have it all—tons of money, respect, and women falling at his feet—but it all comes with a hefty price. He meets Desire, a biracial beauty, and instantly vows to make her his queen. Unfortunately, trouble is lurking, and Desire may not be the woman she claims to be. A war ensues with a rival drug gang, and Dontay reigns supreme, but he begins to lose the tight grip that he has on his organization as he struggles to find the person responsible for leaking details of his activities to the feds. With jealousy, envy, and revenge as motives, one of his most trusted understudies moves forward with a plan of takeover that quickly leaves Dontay without the things that he’s worked his whole life to attain. In this fast-paced tale of deceit, nothing is what it seems, and Dontay learns that even his own family can’t be trusted. Filled with drama, lies, sex, and police corruption, Carl Weber’s Kingpins: Philadelphia makes it clear that even for a kingpin, more money means more problems.

Strongholds (The Blessed Trinity Series, #2)


Vanessa Davis Griggs - 2008
    . . When Pastor George Landris, the dreadlock-wearing minister of the new mega-church, Followers of Jesus Faith Worship Center, urges his congregation to approach the altar and cast off their strongholds--also known as their weaknesses--it's the start of intense soul-searching for many.From a married couple's twin addictions to gambling and gluttony, to a female member's adulterous affair, a computer expert's obsession with cyber-porn and a therapist's workaholism, the Pastor's church family is about to open the proverbial floodgates. And that's just the beginning. There's also the woman whose battle with mental illness hides a buried trauma, and the religious devotee who's so busy fearing the devil she's forgotten what faith is really about. The plot only thickens when the Pastor's wife lightens his load by helping him counsel--and finds herself at the center of a decades-long deception.Insightful, witty, and always poignant, Vanessa Davis Griggs delivers another compelling novel, taking readers behind the scenes of mega-churches, and showing the amazing power that redemption and faith can have on people's lives.

Helltown: A Horror Novel


Stephen Bentley - 2015
    It's nothing like the suburb you might live in . . . Unless, that is, an insane, Listerine-guzzling Realtor sold you your house? Or perhaps your postman happens to have a disturbing relationship with his claw hammer? A grieving Dan LaBarbara knows something is different in Helltown as soon as he comes back home. Yeah, sure, the town always been a little off. You can feel that about the place, like if you stepped into a house whose only occupants were freshly murdered corpses in an upstairs bedroom. But this is something else entirely. Standing in his little brother Barbie's basement workshop, holding one of those dioramas Barbie's been building since the accident, the ones that seem to move when you hold them, Dan can feel Barbie's terror. Barbie must know something is coming, something big, something evil. He's trying to warn Dan in the only way he knows. Why else would Barbie build a diorama depicting a man-sized version of a cartoon rabbit with bloody teeth about to devour a trembling teenager? Why else would he spend so much time crafting an intricate model of Death standing over a pimply teenager in the school library? And let's not even talk about that little model of the mob of undead surrounding the massive tower of vicious black spines behind the high school. Hilltown has a story to tell, and the lonely brain-damaged man who builds magical dioramas in his basement workshop has been telling it all along. As the evil closes in around them, Dan and his new love interest Jessica must do the impossible: save everyone one in Hilltown before it's too late.

Keyshia and Clyde


Treasure E. Blue - 2008
    Blue–acclaimed author of Harlem Girl Lost and A Street Girl Named Desire–is back with a heartbreaking urban love story of two star-crossed lovers up against the dirtiest dealer Harlem has ever seen.Knocked up by a Southern preacher, Keyshia is sent to live with her aunt in New York, but after a horrific act of violence, the timid young woman becomes ice-cold–turning tricks and finding comfort in a crack vial.Clyde and his two brothers find themselves living with a family friend after their mother is shot by their own father–leaving her institutionalized and unable to communicate, and him behind bars. Clyde’s older brother leads a decent life, working as a bank manager and trying to keep Clyde off the streets, but Clyde’s younger bro is the coldest killer in Harlem and takes every opportunity to involve Clyde in his infamous robberies-turned-blood baths.When Keyshia and Clyde meet, they are instantly drawn to each other. Forced to pay back a large sum of cash to one nasty Harlem kingpin or risk the lethal consequences, Keyshia and Clyde use their tight game and their loyalty to pull off the impossible. And when Clyde is falsely accused of a bank hit, Keyshia vows to stick by her man–no matter the cost.Praise for Treasure E. Blue’s A Street Girl Named Desire:“Treasure Blue continues and solidifies his position as the true heir to Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines. A book full of gritty realism, violence, drug abuse, and hope; the book is simply off the damn hook!”–African American Literary Book Club “Drenched in drama, drugs, vengeance, power, pain, envy, love and hope . . . all the elements needed to satisfy [the] desire for a good read.”–Urban Reviews

Strawberry Mansion: A Philadelphia Story


Julia Press Simmons - 2008
    When she stabs him and flees to her mother’s house with her three-year-old daughter, she thinks it’s finally over. Unfortunately, the drama has just begun! “Will she find the courage to leave him for good? And will he let her?” Lisa Perkins, seventeen, is the “strong one,” or at least that’s what Tabitha and Shanice think. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. When she leaves her home after her mother refuses to believe that her stepfather has raped and impregnated her, she thinks that distance will solve everything. She finds that she couldn’t be more wrong. Shanice Thomas, fourteen, is giving teenage rebellion a whole knew meaning. Her mother recently found Christ, and the party that was Shanice’s life is apparently over. Thrust into situations she isn’t equipped to handle, Shanice suddenly finds herself learning painful new lessons about the consequences of sleeping around.Strawberry Mansion: A Philadelphia Story is fierce fiction peppered with urban grit! It not only explores the girls’ struggles in vivid detail, it highlights their loyalty, love, and kindness for each other! You won’t be able to put this book down!

Spoiled Rotten


Brandi Johnson - 2008
    She thought she was better than everybody, or rather you thought it. But remember the day you found out that she lived in the projects/ghetto/hood just like everybody else? You were shocked, and now less envious of her, knowing she came from exactly where you did. Well, Trouble is that chick! Spoiled rotten by her brother, who has a complex occupation, and her boyfriend, the star B-ball player at their high school being sought after by colleges across the map who don't mind lacing him with SUVs and putting money in his pocket to sway him towards attending their university to play ball--Trouble seems to have it all. And what she doesn't have, she manages to get. But unlike some of the chicks in these other street lit tales; she doesn't have to use her body to get things. She uses the ghetto diva attitude that makes people believe she deserves the best and therefore they do back flips trying to provide. This urban novel has a completely different twist than any other written thus far. In Trouble's journey, she loses her brother, who she is closer to than bark on a tree, and feels as though it's the end of the world. But when she finds out that the person who murdered him had once tried to get with her, a huge scheme comes to mind in order for her to seek revenge. She pretends to like her brother's killer in order to get him right where she wants him, but her plan backfires when something happens that she never saw coming. She falls in love with her brother's killer.

BFF'S: Best Frenemies Forever Series


Brenda Hampton - 2014
    With enough backstabbing, finger-pointing, and disrespect to go around, this trio sticks to their motto of "What she can do, I can do better; and whatever she has, I want a piece of it too." Much competition is thrown in the mix, and jealousy is so thick that there will be no place for anyone to run when the mess hits the fan. Only then will they attempt to put their many differences aside, but when severe damage is already done, it may be possible to forgive, but certainly not to forget.

Diary of a Mistress


Miasha - 2006
     Monica counts her blessings -- she has a husband who is not only devoted to her but is also committed to being a strong, caring father to their twin sons. When Carlos surprises her with an unforgettably romantic getaway, Monica knows her husband is still very much in love with her -- and she with him. But an unexpected package threatens to change everything Monica's ever believed about her husband. Angela has adopted a sex-them-and-leave-them attitude toward the married men she's bedded over the last five years. Then she met Monica's Carlos. Now she will stop at nothing to get him for herself -- even if that means destroying her own life and another woman's family.