Book picks similar to
Damaged Girls I by Janice G. Ross


contemporary
adult-fiction
african-american
black-authors

Groove


Geneva Holliday - 2005
    This funny, sexy book has something for everyone!

Still Salty 4 (A Ghetto Soap Opera)


Aleta L. Williams - 2013
    Old issues, plus new characters equals more Drama. Can you handle it?Still Salty is the fourth installment of this ghetto soap opera and the drama is more captivating then before. Old issues, plus new characters equals more Drama. Can you handle it?Meet Shoneise and Lisa “double trouble” these two are only out for themselves. They don’t care who they have to cross to get what they want as long as they get it. They are willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. Who will be the casualty that gets caught in their web?Calvin will be released from prison and now it’s time for some payback. His first target is pastor G who will be his next?Will Yay-Yay ever pay the price for shooting her best friend Paris or will karma give her a pass? Will Jazz be able to leave the past behind her and enjoy life with her Ken or will Salt break up their relationship?

BITTER


Shakela James - 2017
    That was the reason I studied so hard in school, didn’t hang out with the popular kids, and didn’t rebel against my parents. When I turned 17 years old and became the Valedictorian of my class, I knew I was on the right track. I was ready to go to college and embark on my journey towards becoming a corporate lawyer. Never in a million years did I think that by the time I was eighteen years old, I would be pushing out a baby. Never did I think my life could change so drastically. I had no degree, no career, no house, and no husband; but I had a daughter. I still remember the night everything changed between us. Or maybe things had already changed, and it was the first time I noticed it. I know for sure that it was the first time I had ever accepted the fact that I was truly just a “baby mama” and Flip had no real plans of making me his wife. I remember feeling so many emotions that night. I was hurt, angry, confused, disappointed, and betrayed. But I was still very much in love. I loved him too much to hate him so quickly, so I resented him and I hated myself for being so naiive. It didn’t take long for that resentment to magnify because once the truth is out, you begin to connect the dots to every lie you’ve ever been fed and it makes you wonder if any of it was ever real. The moment you lose respect for someone, everything changes. The love is still there, but it’s not the same. You become guarded, you become defensive, and sometimes you just want to hurt them the way they hurt you. That’s when they start to call you bitter. I never pictured myself becoming a bitter baby mama, but you know what? Maybe they’re right. Maybe I am bitter but I feel like I have every damn right to be. This is my story.

My Soul Cries Out


Sherri L. Lewis - 2007
    with another man. After confronting Kevin, her husband of two years, Monica discovers he's had a lifelong struggle with homosexuality that began at the age of ten after he was molested by a deacon in the church.For years, Kevin has sought deliverance, crying out to God to make him straight. He explains his deceit by saying that he thought he had truly been delivered when he married Monica, but was afraid to share his past with her for fear she wouldn't marry him. Kevin begs Monica's forgiveness and wants to save their marriage. He is convinced that God has indeed delivered him from the spirit of homosexuality and that the one-time mistake was just his past coming back to haunt him.Their pastor offers them marital counseling, but Monica suspects he's really concerned about maintaining his mega-ministry. The church has grown to 10,000 members since Kevin became the minister of music. When the pastor swears them to secrecy and urges Monica to stay in the marriage, she thinks Bishop Walker isn't willing to risk the potential scandal and church split that would be caused if the truth were leaked to the congregation.My Soul Cries Out is a compassionate look at the issue of Christians struggling with homosexuality and the redemptive power of God to bring deliverance.

Hidden


Catherine McKenzie - 2013
    Two women fall to pieces at the news: his wife, Claire, and his co-worker Tish. Reeling from her loss, Claire must comfort her grieving son as well as contend with funeral arrangements, well-meaning family members, and the arrival of Jeff’s estranged brother, who was her ex-boyfriend. Tish volunteers to attend the funeral on her company’s behalf, but only she knows the true risk of inserting herself into the wreckage of Jeff’s life.Told through the three voices of Jeff, Tish, and Claire, Hidden explores the complexity of relationships, the repercussions of our personal choices, and the responsibilities we have to the ones we love.

Her Name Is Knight


Yasmin Angoe - 2021
    Her Name Is Knight is a propulsive character story and action thriller driven by retribution, passion, strength — and coming to terms with your own true self, regardless of what anyone calls you.

The Men Who Sleep With My Husband


Alicia Coston - 2008
    Conspire with a hitwoman to murder my husband’s lovers.2. Frame my husband for their murders.3. Tell no one and to hell with the church.This is just the beginning of a vengeful to-do list for beautiful pastor’s wife and successful salon owner Lavender Wallace. After all, it’s not every night she finds her husband of almost twenty years, Pastor Quincy Wallace, with a prominent deacon kneeling before him in the pulpit—if only it were in prayer. With God taking entirely too long, Lavender satisfies her growing contempt by teaching her husband a malicious lesson that his faith never could. But trying not to fall for the detective investigating the case of her husband’s disappearing lovers proves difficult for a lonely and scorned wife. Shielding a doting teenaged son from his father’s secrets is even harder. As old lies are exposed and a deadly plot backfires threatening to destroy those she loves most, Lavender is forced to make a life-altering decision—the bible or the bullet?

First Comes Love


Emily Giffin - 2016
      Growing up, Josie and Meredith Garland shared a loving, if sometimes contentious relationship. Josie was impulsive, spirited, and outgoing; Meredith hardworking, thoughtful, and reserved. When tragedy strikes their family, their different responses to the event splinter their delicate bond.   Fifteen years later, Josie and Meredith are in their late thirties, following very different paths. Josie, a first grade teacher, is single—and this close to swearing off dating for good. What she wants more than the right guy, however, is to become a mother—a feeling that is heightened when her ex-boyfriend’s daughter ends up in her class. Determined to have the future she’s always wanted, Josie decides to take matters into her own hands.   On the outside, Meredith is the model daughter with the perfect life. A successful attorney, she’s married to a wonderful man, and together they’re raising a beautiful four-year-old daughter. Yet lately, Meredith feels dissatisfied and restless, secretly wondering if she chose the life that was expected of her rather than the one she truly desired.   As the anniversary of their tragedy looms and painful secrets from the past begin to surface, Josie and Meredith must not only confront the issues that divide them, but also come to terms with their own choices. In their journey toward understanding and forgiveness, both sisters discover they need each other more than they knew . . . and that in the recipe for true happiness, love always comes first.   Emotionally honest and utterly enthralling, First Comes Love is a story about family, friendship, and the courage to follow your own heart—wherever that may lead.

The Canterbury Sisters


Kim Wright - 2015
    Not only has her longtime lover abruptly dumped her, but her eccentric, demanding mother has recently died. When an urn of ashes arrives, along with a note reminding Che of a half-forgotten promise to take her mother to Canterbury, Che finds herself reluctantly undertaking a pilgrimage.Within days she joins a group of women who are walking the sixty miles from London to the shrine of Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, reputed to be the site of miracles. In the best Chaucer tradition, the women swap stories as they walk, each vying to see who can best describe true love. Che, who is a perfectionist and workaholic, loses her cell phone at the first stop and is forced to slow down and really notice the world around her, perhaps for the first time in years.Through her adventures along the trail, Che finds herself opening up to new possibilities in life and discovers that the miracles of Canterbury can take surprising forms.

Tell Everyone I Said Hi


Chad Simpson - 2012
    With all the heartbreaking earnestness of a Wilco song, these eighteen stories by Chad Simpson roam the small-town playgrounds, blue-collar neighborhoods, and rural highways of Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky to find people who’ve lost someone or something they love and have not yet found ways to move forward. Simpson’s remarkable voice masterfully moves between male and female and adolescent and adult characters. He embraces their helplessness and shares their sad, strange, and sometimes creepy slices of life with grace, humor, and mounds of empathy. In “Peloma,” a steelworker grapples with his preteen daughter’s feeble suicide attempts while the aftermath of his wife’s death and the politics of factory life vie to hem him in.  The narrator of “Fostering” struggles to determine the ramifications of his foster child’s past now that he and his wife are expecting their first biological child. In just two pages, “Let x” negotiates the yearnings and regrets of childhood through mathematical variables and the summertime interactions of two fifth-graders. Poignant, fresh, and convincing, these are stories of women who smell of hairspray and beer and of landscapers who worry about their livers, of flooded basements and loud trucks, of bad exes and horrible jobs, of people who remain loyal to sports teams that always lose. Displaced by circumstances both in and out of their control, the characters who populate Tell Everyone I Said Hi are lost in their own surroundings, thwarted by misguided aspirations and long-buried disappointments, but fully open to the possibility that they will again find their way.

Thicker Than Blood


C.J. Darlington - 2009
    She’s putting her past behind her and working hard to build her career as a buyer for a large used bookstore. So far she’s been able to keep her drinking problem at bay, but everything changes when she lands a DUI on her thirty-third birthday. When she’s accused of a crime she didn’t commit at work, she has nowhere to turn. She yearns for her estranged family, especially her younger sister May whom she hasn’t seen for fifteen years. Now the owner of a failing cattle ranch in Elk Valley, Colorado, May couldn’t possibly want a relationship with the big sister who didn’t even say good-bye all those years ago, could she? Soon Christy’s fleeing from her shattered dreams, her abusive ex-boyfriend, and God. Could the Triple Cross Ranch be the safe haven she’s searching for, or will May’s new-found faith give her even more reason to reject Christy?

A Week at the Shore


Barbara Delinsky - 2020
    It's been twenty years since she's been gone—running from the scandal that destroyed her parents' marriage, drove her and her two sisters apart, and crushed her relationship with her first love. But going home is fraught with emotional baggage—memories, mysteries and secrets abound.Mal's thirteen-year-old daughter, Joy, has never been to the place where Mal's life was shaped and is desperate to go. Fatherless, she craves family and especially wants to spend time with the grandfather she barely knows.In just seven watershed days on the Rhode Island coast three women will test the bonds of sisterhood, friendship and family, and discover the role that love and memory plays in defining their lives.

The Burning of Juniper Slaide


Johanna Handley - 2016
    Nine years later, she's worked hard at putting the past behind her. She clings to her best friend James, the only person she's been able to trust since the fire. But one day James disappears. Juniper tries to find her friend, but she uncovers more than she bargained for. As tensions grow and friendships are tested, she begins to realise that James wasn't who she thought he was. And worst of all, his disappearance is connected to her somehow, and what happened to her all those years ago... An exciting, page turning thriller you wont want to put down!

Sing For Me


Trisha Grace - 2015
    She has everything she wants: a successful career, the ability to make sure she is as far away from her parents as possible, and an almost equally successful boyfriend. One phone call from a dear friend brings her back to the States, to her old neighborhood where she comes face to face with her childhood crush, Christopher Hunter. And one look into his eyes brings back all the memories and feelings she thought she had long forgotten. Feelings she shouldn’t have.

Guard the Throne


Nisa Santiago - 2012
    Once theking is murdered, however, the Byrne siblings are met with viciousopposition. In a mission to prove themselves, both boys try to manup and adjust to leading the kingdom, their sister, Citi, is out ofcontrol and sleeping with the enemy.As the facts surrounding their father's murder begin to comeout, the brothers are caught up, forcing Citi to run the empire herfather built. With a new man in her life, Citi vows to Guard TheThrone by any means necessary. But being queen can be deadly.