Book picks similar to
Hold You Down: A Matin Novel by Dominique Thomas


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crime-suspense

Front St. Porter


Nina. - 2020
    Lake being the oldest tries to find a balance between caring for each of his younger brothers and making sure they are secured financially. While Lake and his best friend grind it out, his brothers do not make his position as their leader easy. Dealing with four different personalities and individual internal battles from each of them, Lake with every odd against him tries to be the rock his brothers need. He struggles between being their protector and their enabler while also dealing with his own personal hurdles.

Even Me


Celeste Granger - 2020
    He sees a woman worth loving.Jennifer Williams faces the hardest battle of her life. She is incarcerated in maximum security prison behind the death of her husband, sentenced to life. She resigns herself to the hand fate has dealt her. Jennifer killed her husband. That fact is indisputable. Yet, some things happen that are completely unexpected. A higher court decides to hear her legal case on a clemency petition. Attorney Tareef Ali fights to protect Jennifer in the courtroom. Prison guard, Quinton Miller enters her life. He’s seen her before, even though she’s never seen him. He’s drawn to her even though she’s behind bars. Quinton fights to love her even though Jennifer feels she doesn’t deserve it. A romance begins to brew that neither can deny. But breaking Jennifer’s barriers isn’t easy when she feels love isn’t within her reach.This is a standalone novella with a HEA.Trigger warning: Gratuitous profanity, some violence, detailed sexual encounters

Broken Crayons Still Color 3: The Mirror of Regret


David Weaver - 2021
    

XYZ


Kimille - 2019
    Mastering life’s principal and hellacious course of Hard Knock Life 101 was nothing to eXavier and eZekiel Yarbrough at an early age. Their wisdom and fearless innocence allocated them guardian angels over baby cousin, iYanna. Drug addictions, immorality, abuse, and evil are all cycles that these three have a vivid familiarity with, yet out of the wicked mentalities that assaulted them grew love, loyalty, hope, tenacity and nobility. Despite the licks they gave, as well as took, they found a safe haven in an old head called Diego. A man that knew the streets and the streets respected him. This family has an abundance of dysfunction, but their devotion to each other is unrestricted and immovable! Friends for life. Life has not been particularly kind to Najia Kennedy. She's had to sacrifice more than she's wanted and taken more L's than wins. But somehow, she's managed to stay on her feet with her head held high, all the while searching for where broken hearts go. Love remains elusive as her son's father pops in and out of their lives with empty promises and leftover lies. Najia's friendship with iYanna has withstood the test of time and her shenanigans, as she factors into the equation that is XYZ. Love forever. The streets don't owe him anything. He's taken everything he's wanted by omission or commission. Kreed is a new breed of boss, college educated and street smart. He's the boogeyman in a suit, encompassed in a mystical aura of strength and power that leaves many starstruck. He's so immune to the world around him that he's stunned at the foreign emotions caused by the feather-like thundering of a miniature storm called iYanna. He envisions her as his future, but her family views him as a catastrophic danger to all that they've invested in her. Love and hurt, joy and pain, good times and bad, take all as prisoners. When you have everything you want, is there room for more? When you have nothing, will you accept anything? XYZ is a spicy urban romance with charismatic characters, life altering situations and breathtaking moments that will fascinate you from beginning to end.

Backslide


Keith Thomas Walker - 2017
    That was around the time Kole stepped away from “the Organization,” vowing to never take another life. A tragic accident changes everything. In order to protect Dana, Kole must revive his old lifestyle. And despite her attempts to resist, she finds herself falling for him all over again.

Every Love Story Is Beautiful, But Ours Is Hood 2: The Savage Brothers


Jessica N. Watkins - 2017
    However, nothing in life comes easy and that includes love… especially with so many threatening, dangerous, and deadly obstacles in their paths to protect their family and their women. As soon as City and Akira had a taste of their happily ever after, it was snuffed away by her very own father. How will City avoid the charges that her father is threatening his entire family with in order to be with his woman? He doesn’t even have time to figure it out because he has to focus on clearing the Savage family million-dollar debt to the Columbians. Money finally matured enough to realize that staying with Zoe because of loyalty, was only hurting them both. Yet, now that their relationship is finally over, their drama isn’t. Zoe desperately tries any and everything to get her man back. She can’t stand the thought of him being with Bliss, but little does she know, Bliss wants nothing to do with him. Shamar was ready to stake his claim of the beautiful, Taraji. However, her obsessed, ex, Reggie, has kidnapped her. Shamar has gone from finding love to trying to find out if his woman is dead or alive. Suddenly, a pretty, established young lady falls into Shon’s lap right in the midst of him cleaning the streets of those that were disloyal to the Savage organization. He has never fallen for a woman, and when he finds out that she isn’t who she has portrayed herself to be, he probably never will. In part 2 of Every Love Story Is Beautiful, But Ours Is Hood, these brothers are forced to turn their savage ways up, as they fight to protect their brand and family. Will their relationships survive the constant threats of the streets? Hell, will their family survive?

& Then There Was You


Tay Mo'Nae - 2020
    She was never the one to color outside lines or go against the rules. When Sevyn is suddenly faced with past due bills and eviction she becomes overwhelmed on how to stay above water. What she didn’t expect was to offer to help her with all her troubles, the only problem is it goes against all her morals.Nasir is content in his relationship with his long-term girlfriend. The two of them have an understanding an inviting another partner in the bedroom has never been an issue, until now. When Sevyn joins the couple for one night of pleasure, Nasir instantly becomes attracted to the innocence surrounding her. Soon he begins to question his current relationship and finds it hard to stay away from Sevyn. While Sevyn tries to fight the brewing desire she has for Nasir, he embraces it. What neither of them counted on was a fatal encounter that could take the both of them out before they even begin.

A Hitta's Love: Wise And Nylah's Story


Jewelz - 2017
    The owner of a known Car Wash, Wise encounters Nylah for the first time and every time thereafter she has him literally stuck. Tired of fighting his feelings for her he tries his luck only to be thwarted at every turn by his messy baby mama, Kawana. Kawana is the baby mother from hell. She lost custody of their daughter, Yokima after a serious lapse in judgment and as a result, she loses any financial claim to Wise's money. Kawana isn’t going for that and will do whatever it takes to get what she wants. Nylah, a nurse at the hospital, initially meets Wise at his car wash but later in the Club, the sparks immediately fly. She is still tied up with her current boyfriend, Vince but her heart left a long time ago. Now she just has to figure out how to get Vince to let her go and move on to what could possibly be her happily ever after. Sarah, Nylah's best friend moved to New Orleans to escape her boyfriend of 5 years. She wants to make a clean break from Taybo to pursue something with a new man who has caught her eye, Emir. But like they say, love just isn't that simple. Will Everyone get what or who they want or will they all fail and things end how they never expected it? Find out in A Hitta's Love.

Khiaere and Phy: A Charleston Love Story


Mel Dau - 2020
    

CRE: Cash Rules Everything


Dak - 2020
    

King & Queen of the Hood 3


Shvonne Latrice - 2021
    

She From The Gutta 2


BriAnn Danae - 2018
    For so long, he had his mind set on gaining Harlem's trust back, yet she became the one thing he despises the most; a liar. With both of their lives on the line and a new love interest on the scene, Enzo must now be the one to make a choice. Hoping that it can right all his wrongs from the past. From pen pals to secret lovers, Lucci and Yaz find themselves at odds. While locked up, he found solace in their intimate phone conversations and letters. Their bond formed a solid friendship, but now lines are blurred. Though Yaz swore their first sexual encounter would be the last, Lucci proves, unwaveringly, how much pull he has in Yaz' life and her makeshift relationship. While sacrifices are made, are they worth pushing the love Harlem yearned for to the side? The finale of She From The Gutta is a tale of overcoming unfortunate circumstances, burying your past demons, and taking losses because, in the end, they're really a lesson learned. The type of lessons that can only be taught by life's never-ending struggle to survive.

Foolish: A Standalone Novel


Danielle Marcus - 2017
     Love is the most powerful drug known to man. It was toxic; especially, when you gave it to the wrong person. Love had the power to have you staying up all night and missing meals. Love could have you sacrificing your own happiness for the sake of another's. Love had the power to blind you. Rita has sacrificed it all for her boyfriend, Victor, thinking that he would FINALLY wake up and realize that he had her entire soul and she would ride with him until the wheels fell off. But how much is too much? Will loving a man suck everything out of her... including her life? Jaycee and Meech had been together since they were teenagers. Meech was all she knew. However, after becoming fed up with being lied to and cheated on, she seeks out for revenge. Jaycee wants Meech to hurt as bad as she has been hurt. But, when the dust settles, will the repercussions of her revenge be worth it?

Fallin For A Youngstown Boss: A Novella


Chante Amor - 2018
    Slated to go to law school in the fall, she’s completely on her A game with nothing stopping or holding her back. That is until she meets a sexy, young hustler named Thurston Franklin. Her world as she knows it is never the same. His entrance into her life turns her world upside down in a good way and forces her to examine the way she lives her life. Thurston Franklin has worked hard to get to where he is in life and a once in a lifetime opportunity falls in his lap that will forever change life as he knows it. But being involved in this newfound partnership proves to be a conflict of interest and he soon finds himself torn between following his head or following his heart. Will Parrish follow the beat of her heart and give love a try or will she allow her goals to drive her away from the very thing she’s needed all along? Will Thurston choose money and status, or will he allow himself to go in a different direction for once? Follow Parrish and Thurston on a journey of love, passion, self-discovery and loyalty in a thrilling novella penned by Chante.

Tasha's Story


Lakelia "BlackByrd" DeLoach - 2016
    The ones who drink and smoke while carrying a new life, the ones who take them to court every chance they get to raise their child support? What about the ones who don’t let them see their children, who turn their children against them or who hate their children because daddy doesn’t want or love her? Yeah, you know them and you wonder just like we all do. Having a messy baby momma has got to be the worst thing in the world if you ask many. But then again, some men are just as messy. In this five book series you will meet some very messy baby mommas’; each book telling one of their stories. The stories of the ones who are not happy to be a baby momma and want more and the ones who shouldn't have been a mother in the first place. These five women like to keep up as much drama as humanly possible. There is nothing they won’t do, no where they won’t go and no measures they won’t take to make their baby daddies and the people in their circle lives a living hell. Some feel they are entitled to what they want, some just don’t want to see their baby daddies happy and others just want what’s fair. This five-part series will give you the trials, tribulation, drama, and mess of each woman. These are the stories of Tasha, Brit, Armani, Q and Salena.