What happens when rising stars collide?In And This Too Shall Pass, Harris takes us into the locker rooms and newsrooms of Chicago, where four lives are about to intersect in romance and scandal. At the heart of the novel is the celibate Zurich, a rookie quarterback for the Chicago Cougars whose trajectory for superstardom is interrupted by a sexual assault charge by Mia, a sportscaster with her own sights on fame. With his career in jeopardy, Zurich hires Tamela, a high-powered attorney, to defend him, while Sean, a gay sportswriter, covers the story and uncovers his heart. All of these characters face the challenge of keeping the faith--in themselves and in God--while Harris's heartfelt storytelling reveals how the love of family can help one to face the terrible legacy of long-held secrets. Throughout these characters' search for self-knowledge, Harris weaves the stories of MamaCee, Zurich's grandmother, whose lessons of faith teach one and all that "this too shall pass." Breaking new ground in contemporary fiction, And This Too Shall Pass entertains and affirms with its stirring message about the healing power of family and faith.

    No matter how hard he works at his job at UPS, it is never enough to take care of himself and his long-term girlfriend. After continuous pressure from his older cousin, Ching, Omari finally traded in busting his ass for working under Ching hustling three major blocks on the Westside. All is good as Omari juggles work and the drug game. That is, until Ching involves him in the murder of, who ends up being, the Governor’s nephew. As he dodges homicide detectives, Omari is also trying to dodge getting caught between two loves. He’s been committed to Aeysha for seven years, but is falling each day for Simone, an older more established woman who is at his every beck and call. After years of playing the side chick, Simone finally finds love that she thinks is all her own. Just as she settles into loving Omari, she finds out about Aeysha and her desperate mind begins to plot on how to finally win her man. Simone’s best friend, Tammy, thinks Simone is crazy as she herself is running from an obsessed ex-boyfriend who is persistent in trying to kill her. Tammy lives in hiding for months as she asks herself this burning question; how can a man love a woman with the same hands that he is willing to kill her with?As the murder investigation leads to arrests, the walls come down on these lovers. Murder, sex, and indictments lead to unforeseen tragedy and unexpected love.

    This book takes a look at the lives of these three street-smart women who think they know it all, but are about to get the lessons of their lives.

    Sugar moves next door to Pearl, who is still grieving for the daughter who was murdered fifteen years before. Over sweet-potato pie, an unlikely friendship begins, transforming both women's lives--and the life of an entire town.Sugar brings a Southern African-American town vividly to life, with its flowering magnolia trees, lingering scents of jasmine and honeysuckle, and white picket fences that keep strangers out--but ignorance and superstition in. To read this novel is to take a journey through loss and suffering to a place of forgiveness, understanding, and grace.  McFadden is the author of the novels Gathering of Waters, Glorious, and This Bitter Earth.

    Jay Crawford has spent too long paying for a crime he didn't commit. For ten years, he's been in prison, waiting for the right opportunity to prove his innocence. But when his family is threatened, the time for waiting is over. Jay just didn't realize that escaping would be the easy part... To get justice, he'll need the help of the three best friends who have always had his back -- Wil, Kyle and Allan. But how long will Allan let Jay stay in his house if his new wife seems to prefer the sexy ex-con sleeping on their couch? And does helping Jay mean Wil finally gets pulled into the not-exactly-legal Duncan family business? As Kyle finds his loyalties -- and his finances -- stretched to the limit, who will he have to sacrifice? A man on the run requires absolute trust, but Jay might just be setting himself up for the ultimate betrayal...

    Being the first person in her family to gain a high school diploma, she has set the tone for greatness. But her prominent future becomes so nebulous that she turns to the streets for guidance and support. She soon realizes that the ''life'' of fast money and frivolous behaviors has not only plagued her, but other family members as well, suffering the same issues that were handed down for generations. In spite of her failed attempts to overcome her problems, she's determined to triumph once again.

    Benji Cooper is one of the only black students at an elite prep school in Manhattan. He spends his falls and winters going to roller-disco bar mitzvahs, playing too much Dungeons and Dragons, and trying to catch glimpses of nudity on late-night cable TV. After a tragic mishap on his first day of high school—when Benji reveals his deep enthusiasm for the horror movie magazine Fangoria—his social doom is sealed for the next four years. But every summer, Benji escapes to the Hamptons, to Sag Harbor, where a small community of African American professionals have built a world of their own. Because their parents come out only on weekends, he and his friends are left to their own devices for three glorious months. And although he’s just as confused about this all-black refuge as he is about the white world he negotiates the rest of the year, he thinks that maybe this summer things will be different. If all goes according to plan, that is. There will be trials and tribulations, of course. There will be complicated new handshakes to fumble through, and state-of-the-art profanity to master. He will be tested by contests big and small, by his misshapen haircut (which seems to have a will of its own), by the New Coke Tragedy of ’85, and by his secret Lite FM addiction. But maybe, with a little luck, things will turn out differently this summer.In this deeply affectionate and fiercely funny coming-of-age novel, Whitehead—using the perpetual mortification of teenage existence and the desperate quest for reinvention—lithely probes the elusive nature of identity, both personal and communal.

    Recognizing this as a chance to start over, Charley and her eleven-year-old daughter, Micah, say good-bye to Los Angeles.They arrive just in time for growing season but no amount of planning can prepare Charley for a Louisiana that’s mired in the past: as her judgmental but big-hearted grandmother tells her, cane farming is always going to be a white man’s business. As the sweltering summer unfolds, Charley must balance the overwhelming challenges of her farm with the demands of a homesick daughter, a bitter and troubled brother, and the startling desires of her own heart.Penguin has a rich tradition of publishing strong Southern debut fiction—from Sue Monk Kidd to Kathryn Stockett to Beth Hoffman. In Queen Sugar, we now have a debut from the African American point of view. Stirring in its storytelling of one woman against the odds and intimate in its exploration of the complexities of contemporary southern life, Queen Sugar is an unforgettable tale of endurance and hope.

    In the late `80s and early `90s, the crack epidemic swept through inner city communities like the plague. Mothers abandoned their children and took to the street for a hit. Fathers sold everything they owned to get a taste. The crackhead was rampant. Some neighborhoods were never the same. Enter Laci Johnson, a privileged, smart, beautiful teenage girl from across town, who teams up with The South Bronx Bitches - an infamous girl group known for chasing men and money. When the SBB becomes envious of Laci they devise a plan to destroy her life. Finding love in the most unexpected of places, Laci turns to a local drug dealer to help save her and heal the wounds of her new addiction.

    She is an outsider wherever she goes, caught between being black and white, American and not. She tries to connect these dislocated pieces of her life, and as her mother succumbs to cancer, Thandi searches for an anchor—someone, or something, to love. In arresting and unsettling prose, we watch Thandi’s life unfold, from losing her mother and learning to live without the person who has most profoundly shaped her existence, to her own encounters with romance and unexpected motherhood. Through exquisite and emotional vignettes, Clemmons creates a stunning portrayal of what it means to choose to live, after loss. An elegiac distillation, at once intellectual and visceral, of a young woman’s understanding of absence and identity that spans continents and decades, What We Lose heralds the arrival of a virtuosic new voice in fiction.

    With beautiful homes, fulfilling careers, and two adoring husbands, their joy could not be greater, their worlds could not be richer. But suddenly, shattering truths about the loving men they thought they knew turn happiness into anguish and rage. For Karen and Regina, nothing they believed in or cherished can ever be the same as it was.Yet, in the painful process of starting over, new doors will open, and two women who once had it all will rediscover the power of honesty and friendship ... and learn the true scope and meaning of love.

    Original. 15,000 first printing.

    Using her body and beauty has earned her the title, “Project Queen”. She’s got it, and was born to flaunt it! She’s determined to break away from her abusive mother, and leave her impoverished lifestyle far behind.When she begins dating a notorious drug dealer, she assumes all of her problems are over. She couldn’t be further from the truth. She finds out that beauty is only skin deep, and all of the money, spinning rims, and glitter, can come at a violent price.

    Hailed as a masterpiece-the finest work yet by an American novelist of the first rank-this is the mysterious story of a young black man who agrees to an unusual bargain to save the home that has belonged to his family for generations.Walter Mosley pierces long-hidden veins of justice and morality with startling insight into the deepest mysteries of human nature.

    Daddy Long Stroke, is a womanizer. Arrogant and self-indulged, he is what every woman secretly craves in the bedroom—rough, rugged, and ravenous. And he is always happy to deliver. Alexander knows no boundaries when it comes to pleasing a woman, leaving no area untouched, not even her heart—or her wallet. But love is the last thing on his mind. Getting paid, and whetting his sexual appetite are the only things that motivate this salacious gigolo. And any woman trying to claim him finds herself on the receiving end of heartache, tears, and drama. Written in raw, graphic language, Daddy Long Stroke is a cautionary tale of one man’s insatiable thirst for sex and his quest to bed down as many women he possibly can—no matter the costs, and no matter who gets hurt in the process.