A too-hot-to-handle pair of novellas that prove there's nothing more powerful than a woman bent on seduction and revenge.

    Pregnant with her second child, she's got a career, a college degree- and enough common sense to know that her boyfriend, Malik, may not be ready for fatherhood. But when Malik surprises her with a marriage proposal, it seems that Kim's got her man for the long haul. Or does she?Despite his honorable intentions, Malik can't seem to stay clear of other women. When Shonda Robinson, the shapely new receptionist at the law firm where Malik works as a paralegal, comes on strong to him, his resolve finally crumbles, along with his heart - and his future plans. Shonda may not be the most moral - or discreet - person around, but she knows a good thing when she's got it. That good thing is her love for Malik, and she intends to keep it at all costs. Unfortunately, she's not the only one who feels that way. What follows is an emotional roller coaster ride of changing plans, changing partners- and a surprising change of heart - as three people wrestle with what's right, what's wrong- and what's real.

    He soon comes face-to-face with Lucina Gallo, the reigning diva of San Diego’s nightlife culture. She needs a new partner she can trust, and one who knows everything about money. For this dollar-hungry entrepreneur, the timing couldn’t be better. Who wouldn’t want to be partners with the most glamorous girl in the city? Ivan quickly teams up with her for business—and for possible pleasure. However, for Lucina, business is business and nothing extra. Or is it?After throwing a sizzling-hot birthday party for a popular San Diego Charger, Ivan finds himself babysitting Lucina’s so-called girlfriends, some of the most spoiled and exotic women he has ever encountered. That’s when the business deals begin to fall outside the bounds of simple promotion and parties. Ivan finds himself thrust into the limelight and lands at the doorstep of easy access to women, cash, cars, private jets, and multimillion-dollar real estate. But as the ridiculous amounts of money and power start to pile up, leaving a trail of broken hearts, fractured egos, and challenged loyalties, Ivan is forced to ask himself: How much money is enough?Pecking Order, with its perfect blend of money, plot, sex, and vulnerability, is another urban classic novel as only Omar Tyree can write them!

    That is, until Tony wants to pull a scam on the company where she works. In order to keep Mildred signing phony documents, Tony gives Mildred a taste of romance and keeps raising the stakes until he’s eventually forced to propose. But when the big day arrives he skips town with the money he’s stolen.Heartbroken, Mildred takes a trip to Barbados where her “vacation” turns out to be a boot-camp style weight loss clinic! Soon she discovers a goddess that had been hiding beneath her homely exterior. And when she runs into Tony on the island, he doesn’t even recognize the sexy fox standing before him. Little does he know that this fox has a plan for revenge that will leave him whimpering with his tail between his legs for a good, long time.

    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?

    Black drew hard, squinting as the smoke rushed into his lungs."Where do you want to start?"the lawyer said, lighting a cigarette of his own."I guess there’s only one place to start; at Broad and Erie."Johnny Podres, a politician whose record against corruption had been propelling him straight to the mayor’s office, is found murdered in a North Philly crack house.Enter Samuel Jackson, a.k.a. Black, a drug addict who knows better, a man embittered by the fact that he can’t seem to escape from his addiction to crack cocaine or, for that matter, from himself. Though he was once a family man with a wife and son, Black’s only concern these days is getting his next high, that is, until he stumbles across a friend and fellow addict, Leroy, and both become prime suspects in the Podres murder. Black and Leroy hook up with two female pipers: Clarisse, a registered nurse who is slowly losing to crack any semblance of a respectable life, and Pookie, who already has lost it. Soon the hunt is on for all four as they try to stay one step ahead of a police department under tremendous pressure to solve the case—because if a killer isn’t found soon, this could blow up into one of the biggest scandals in Philadelphia history. Solomon Jones weaves a suspenseful story against the backdrop of corruption in the Philadelphia police department and centers it on a group of drug addicts who, in the process of fleeing the law, come to terms with their own addiction, leading to some devastating consequences.

    s deadliest projects, you ll run into four women with colorful ski coats and designer jeans. And if you don t belong, you ll quickly find out what they have nestled inside the Marc Jacob or Louis Vuitton purses they keep closely to them. These females aren t just pretty faces. They were taken out of their beds and placed on the throne by the hustler s they loved. Their only request was that the Emerald City squad remain true. But when Thick, the self proclaimed leader of the clique decides to bring an outside chick into the picture, to floss using the money their girlfriends earned, the security of the operation is jeopardized, sides are chosen and all hell breaks loose. Immediately they decide to remove the gang-stresses from power to prevent their emotions from interfering with business. But it s easier said than done and their ungratefulness only insights their fury. Once they shared their beds together, now they fought a war against one another for the ownership of a million dollar empire. Four women against their ex men. Who will reign supreme? The men who taught them everything they knew about the game? Or the Pitbulls In A Skirt?

    He’s married to his college sweetheart, Leah, and they have two children and a dream home in Los Angeles. But an injury has sidelined his hot career, and prescription medication and depression are pulling him into a downward spiral, leaving Leah feeling emotionally distanced and lonely. Their fighting escalates, and one night Dell commits an act of violence that changes the course of their lives forever. But Angel Lopez, the cop who arrests Dell, decides to take the law into his own hands. Determined to teach the famous athlete a lesson, he drives Dell to the worst part of town and tries to kick him out of the car. The men struggle and the car crashes. When Angel comes to, Dell is gone and no one knows if he’s dead or alive.Leah is grateful when a guilt-stricken Angel offers to chase the media away from her home and help out around the house, “just until Dell comes home.” She and her family grow to trust him, and Angel falls in love with the Roadrunner’s lovely, grieving wife. Will Dell find his way home? Will Angel replace him? And what really happened that dark night the Roadrunner disappeared?

    But after one perfect storm of a night, it happened…and she can hardly believe it herself. To top it off, when she woke up in the morning, she found that the man to whom she guiltily made passionate love died of a heart attack overnight. Felise, who is a nurse and a good citizen at that, leaves the hotel room without reporting his death. When her best friend, Paula, finds out about her husband’s sudden death a day later, Felise is overcome with guilt and grief. She must be there for her friend and her family, but when her husband repeatedly tries to apologize for his absentminded behavior and Paula starts investigating who Stephen was with the night he died, Felise finds it hard to hold herself together. Should she come clean and tell everyone what she did? Or should she just let it go and move past the mistake on her own?

    From the minds of New York Times bestselling authors Carl Weber and Eric Pete comes the game-changing prequel to their blockbuster Family Business saga. Travel back to a small Southern town where, before there was Duncan Motors, there were the Duncan brothers: Louis, aka Sweet Lou, a lover of ladies and life . . . and a man you did not want to cross; Lawrence, aka Larry, a screw-up as attracted to trouble as it was to him; and Lavernius, better known as LC, the soft-spoken college boy who simply wanted to sell cars. But the Duncan brothers weren’t alone at the crossroads. There was also the mysterious and seductive Chippy, a woman who saw a way out of her circumstances and dared to take it. Witness what changed the course of their lives when ambitions intersected with opportunity that came calling one day in the form of a man named Alejandro Zuniga. Welcome to the familiar, but as you’ve never seen it before.

    Louella, fed up with her lackluster love life, decides to contact her departed ancestors for some advice. Conjuring up her mother, grandmother, and aunt in a dream, she receives a delightful lesson in the art of reigniting the fires of love.Even more startling, the Johnsons discover they can help others rejuvenate their passions, heal their hearts, and mend their soulsWritten in language that is folksy yet eloquent, Jim and Louella's Homemade Heart-Fix Remedy is an uplifting and flat-out funny celebration of the connections between past and present, the importance of family, and the pleasures of the body and the heart.

    It is only through her cake-decorating business and encouragement from her best friend that she begins to reconstruct her life, eventually realizing she has enough room in her heart to forgive him. Love-starved Toya doesn’t want to emulate others’ failed relationships. As she begins to strengthen her morals and stops seducing married men—she is surprised to discover that she shares some similarities with Amos. Tomiko is a beautiful but lonely woman. Despite having a successful career in writing, she attempts to keep aspects of herself and her past buried as a coping mechanism. However, new love reawakens her faith in both herself and men.As Cass, Toya, and Tomiko reconcile their feelings of abandonment, Amos reflects on his life and the decisions he made. And by revisiting their painful pasts, they all find ways to reconnect with each other and live with compassion.

    Now eight years later, their exes are back, wreaking havoc on the lives they’ve worked so hard to rebuild. Sheridan has found love again after her ex-husband left her for a man, but her old wounds are reopened when her daughter tells her she’s gay and Sheridan blames her ex. Kendall is forced to reunite with her former husband, who left her for her own sister, when her father wass diagnosed with cancer. And Asia must reevaluate her life when her L.A. Laker ex-boyfriend reminds her that her lavish lifestyle will end when their son turns eighteen next year. With her trademark writing that “has the kind of momentum that prompts you to elbow disbelief aside and flip the pages in horrified enjoyment” (The Washington Post), Forever an Ex is Murray’s best novel yet.

    Then the way to fame was leading him toward a mistake that could send him straight to hell...She never looked back.Lies, drugs, too many men-- golden skinned singer Topaz Black would do anything to get a hit to the top of the charts, even walk away from her friends and family. But surrounded by greed and lust, the love the longed for seemed to be slipping away forever.He broke all the rules.Brought up in South Central L.A., movie producer Gunther Lawrence learned early how to get the wealth and women he wanted-- and to turn his back on his roots. Now, blinded by Hollywood's glitter, his illusions may shatter when he discovers who really controls his career.As their lives touch, ignite, and explode, three talented African-Americans pursue fame at any cost...and the price may be their happiness...or their lives..An alternate selection of the Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club

    Wells-Barnett Tower. The place held such promise when it was built in the late 1970s. It was Harlem's hope for a new beginning -- an affordable, safe residence for people who couldn't afford to live downtown. But that was more than twenty-five years ago, before the devastating crack scourge hit. But the residents of Ida B. are resilient. They've built their own community and they look out for one another to the best of their abilities. Neighbors may argue, and even fight, but whenever one of them is in trouble, the whole building rallies around.Twenty-five-year-old Brenda Carver is a welfare mother of four children who longs to be a writer; Rosa Rivera is an aspiring actress who will let nothing stand in the way of her career; Sharif Goldsby is a political activist determined to change the world, starting with Harlem and the Ida B. There's also Miss Jackie, the middle-aged, back-stabbing gossip; Vincent, the former bank robber turned scam artist; Mrs. Harris, the elderly neighborhood fence; and high school honor student Ricky, who hopes to be one of the scramblers on the corner -- hawking crack to passersby.When a building resident kills herself and two of her children, the tenants make a collective vow to care for her surviving child.But that's just the beginning of the tragedies facing the residents of the Ida B. A shocking crime occurs in the building, and everyone becomes a suspect. With accusations flying, the tight community of the Ida B. begins to collapse under the strain. And, to top it all, they learn that their home of more than twenty years is about to be torn down.As the search for the killer intensifies, unsung heroes step forward -- at greatpersonal risk -- to right the wrongs that have been done. In Karen E. Quinones Miller's world, the people who stand out are the people who survive, and go on, against all odds, to share their wisdom and find their dreams. In a modern take on the classic sentiment, "There's no place like home," "Ida B." affirms that home is a place we love, even when it is less than perfect.