As their careers rise and fall and men come and go, they embark on a series of adventures across America.

    . .Fashion photographer Jada Diamond Tanner may have her pick of fine men, but no one has captured her heart like gorgeous financial advisor Wellington Jones. From their first embrace, Jada knows he is the soulmate she has waited for. But while the love she shares with Wellington is exhilarating, Jada faces challenges she never imagined--from a beautiful rival, hungry for love, and from Wellington's overbearing socialite mother, who believes Jada will never fit into her circle. Forced to make difficult choices, Jada learns painful lessons about trust and commitment. . .and discovers the courage to celebrate each day, with or without the man she loves.

    Now that Lauren is seventeen herself, Tracey is pleased to see that her daughter has taken her advice to heart: Lauren wants to wait instead of having sex with Aaron, a college student and her first real boyfriend. But Lauren’s decision causes a chain reaction that no one could have anticipated. In a few chance encounters, sparks fly between thirtysomething Tracey and twentysomething Aaron. Coming off yet another disappointing relationship with a cheating bachelor her own age, Tracey is surprised to find that her daughter’s boyfriend is mature and understanding beyond his years, and Aaron discovers that his girlfriend’s mom is smart, womanly, and, well, very sexy. Eventually, what begins as a harmless flirtation turns into something much, much hotter. And that’s when things really get complicated . . .Told in the alternating voices of the three lovers, My Daughter’s Boyfriend is the spicy tale of an impossibly tricky love triangle, full of sharp, lively observations about mothers and daughters, black men and women, and the truth about love and lust. Audacious and compelling, it’s the book everyone will be talking about.

    Blessed with good looks, nice bodies, a stable place to live with a mother that is willing to give them anything their hearts desire, they seem to have it all. That is until their mother’s nasty habit of popping pills and alcohol abuse leaves them in an awful situation with no one to turn to. When a baller by the name of Vic takes them under his wing he turns them into finessers, sexy women with the motives to set up any man with deep pockets. When Cinnamon falls in love with one of the licks all hell breaks loose. Secrets are revealed, lies are told, and bodies are found as Vic try his hardest to turn the sisters against one another. Join these sisters on a hectic journey and discover is blood really thicker than water.

    She's taken to her bed, watching life pass her by--until Roc, a 24-year-old with a jaw-dropping body comes along. Desa Rae can't keep her eyes open or legs closed to a man who excites her like no other man has. But can she really be serious about a man who is almost the same age as her son?Avery Belmont is a diva in her own right. Smart, sassy, and successful, she has always had it going on; so much so that not only did the full-figured beauty catch the eye of Duke, the sexiest dude on the block, but she encouraged him to leave the dope game and become legit. Now, seven years later, Avery is working hard and trying to move ahead, but it seems that Duke isn't feeling the same way. Working with Kurt, her attractive coworker, isn't helping her situation. Is the love between Avery and Duke strong enough to keep them together, or will the strength of that love make them realize it's time to let go?

    Living in the poor, segregated quarter of Little Tunis, Ivoe immerses herself in printed matter as an escape from her dour surroundings. She earns a scholarship to the prestigious Willetson College in Austin, only to return over-qualified to the menial labor offered by her hometown’s racially-biased employers.Ivoe eventually flees the Jim Crow South with her family and settles in Kansas City, where she and her former teacher and lover, Ona, found the first female-run African American newspaper, Jam! On the Vine. In the throes of the Red Summer—the 1919 outbreak of lynchings and race riots across the Midwest—Ivoe risks her freedom, and her life, to call attention to the atrocities of segregation in the American prison system.Skillfully interweaving Ivoe’s story with those of her family members, LaShonda Katrice Barnett’s Jam! On the Vine is both an epic vision of the hardships and injustices that defined an era and a moving and compelling story of a complicated history we only thought we knew.

    It's 24/7 money to burn, it's fancy houses, designer clothes, and luxury cars. It's leaving no-pay jobs and crumbling projects to have everything mad cash flow. And best friends, Alize, Dom, Moet, and Cristal will do anything to get the glamorous life - and put the past in the rear-view mirrors of their brand new whips. A savvy and smart business major, Alize had her childhood shattered by the divorce of her parents and is determined to never fall in love and risk being hurt. Dom learned early to use her sizzling-hot body to make much bank - and find an eascape from her too dark looks and drug-addicted mother. Disillusioned by the faith and strict parents she grew up with, Moet figures hooking up with powerful men is now the real way to heaven. And streetwise Cristal has a master plan to get the security she never to knew as foster child. To make these dreams come true, these sistahs will go after the East Coast's biggest movers-and-shakers - superstar rappers, mega-successful moguls, and powerful thugs-for-life. But between the wild times and wilder men, one of them is going to gamble one time too many, one will play a player too far, one will take a dangerous chance, and one will face a hard real-deal choice. To survive, they'll have to depend on each other and remember who they truly are to learn that the good life doesn't cost a thing...

    Who’s your daddy? The Parkers’ best friends, James and Serena, are in the final stages of a bitter divorce. Just when James thinks his nightmare is over, he learns his daughter has a different daddy… For the love of money… Single mom Lachez Baker is a ghetto-fabulous mother of three who seems to have it all, thanks to money from her children’s fathers. But soon, her life of designer clothes, endless parties, and steady cash collides with the man who’s been the target of her carefully crafted paternity fraud. From author Pat Tucker comes a drama-filled tale of lies, schemes and consequences as these men discover the importance of knowing the paternity laws in your state.

    Sin and Robert M. Drake. What are you hiding behind your smile? If those empty bottles that line the walls of your room could speak, what tales would they spill? So much of your truth is buried beneath the lies you tell yourself. There’s a need to scream to the moon; there’s this urge to go out into the darkness of the night to purge. There are so many stories living inside your soul, you just want the opportunity to tell them. And when you can’t find the will to express what lives within your heart, these words will give you peace. These words will set you free.

    Semple--first composed for a weekly column in the Chicago Defender and then collected in Simple Speaks His Mind, Simple Takes a Wife, and Simple Stakes a Claim--have been read and loved by hundreds of thousands of readers. In The Best of Simple, the author picked his favorites from these earlier volumes, stories that not only have proved popular but are now part of a great and growing literary tradition.Simple might be considered an Everyman for black Americans. Hughes himself wrote: "...these tales are about a great many people--although they are stories about no specific persons as such. But it is impossible to live in Harlem and not know at least a hundred Simples, fifty Joyces, twenty-five Zaritas, and several Cousin Minnies--or reasonable facsimiles thereof."As Arnold Rampersad has written, Simple is "one of the most memorable and winning characters in the annals of American literature, justly regarded as one of Hughes's most inspired creations."Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, went to Cleveland, Ohio, lived for a number of years in Chicago, and long resided in New York City's Harlem. He graduated form Lincoln University in 1929 and was awarded an honorary Litt. D. in 1943. He was perhaps best known as a poet and the creator of Simple, but he also wrote novels, biography, history, plays (several of them Broadway hits), and children's books, and he edited several anthologies. Mr. Hughes died in 1967.

    Suffering at the hands of abuse from her father and her older, controlling, boyfriend Khalil, Heaven yearns and dreams of the day of her escape. Her prayers are answered when she is introduced to Khalil's boss, Street King turned businessman, Gavin Lucas, known in every hood in Jersey, as the infamous G. G becomes Heaven's knight in shining armor, sweeping her off of her feet into a whirlwind of passion, exotic getaways, and designer labels. But can Heaven keep up, or will the lifestyle of the rich and shameless swallow her whole? Heavens Hell explores the world of brutal life and fantasy, and leaves us all desperate to find out... do fairytales come true?

    New to LA with a couple mil to flip, Grey opens South Beach, the newest addition to the Los Angeles club scene. In the midst of starting his business, he meets an exotic beauty by the name of Nakami. Enamored by her beauty and fiery personality, Grey courts her not knowing that her father, Hero, is the biggest drug lord on the West Coast. Nakami and her father prove to be the connect that Grey needs in order to get back to his hustle. But at what cost? Kimani Summers, Grey's younger brother, is making a name for himself in the modeling industry and is also pursuing a career in acting. When he hears that his brother has relocated to LA, he's not happy. Knowing Grey and the trouble that tends to follow behind him, Kimani is reluctant to interact with the brother he hasn't seen or talked to in over five years. Hesitantly taking Grey up on the invitation to attend the grand opening of his new club, Kimani meets Nakami's best friend, Blu. After losing the last woman he loved tragically, Kimani doesn't want to fall for Blu, but he can't help it. When these four lives are intertwined, things get crazy! And when everything is all said and done, friends will become enemies, business and personal relationships will crumble, and lines will be crossed that will affect the lives of all parties involved.

    The she met Chink and discovered love and affection...and rape and murder!

    . .?she can rock Apple Bottoms jeans and stilettos like nobody's business, but she's got her share of issues. It's not easy being the thickest one in her clique or hiding that her rebellious twin sister Toi is playing wifey to the neighborhood thug. And Seven is definitely not happy that she's feelin' the school's hottest baller, Josiah, especially since he's dating her high maintenance girlfriend, Deeyah. But when Deeyah decides to play Josiah and his worst enemy against each other, she'll have everyone facing off in the worst way. The question is can Seven try and set things right or does she end up trying to save herself from major heartbreak?

    Rolling over on your best friend who has been with you through thick and thin, hungry and full, freedom and state bids- that's "the cruelest lie told in silence". In this tale that plucks the innermost chords of emotion, jealousy turns to envy then to backstabbing as we observe two friends that have struggled together, hustled together and endured separate prison terms. While Jevon experiences the fruits of the hustle during his partner's first stint, Bilal humbly does his time like a true soldier after taking a manslaughter charge for his "brother". Will their friendship survive the broken bond of brotherhood, or will dishonor come before death?