Book picks similar to
The Dirty Red Series: Dirty Red, Still Dirty, and Dirtier Than Ever by Vickie M. Stringer
adult
african-american
books-i-have
ebooks
Seasons of Fidelity: Season Two
Takerra Allen - 2018
With bitter endings come new beginnings. The cast of Seasons is back and in the same place we left them – within their individual worlds yet again without the delirium their coexistence brings. That is, until a blow knocks the cosmos out of synch and unites them under punishing circumstances for another round of emotional TAG. Justice, Dice, Aleeya, and Yael will all have to share space again. What will happen when they come face-to-face with such unfinished affairs? Meanwhile Ray and Regina are suffering a devastating loss that will either bring them closer together – despite already being in committed relationships with spouses to lean on – or put more distance between two old friends who haven’t quite learned one another again. Season 2 is a Ferris wheel of emotions, that in the end, will leave some brought back down to solid ground and some left sitting in the clouds. Others just may be let off the ride altogether. Get comfortable and fall back into the world of this complex cast. Seasons of Fidelity has been renewed for a second season!
Snapped
Tina Brooks McKinney - 2010
In this dramatic page-turner from the author of "Deep Deception," a family is reunited 10 years after the murder of their father, and each member is struggling with his or her own demons.
Grindin'
Danielle Santiago - 2006
Later that night, Kennedy gets a call that Nina is being beaten up by her boyfriend- again. Kennedy rushes over to help, but it's too late: Nina dies in Kennedy's arms after making her promise to take care of her children.Stepping up to the plate, Kennedy becomes the mother of three more kids and moves them into a Harlem brownstone. She knows she needs to refocus her life, and gets her chance when she meets Chaz, a successful hip-hop artist who sees star quality written all over her. She's offered the chance to become a rapper and leave the streets behind- or at least shift to another kind of grind. But once in the music world, Kennedy realizes that the setting may have changed, but the hustle remains the same.
Momma's Baby, Daddy's Maybe
Jamise L. Dames - 2005
This Essence bestseller from an author to watch takes an unforgettable look at love, lust, and secrets that can break hearts--and destroy homes.
Devour Series Boxset
Shelly Crane - 2015
Eli comes to town and shakes up Clara's perfect little life. He feeds off emotions, but hers are so much more than what he's ever felt before. And then all hell breaks loose when his kind, and his insane brother, find out. A rebellion brews, bonds form with witches and elves, ready to fight for their mates. DevourClara has it all. A wrestling star boyfriend, popular friends, all the right school activities...pretty much a perfect life...up until her parents died. Now she lives with the Pastor and his family and though they take good care of her, she feels alone. Then her boyfriend, Tate, starts to show signs of trouble when a new guy, Eli, comes to town. Clara is fascinated with him, but hides it until something happens. Eli confesses that she gives him something he's never had before...something he needs. He feeds off emotions, but hers are so much more than what he's ever felt before. Everything is about to change for this normal, pretty, popular girl in a supernatural way.ConsumeEli and Clara's story continues as she tries to finish high school. Eli is as over protective as ever and Tate and his group of friends are no help. They wait for the Horde, always looking over their shoulder. But the ever annoying but strangely prophetic bird begins to become more of a chatter box and Eli learns something that could change some things. Not just for him and Clara, but Devourers everywhere. Then an unexpectedness guest comes forcing Eli to flee with Clara, leaving her temporary family behind. She is thrown into his world of underground 'traitors' and learns much of his past. They meet many new people and creatures along the way to freedom. But when tragedy strikes the two, will Clara see the monster in Eli? Can she handle his strange world and awful past? Will one of them lose their life forever...AlteredEnoch is tested. His brother is human, the thing he hates. He watches as the brother he knew is stripped away by his love for Clara. He's never hated someone as much as he hated her...but the bond forced him to not only want to protect her, but feel things he never had before. When a girl needs his help, that split second decision changes his whole world in one instant. A Devourer's Fate...
Fallin' For a Boss 3
Lucinda John - 2014
With Stacks gone, she decided to take a seat on his throne and run his cartel. Out for blood, Lala turns into this ruthless bitch as she sets out to take over the drug game while carrying a baby bag. Life for Lala is going great until a new love interest comes in the picture and stir things up. Old enemies resurface as well as new ones with one motive, to take down the new queen pin. There’s only one question, is Stacks really dead???
For the Love of the Hustle
Shaunta'e - 2014
After getting caught reenacting what she sees, she runs away from home and seeks refuge in the streets of East Hammond,IN where she becomes vividly exposed to the rugged street life. Cuz: A focused hustler who's recently released from serving a 5 year sentence. Cuz places Precious under his wings, but only if she agrees to earn her keep by any means necessary. On their rise to power they encounter Shree, LaToya, Sonya, and Neicey. All five women have the same agenda needed for their journey at hand and agrees to live by Cuz's creed. "Never bite the hand that feeds you, unless that hand tries to slap the taste out of your mouth." Shaunta'e Howard is a new author to the game of books. Although she has been writing all her life this is her first release. She is a very outgoing young woman from Hammond, IN via Chicago, IL. She has a bachelor's degree in accounting from Devry University and a MBA in business from Keller Graduate School of Management. She is a mother of a 15 year old son and 5 year old daughter. In her spare time she enjoys reading, dancing, and any activity involving family and friends. Look forward to Shaunta'e bringing more your way. This is just the beginning.
Saint's Heaven: An Urban Romance
Shameka Jones - 2016
Her kids’ father, Flex, loves playing the field and throwing his women in Heaven’s face while expecting her to remain single. Heaven still carries feelings for Flex, but still wishes to have a man that does not have her looking stupid in the streets.Saint is a reformed street king who is trying to live life on the straight and narrow. He owns a landscaping company in the Dallas area and spends his day breaking his back to provide for his gold digging girlfriend, Lailani. With his relationship crumbling, a chance sighting of Heaven at a restaurant intrigues Saint and he tries to pursue her, but encounters several challenges along the way.Saint and Heaven face many people in their way as they try to be together. They may not be able to withstand the pressure. Will they fall in love against all odds or crumble under outside pressure?
Trust and Issues
Danielle Marcus - 2013
But, even with all the beauty and material possessions tey still come up short when it comes to the men in their lives. When unexpected drama unfolds, their relationsips, friendships, and loyalty are put to the ultimate test.
The Cartel Deluxe Edition, Part 2: Books 4 and 5
Ashley Antoinette - 2019
Now fans can relive the story of the Diamond family in this second deluxe edition, containing books four and five.The Diamond family has survived murder, deceit, and betrayal. Through it all, they're still standing tall, and a new era has begun. After a failed attempt on her life, Breeze has moved into the queen's position by Zyir's side. Zyir has taken over the empire and locked down Miami's streets. He has the world in his palms, but there is always new blood ready to overthrow the throne. Young Carter has retired and moved away from the madness--that is, until he gets an unexpected visitor at his home. This person shakes up the whole family, causing chaos that threatens to bring down the Cartel for good. When a Boeing 747 drops out of the sky with the men of The Cartel aboard, the women of the family have to step into their own. With the federal government on their heels and the family on the brink of destruction, a female dynasty is born. After the government's case is thwarted, the ladies plan to take the family legit. They head west to establish a new endeavor, but with new territory comes new problems. The Carter family name doesn't ring as loud as it did in Miami. It's a new set of gangsters, a new set of rules, as the Cartel finds problems with an Arabic millionaire. Even as the new Cartel struggles to go legit, trouble always finds a way into the family's circle. Larceny, deceit, and murder are all in the cards.
2Fish: (a poetry book)
Jhené Aiko Efuru Chilombo - 2017
The book details Chilombo's thoughts in their most raw and honest form taken directly from a collection of notebooks she has kept since age 12.
Ride or Die Chick: The Story of Treacherous and Teflon
J.M. Benjamin - 2007
Never having the opportunity to know his biological mother, he was raised by his father, who happened to be a notorious gangster. Deprived of a normal childhood, his father educated him on what awaited him on the streets of Virginia. When the time comes for Treacherous to make some sudden decisions, he has no idea they will land him in the very place that he is trying to avoid. Teflon Jackson is a beautiful woman who is the end result of a horrible union. Having a loving mother who was a prostitute and a pimp for a father, Teflon's childhood was far from a fairytale. Bearing witness to the abusive relationship between her parents, Teflon was determined not to follow her mothers footsteps. Tragedy strikes and Teflon finds herself having to utilize all of the tricks that her mother taught her after she is forced into the streets to fend for herself. Years later, Treacherous and Teflon's paths cross. What starts out as a potentially bad situation genuinely blossoms into a bond that becomes unbreakable. Ride or Die Chick: The Story of Treacherous and Teflon is about two people who come from nothing and are willing to sacrifice anything to gain everything. This is a modern day tale of Bonnie & Clyde and built on a love that is stronger than that of Romeo and Juliet. A bonafide gangster, Treacherous is confident that he can't lose, as long as he has his Ride or Die Chick!
Pastoral
Carl Phillips - 2002
Trained in classical Greek and Latin, Phillips seems to excavate as he forms words into lines, breaking images into tiny parts of thought as he digs for meaning and accuracy. As part of this excavation, Pastoral explores what flesh, wanting, and belief are made of. A finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Phillips has produced four collections of accomplished verse in the past few years. In each book, the influence of classical syntax and rhythm can be heard. And with each book, Phillips refines his poetic voice, combining the prayerlike and the erotic, and often elegantly swooping from a whisper to a scream in the space of a few stanzas.This time, the poems fall along a wide range of tones, from italicized commands like "Let me" and "Now" in the poem "Lay Me Down" to a hesitant question, or a deepening well of self-doubt. Phillips is always original, and he's always remembering, even when a poem is firmly written in present tense. He is hyperaware not only of the ancient poets, but also of history, especially the great destructions.In the ominously titled "The Kill," he remembers a familiar daily scene. The speaker analyzes his own love for another in clinical detail that suddenly veers into longing. The way these lines break adds to the sense of tragic fragment, of an ache: The last time I gave my body up, to you, I was minded briefly what it is made of, what yours is, that I'd forgotten, the flesh which always I hold in plenty no little sorrow for because -- oh, do but think on its predicament, and weep.In just four stanzas, Phillips moves from an image of both love and surrender to a consideration of temporality -- the bald fact that his lover is mortal. This thought of "its predicament" makes him weep, even though death is not a stated issue here.In "The Kill," the last poem in the volume, the speaker anticipates the need to remember. The second poem in the book referred to Pompeii, and the shadow of Pompeii is still resonant as the speaker describes his lover's body, still current and alive despite the title's warning.He remembers a body he has felt before, and probably will feel again -- judging by the present tense of "what yours is." And yet, the speaker here feels the need to freeze that body in time, to memorialize it. The next stanza explains this strong urge to hold on: We cleave most entirely to what most we fear losing. We fear loss because we understand the fact of it, its largeness, its utter indifference to whether we do, or don't, ignore it. The "largeness" of loss is what these poems are loath to accept, even as they seek to understand. Each poem tries to break loss down into questions, confessions, prayers, or simple expressions of doubt. While the poems fight against death and inevitable loss, they also seem to seek moral guidance to help with these losses.Nowhere is the search for answers and guidance more apparent than at the endings of these poems, which are frequently questions. Phillips is fond of abrupt, mysterious dashes as conclusions. In his quest for a moral compass, he also quotes from "Lamentations" and draws on familiar Biblical stories. The wanderings of Cain, for example, seem to appear in the backgrounds of poems where man seeks. What's more, the epigraph is from George Herbert, the great poet of faith and the war between faith and flesh. The sense of struggle between opposing ideas is something Phillips incorporates and modernizes into a contemporary parable of carnal love and constant questioning of that love. There's a frequent seesawing in the book, a back-and-forth on the big questions that permeates even the simplest narrative. For example, in "Favor," the second section of a five-part poem called "And Fitful Memories of Pan," Phillips sees a man in the distance: Even from a distance, I can tell: a man, clearly. Gods cast no shadow. The struggle between man and God, between flesh and faith, is hinted at in the first stanza. Man, for Phillips, is an instrument of struggle, a tortured wanderer. The poem continues: Also, that he tires, stops to rest, looks like sleeping, or could use some. How long he has been, coming, how long it takes, just to cross it, the lush measure that -- all summer -- has been these well-groomed, well-fed grounds, the lake unswum and gleaming, the light catching, losing the useless extravagancePhillips basically forms the scene of a man walking into a discussion of man's temporality, the fact that man tires. While what God makes -- "the lake unswum and gleaming" -- needs to make no effort to be beautiful, man exhausts himself just surviving. By the last two stanzas, the speaker concludes that the body must make bets with itself: Always, the body wagering -- up, through itself -- Give. What he wants, he shall have.In Phillips's work, man -- though mortal -- still has great power. Man can demand, man can inspire love, and man can pray. In the struggle between man and God, in that constant "wagering," man sometimes wins.&3151;Aviya Kushner
For the love of ATL
Desiree M. Granger - 2014
All combining to make one full series. When you take the Urban life of Atlanta, and combine it with the drama filled life of students on HBCU (Historically black colleges, and Universities," anything can happen. Black Greek probates, parties, love, heartbreak, cheating, and men on the down low. All goes down in this 4 part series. No other words to describe this book. Better than Reality TV.
Chocolate Sangria
Tracy Price-Thompson - 2003
Although she has a very light complexion, she is proud of her blackness, even as she takes a beating from the very sistahs she tries so hard to emulate. Her only friend, Scooter Morrison, is an upwardly mobile brother who also happens to be young, gifted, and gay. Then a chance encounter with two fine Puerto Rican men changes Juanita’s and Scooter’s lives in ways they could never have imagined. There is Conan, a hardworking man who wrestles with both his love for Juanita and his guilt over his brother’s death; and Jorge, an unscrupulous bad-boy thug who has no problem using what he’s got to get what he wants, until he comes dangerously close to getting scorched by his own flames.Fast-paced, suspenseful, and unpredictable, Chocolate Sangria explores the hearts of two lovers who get caught in the great cultural divide—and the devastating consequences of keeping secrets, telling lies, and betraying those you love.