Welcome! This week’s Black bookstore is Loyalty Bookstores in Washington, DC! Start the new year out right and give them your support. Happy reading!
Concrete Rose
Angie Thomas
If there’s one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man takes care of his family. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. With this money he can help his mom, who works two jobs while his dad’s in prison.
Life’s not perfect, but with a fly girlfriend and a cousin who always has his back, Mav’s got everything under control.
Until, that is, Maverick finds out he’s a father.
Suddenly he has a baby, Seven, who depends on him for everything. But it’s not so easy to sling dope, finish school, and raise a child. So when he’s offered the chance to go straight, he takes it. In a world where he’s expected to amount to nothing, maybe Mav can prove he’s different.
When King Lord blood runs through your veins, though, you can't just walk away. Loyalty, revenge, and responsibility threaten to tear Mav apart, especially after the brutal murder of a loved one. He’ll have to figure out for himself what it really means to be a man.
Off to See the Sea
Nikki Grimes, Elizabeth Zunon
The faucet flows like a waterfall, the bathroom floor is a distant shore, toy boats sail against the waves. An imagination-fueled adventure on the high seas is just what it takes to get little one clean.
Angel of Greenwood
Randi Pink
Seventeen-year-old Isaiah Wilson is, on the surface, a town troublemaker, but is hiding that he is an avid reader and secret poet, never leaving home without his journal. A passionate follower of W.E.B. Du Bois, he believes that black people should rise up to claim their place as equals.
Sixteen-year-old Angel Hill is a loner, mostly disregarded by her peers as a goody-goody. Her father is dying, and her family’s financial situation is in turmoil. Also, as a loyal follower of Booker T. Washington, she believes, through education and tolerance, that black people should rise slowly and without forced conflict.
Though they’ve attended the same schools, Isaiah never noticed Angel as anything but a dorky, Bible toting church girl. Then their English teacher offers them a job on her mobile library, a three-wheel, two-seater bike. Angel can’t turn down the money and Isaiah is soon eager to be in such close quarters with Angel every afternoon. But life changes on May 31, 1921 when a vicious white mob storms the community of Greenwood, leaving the town destroyed and thousands of residents displaced. Only then, Isaiah, Angel, and their peers realize who their real enemies are.
The Theory of Flight
Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu
As Imogen Zula Nyoni, aka Genie, lies in a coma at Mater Dei Hospital. her family and friends struggle to come to terms with her impending death. This is the story of Genie, who has gifts that transcend time and space. With the lightest of touches, and with an overlay of magical-realist beauty, this novel sketches, through the lives of a few families and the fate of a single patch of ground, decades of national history (a country in Southern Africa that is never named) – from colonial occupation through the freedom struggle, to the devastation wrought by the sojas, the HIV virus, and The Man Himself.
Tempt the Dragon
A.C. Arthur
After the love of his life walked away, powerful half-human, half-dragon Aiken French isn’t about to risk his emotions on a woman ever again. It doesn’t matter that his Drakon beast wholeheartedly disagrees, or that his powers of telekinesis are suffering as a result. He can’t live through that kind of heartbreak again. But with a long-buried vampire stirring, he might not have a choice.
Xavier Reynolds: Blood Ties
N. M. Porterfield
There have always been creatures that go bump in the night. But for his entire life, Xavier Reynolds had been hidden from that truth. Believing he was a normal teenager, Xavier had no idea that he actually hailed from a long line of monster hunters. The evils around him were oblivious to his existence, thanks to a technique used by his father before he died. But when Xavier turned eighteen, that protection faded and the things that lived in his nightmares suddenly became his reality.
Hunted
Sharon C. Cooper
Former CIA spy Myles Carrington experienced enough danger in his clandestine days. The last thing he needs in his life right now is trouble, but that’s what he gets when salon owner Geneva Ramsey crosses his path. She’s combative, fierce, and the sexiest woman he’s ever met, but he’s not looking for anything serious. He promises himself only one night with her and nothing more.
Geneva kissed him on a dare. A dare that altered her carefree life, and she’s conflicted. Myles is an enigma, a puzzle she can’t piece together. Yet, she’s addicted to him—which is just crazy. She never gets serious with any guy, but after one night with Myles, no other man will do. Now, she just needs him to cooperate.
When an unknown enemy from Myles’s past begins hunting him, the hunter becomes the hunted. Myles will destroy anyone who dares threaten those he loves, but will Geneva become a casualty of his past? Or can Myles save her and begin a life he thought he never wanted?
Secrets of the Elite
Sydney Addae, Jacki Kelly, Sienna Mynx, Pepper Pace, Renee Wynn
A collection of five novellas centered on a cruise ship, featuring stories of romance, intrigue, mystery, and even a touch of the paranormal.