Alice Walker’s The Cushion in the Road and The World Will Follow Joy

News: Grandfather of African literature, Chinua Achebe, dies

By Tim Cocks LAGOS (Reuters) –
Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, widely seen as the grandfather of modern African literature, has died at the age of 82. From the publication of his first novel, “Things Fall Apart”, over 50 years ago, Achebe shaped an understanding of Africa from an African perspective more than any other author. As a novelist, poet, broadcaster and lecturer, Achebe was a yardstick against which generations of African writers have been judged. For children across Africa, his books have for decades been an eye-opening introduction to the power of literature. …

For more, see Yahoo News.

Honor Thy Thug by Wahida Clark

America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great by Ben Carson

April 2013′s Bestselling African American Books

Here are the upcoming bestsellers for African American books (from Amazon.com).

1. Face Off (The Baddest Chick) Part 4 by Nisa Santiago
   (Melodrama Publishing, 2013-04-02, Paperback)
   

   Clash of the Twins The relentless rivals Apple and Kola are back in business, and it’s about to get real. With her traumatic experiences in Mexico over, Apple is back to being the baddest. Now she’s determined to make her tormentors pay for the torture she endured, and no one is prepared for the terrifying takedown she’s planning for those she once loved. Kola is dominating the streets of Miami, but the haters and South Beach cartels are itching to see her leave, dead or alive. When she finds betrayal in an unlikely place, she’s motivated to come out on top and put Miami on notice. Apple and Kola rage fiery warfare against the enemies determined to bring them down. But now, both contenders stronger than ever, will have to Face Off once and for all.

    

2. Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou
   (Random House, 2013-04-02, Hardcover)
   

   The story of Maya Angelou’s extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple bestselling autobiographies. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother.   For the first time, Angelou reveals the triumphs and struggles of being the daughter of Vivian Baxter, an indomitable spirit whose petite size belied her larger-than-life presence—a presence absent during much of Angelou’s early life. When her marriage began to crumble, Vivian famously sent three-year-old Maya and her older brother away from their California home to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas. The subsequent feelings of abandonment stayed with Angelou for years, but their reunion, a decade later, began a story that has never before been told. In Mom & Me & Mom, Angelou dramatizes her years reconciling with the mother she preferred to simply call “Lady,” revealing the profound moments that shifted the balance of love and respect between them.   Delving into one of her life’s most rich, rewarding, and fraught relationships, Mom & Me & Mom explores the healing and love that evolved between the two women over the course of their lives, the love that fostered Maya Angelou’s rise from immeasurable depths to reach impossible heights.

    

3. Stepping Stone (Crosstown to Oblivion) by Walter Mosley
   (Tor Books, 2013-04-02, Kindle Edition)
   

   Stepping Stone is but one of six fragments in the Crosstown to Oblivion short novels in which Mosley entertainingly explores life’s cosmic questions. From life’s meaning to the nature of good and evil, these tales take us on speculative journeys beyond the reality we have come to know. In each tale someone in our world today is given insight into these long pondered mysteries. But how would the world really receive the answers?  Truman Pope has spent his whole life watching the world go by–and waiting for something he can’t quite put into words.  A gentle, unassuming soul, he has worked in the mailroom of a large corporation for decades without making waves, until the day he spots a mysterious woman in yellow.  A woman nobody else can see. Soon Truman’s quiet life begins to turn upside-down.  An old lover surfaces from his past even as he finds his job in jeopardy.  Strange visions haunt his days and nights, until he begins to doubt his sanity.  Is he losing his mind, or is he on the brink of a startling revelation that will change his life forever–and transform the nature of humanity?

    

4. Honor Thy Thug by Wahida Clark
   (Cash Money Content, 2013-04-23, Hardcover)
   

   Urban lit’s favorite ride or die couple, Trae and Tasha, are back as they fight to hold onto their volatile relationship which gets closer to exploding with each passing day. Their friends, Angel and Kaylin, are caught up in their own drama which pits brother against brother in a final showdown. Faheem and his wife Jaz, face their worst nightmare which almost takes them totally out of the game. Meanwhile, Kyron, who brought Trae to the brink of murder and Tasha to the edge of insanity, is back and hell bent on revenge. When Trae makes the deadly decision to work for the most violent Chinese crime organization in the city and renew a business relationship with Charli Li, the one woman who can never be trusted, his rocky marriage and life are threatened. Tasha is forced to step in, and things get really crazy. Can Trae escape the grips of the mob with his life and hold on to his wife? Honor Thy Thug will leave you gasping for more.

    

5. Decadence by Eric Jerome Dickey
   (Dutton Adult, 2013-04-23, Hardcover)
   

   New York Times bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey returns to the life of Nia Simone Bijou (of Pleasure fame) as she embarks on a quest to enhance her artistic gifts through heightened sensory experience, Hollywood-style. Four years have passed since the events of Pleasure, and Nia’s success as a writer has grown, bringing her from Atlanta to Los Angeles. But she remains on a quest to quiet her inner storm, to draw on her well of emotions and explore them fully before leaving this season of her life and moving on to what could be the next stage: marriage and motherhood. Drawn to an exclusive pleasure palace, where patrons try on roles as they actively shun their respective realities, Nia’s ability to balance truth and fantasy becomes increasingly blurred. What has happened to the compartments she has so carefully created for the different aspects of her life? Will her relationship with the mysterious, often unavailable Prada survive the countless temptations? Will her successful literary career be given over to impulse indulgence? Does decadence know any bounds? When Nia’s past comes back to mingle with her present, and when her staid public persona clashes with her fantasy life of decadence, readers will be stunned by the outcome. Eric Jerome Dickey’s newest tale of excess—and its sky-high costs—is a thrilling portrait of a glittering world.

    

6. Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America by Melissa V. Harris-Perry
   (Yale University Press, 2013-04-30, Paperback)
   

   “The insight and grace with which Harris-Perry tackles the thorny issue of African American women’s identity politics makes it a must-read.”—Jordan Kisner, Slate

    

7. The Cushion in the Road: Meditation and Wandering as the Whole World Awakens to Being in Harm’s Way by Alice Walker
   (New Press, The, 2013-04-09, Hardcover)
   

   In her newest collection of wide-ranging meditations on our intertwined personal, spiritual, and political destinies, Alice Walker writes that “we are beyond a rigid category of color, sex, or spirituality if we are truly alive.” For the millions of her devoted fans—and for readers of Walker’s bestselling 2006 book We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For in particular—here is a new “gift of words” (Essence) that invites readers on a journey of political awakening and spiritual insight.The Cushion in the Road revisits themes the Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist, poet, essayist, and activist has addressed throughout her career: racism, Africa, solidarity with the Palestinian people, the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, Cuba, healthcare, and the work of Aung San Suu Kyi. In doing so, Walker explores her conflicting impulses to retreat into inner contemplation and to remain deeply engaged with the world. Through the evocative image of the meditation cushion in the road, she finds a delicate balance between these two paths and invites her readers to do so, too.Rich with humor, wisdom, and Walker’s unique eye for the telling details of human experience and the natural world, The Cushion in the Road shows Walker at the height of her literary powers, reveals the depths of her spiritual and political understandings, and will surely be an inspiration for all.

    

8. Betrayed by Patricia Haley
   (Urban Books, 2013-04-30, Paperback)
   

    

9. An Accidental Affair by Eric Jerome Dickey
   (NAL Trade, 2013-04-02, Paperback)
   

   New York Times bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey once again “pushes romance and deceit to the next level” (USA Weekend) in this tantalizing tale of a high-profile marriage rocked by scandal, obsession, and murder. Screenwriter James Thicke is a man whose mysterious past runs as deep as his violent streak. Now he and his volatile movie star wife, Regina Baptiste, have channeled their passions into an electrifying new project: a film rumored to cross the boundaries of on-screen sexuality. But it’s James’s limits that are about to be tested—by a surreptitiously filmed video of his wife with her co-star Johnny Bergs, in the most comprising of situations. Within hours, it goes viral. Regina claims she is innocent. But the humiliation and rage leave James with only one recourse—an act of violence that sends him on the run and into hiding. Seething with bitter betrayal, and a still-consuming love for his troubled wife, he nurses a slow-boiling desire for something more permanent: revenge. His need for vengeance takes James and Regina on a headlong odyssey of obsession, sexual impulse, blackmail, and murder. And getting back will be hell.

    

10. Gospel of Freedom: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Struggle That Changed a Nation by Jonathan Rieder
    (Bloomsbury Press, 2013-04-09, Hardcover)
    

    I am in Birmingham because injustice is here, declared Martin Luther King, Jr. He had come to that city of racist terror convinced that massive protest could topple Jim Crow. But the insurgency faltered. To revive it, King made a sacrificial act on Good Friday, April 12, 1963: he was arrested. Alone in his cell, reading a newspaper, he found a statement from eight “moderate” clergymen who branded the protests extremist and “untimely.” King drafted a furious rebuttal that emerged as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail”-a work that would take its place among the masterpieces of American moral argument alongside those of Thoreau and Lincoln. His insistence on the urgency of “Freedom Now” would inspire not just the marchers of Birmingham and Selma, but peaceful insurgents from Tiananmen to Tahrir Squares. Scholar Jonathan Rieder delves deeper than anyone before into the Letter-illuminating both its timeless message and its crucial position in the history of civil rights. Rieder has interviewed King’s surviving colleagues, and located rare audiotapes of King speaking in the mass meetings of 1963. Gospel of Freedom gives us a startling perspective on the Letter and the man who wrote it: an angry prophet who chastised American whites, found solace in the faith and resilience of the slaves, and knew that moral appeal without struggle never brings justice.

     

11. Bending Toward Justice: The Voting Rights Act and the Transformation of American Democracy by Gary May
    (Basic Books, 2013-04-09, Hardcover)
    

    When the Fifteenth Amendment of 1870 granted African Americans the right to vote, it seemed as if a new era of political equality was at hand. Before long, however, white segregationists across the South counterattacked, driving their black countrymen from the polls through a combination of sheer terror and insidious devices such as complex literacy tests and expensive poll taxes. Most African Americans would remain voiceless for nearly a century more, citizens in name only until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act secured their access to the ballot.In Bending Toward Justice, celebrated historian Gary May describes how black voters overcame centuries of bigotry to secure and preserve one of their most important rights as American citizens. The struggle that culminated in the passage of the Voting Rights Act was long and torturous, and only succeeded because of the courageous work of local freedom fighters and national civil rights leaders—as well as, ironically, the opposition of Southern segregationists and law enforcement officials, who won public sympathy for the voting rights movement by brutally attacking peaceful demonstrators. But while the Voting Rights Act represented an unqualified victory over such forces of hate, May explains that its achievements remain in jeopardy. Many argue that the 2008 election of President Barack Obama rendered the act obsolete, yet recent years have seen renewed efforts to curb voting rights and deny minorities the act’s hard-won protections. Legal challenges to key sections of the act may soon lead the Supreme Court to declare those protections unconstitutional.A vivid, fast-paced history of this landmark piece of civil rights legislation, Bending Toward Justice offers a dramatic, timely account of the struggle that finally won African Americans the ballot—although, as May shows, the fight for voting rights is by no means over.

     

12. Maroon the Implacable: The Collected Writings of Russell Maroon Shoatz by Russell Maroon Shoatz
    (PM Press, 2013-04-01, Paperback)
    

    During a lengthy incarceration spent mostly in solitary confinement, Russell Maroon Shoatz has developed into a prolific writer and powerful voice for the disenfranchised. This first published collection of his accumulated works showcases his sharp and profound understanding of the current historical moment, with clear proposals for how to move forward embracing new political concepts and practices. Informed by Shoatz’s experience as a leader in the Black Liberation Movement in Philadelphia, the pieces in this book put forth his fresh and self-critical retelling of the black liberation struggle in the United States and provide cutting-edge analysis of the prison-industrial complex. Innovative and revolutionary on multiple levels, the essays also discuss such varied topics as eco-socialism, matriarchy and eco-feminism, food security, prefiguration and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Including new essays written expressly for this volume, Shoatz’s unique perspective offers many practical and theoretical insights for today’s movements for social change.

     

13. Literary Trails of Eastern North Carolina: A Guidebook (Literary Trails of North Carolina) by Georgann Eubanks
    (The University of North Carolina Press, 2013-04-01, Paperback)
    

    This concluding volume of the Literary Trails of North Carolina trilogy takes readers into an ancient land of pale sand, dense forests, and expansive bays, through towns older than our country and rich in cultural traditions. Here, writers reveal lives long tied to the land and regularly troubled by storms and tell tales of hardship, hard work, and freedom. Eighteen tours lead readers from Raleigh to the Dismal Swamp, the Outer Banks, and across the Sandhills as they explore the region’s connections to over 250 writers of fiction, poetry, plays, and creative nonfiction. Along the way, Georgann Eubanks brings to life the state’s rich literary heritage as she explores these writers’ connection to place and reveals the region’s vibrant local culture. Excerpts invite readers into the authors’ worlds, and web links offer resources for further exploration. Featured authors include A. R. Ammons, Gerald Barrax, Charles Chesnutt, Clyde Edgerton, Philip Gerard, Kaye Gibbons, Harriet Jacobs, Jill McCorkle, Michael Parker, and Bland Simpson. Literary Trails of North Carolina is a project of the North Carolina Arts Council.

     

14. Native Apostles: Black and Indian Missionaries in the British Atlantic World by Edward E. Andrews
    (Harvard University Press, 2013-04-01, Hardcover)
    

    As Protestantism expanded across the Atlantic world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most evangelists were not white Anglo-Americans, as scholars have long assumed, but members of the same groups that missionaries were trying to convert. Native Apostles offers one of the most significant untold stories in the history of early modern religious encounters, marshalling wide-ranging research to shed light on the crucial role of Native Americans, Africans, and black slaves in Protestant missionary work. The result is a pioneering view of religion’s spread through the colonial world. From New England to the Caribbean, the Carolinas to Africa, Iroquoia to India, Protestant missions relied on long-forgotten native evangelists, who often outnumbered their white counterparts. Their ability to tap into existing networks of kinship and translate between white missionaries and potential converts made them invaluable assets and potent middlemen. Though often poor and ostracized by both whites and their own people, these diverse evangelists worked to redefine Christianity and address the challenges of slavery, dispossession, and European settlement. Far from being advocates for empire, their position as cultural intermediaries gave native apostles unique opportunities to challenge colonialism, situate indigenous peoples within a longer history of Christian brotherhood, and harness scripture to secure a place for themselves and their followers. Native Apostles shows that John Eliot, Eleazar Wheelock, and other well-known Anglo-American missionaries must now share the historical stage with the black and Indian evangelists named Hiacoomes, Good Peter, Philip Quaque, John Quamine, and many more.

     

15. I’m Forever New York’s Finest part 3 by Kiki Swinson
    (K.S. Publications, 2013-04-16, Paperback)
    

     

16. The Underground Railroad in Dekalb County, Illinois by Nancy M. Beasley
    (Mcfarland & Co Inc Pub, 2013-04-02, Paperback)
    

     

17. He Don’t Play Fair by Clifford Spud Johnson
    (Urban Books, 2013-04-01, Paperback)
    

    27 year old Papio gets released from a Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno after serving just 3 years of a 30 year sentence, when his conviction for conspiracy to distribute 45 kilos of cocaine is overturned. Having some unfinished business in Oklahoma City, Papio stops there to romance a few women and collect on some debts before heading out West, avoiding contact with his infuriated Cuban connection by all means. Never settling for less than the best in hotels, luxury vehicles, and designer clothing follow Papio on his journey across the states that takes some unexpected twists and turns which make this tale extra Special! Don’t get caught up, because HE DON’T PLAY FAIR.

     

18. The Lost Daughter: A Memoir by Mary Williams
    (Blue Rider Press, 2013-04-09, Hardcover)
    

    A daughter of the Black Panther movement tells her remarkable life story of being raised amid violence and near-poverty, adopted as a teenager by Jane Fonda, and finding her way back home.   As she grew up in 1970s Oakland, California, role models for Mary Williams were few and far between: her father was often in prison, her older sister was a teenage prostitute, and her hot-tempered mother struggled to raise six children alone. When Mary was thirteen, a silver lining appeared in her life: she was invited to spend a summer at Laurel Springs Children’s Camp, run by Jane Fonda and her then husband, Tom Hayden. Mary flourished at camp, and over the course of several summers, she began confiding in Fonda about her difficulties at home. During one school year, Mary suffered a nightmare assault crime, which she kept secret until she told a camp counselor and Fonda. After providing care and therapy for Mary, Fonda invited her to come live with her family.   Practically overnight, Mary left the streets of Oakland for the star-studded climes of Santa Monica. Jane Fonda was the parent Mary had never had—outside the limelight and Hollywood parties, Fonda was a wonderful mom who helped with homework, listened to adolescent fears, celebrated achievements, and offered inspiration and encouragement at every turn.   Mary’s life since has been one of adventure and opportunity—from hiking the Appalachian Trail solo, working with the Lost Boys of Sudan, and living in the frozen reaches of Antarctica. Her most courageous trip, though, involved returning to Oakland and reconnecting with her biological mother and family, many of whom she hadn’t seen since the day she left home. The Lost Daughter is a chronicle of her journey back in time, an exploration of fractured family bonds, and a moving epic of self-discovery.

     

2013 AAMBC Literary Award Winners

2013 Literary Awards Winners and Nominees from the African Americans on the Move Book Club
http://aambookclub.com/2013-aambc-award-full-list-of-winners-aambcawards

Break Out Author of the Year
Monica Mathis Stowe – Where Did We Go Wrong?
Tyora Moody – When Rain Falls (Victory Gospel Series #1)
Drusilla Mars – Black Fire
Nicety – Juicy: Pandora’s Box
Fabiola Joseph – Rebel’s Domain: Scarred For Life (Volume 1)

Independent Book Store of the Year
Cartel
Books and Beauty
The Literary Joint
Hueman Books
Black and Nobel

Magazine of the Year
JET
Urban Grapevine Magazine
Ebony
Essence
Sormag

Book Club of the Year
Reading Diva
Black Faithful Sisters and Brothers Book Club
OOSA
Sugar and Spice
Book Groupies Book Club

Street Lit Writer of the Year
Fabiola Joseph – Rebel’s Domain: Scarred For Life (Volume 1)
Kwan – Animal
David Weaver – The Power Family
Eyone Williams – Secrets Never Die
Treasure Blue – Little Bag Girl

Poet of the Year
GPA – The Mind of a Poetic Unsub
Kai – Peaceful Resolution
Luella Hill – Message In My Pen

Independent Publisher of the Year
Life Changing Books
Cash Money Content
Cartel Publications
Melodrama
SBR Productions

Book Reviewer of the Year
Blaze Reviews
OOSA
Carla Towns
Urban Reviews
Rawsistaz

Urban Book of the Year
Angry Ass Black Woman by Karen Quinoes Miller
The Cartel 4 by Ashley and JaQuavis
Where Did We Go Wrong? By Monica Mathis Stowe
Aminal by Kwan
Hated by Many, Loved by None by Shan

Male Author of the Year
Rahiem Brooks
David Weaver
Carl Weber
Brian W. Smith
Kwan

Vote for the Female Author of the Year
Myss Shan – Hated by Many, Loved by None
Ashley Antoinette – Guilty Gucci
Kenni York – Karma
Kimberla Lawson Roby – The Reverend’s Wife
Vanna B – Fancy

Christian Fiction Writer of the Year
Victoria Christopher Murray – Scandalous
Reshonda Tate Billingsley – The Secret She Kept
Shelia E. Lipsey for her book- What’s Blood Got To Do With It?
Vanessa Davis Griggs for her book- The Other Side of Dare (Blessed Trinity Novels)
Tyora Moody for her book- When Rain Falls (Victory Gospel Series #1)

Reader’s Choice Award
Treasure Blue
Nicety
Vanna B
Wahida Clark
Traci Bee

Romance writer of the Year
Zuri Day – Love on the run
Donna Hill – Everything is You
Traci Bee – A Nickel for a Kiss
Sadeqa Johnson – Love in a Carry On Bag
Anna Black – Who Do I Run To?

Nate Holmes Honorary Award
Rahiem Brooks
Treasure blue
Shelia E. Lipsey
Troy Johnson
Clarence Nero

AAMBC Author of the Year
Silk White – Married To Da Street
Jonean Mclain- Checkmate
Keith Thomas Walker fir his book- Dripping Chocolate
CJ Hudson – Knuckleheadz
Erica Crump – MISCELLANEOUS BLUES

The Cutting Season: A Novel by Attica Locke

2012′s Bestselling African American Books

Here are 2012′s bestsellers for African American books (from Amazon.com).

1. Merry Christmas, Alex Cross by James Patterson
   (Little, Brown and Company, 2012-11-12, Hardcover)
   

   It’s Christmas Eve and Detective Alex Cross has been called out to catch someone who’s robbing his church’s poor box. That mission behind him, Alex returns home to celebrate with Bree, Nana, and his children. The tree decorating is barely underway before his phone rings again–a horrific hostage situation is quickly spiraling out of control. Away from his own family on the most precious of days, Alex calls upon every ounce of his training, creativity, and daring to save another family. Alex risks everything–and he may not make it back alive on this most sacred of family days. Alex Cross is a hero for our time, and never more so than in this story of family, action, and the deepest moral choices. MERRY CHRISTMAS, ALEX CROSS will be a holiday classic for years to come.

    

2. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (Oprah’s Book Club 2.0) by Ayana Mathis
   (Knopf, 2012-12-06, Hardcover)
   

   Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one unforgettable family. In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented.  Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave.  She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation. Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last—glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life. An emotionally transfixing page-turner, a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity, an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream. Ayana Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is her first novel.

    

3. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
   (New Press, The, 2012-01-16, Paperback)
   

   Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as “brave and bold,” this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.” By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness. In the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, this book is a “call to action.”Called “stunning” by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Levering Lewis, “invaluable” by the Daily Kos, “explosive” by Kirkus, and “profoundly necessary” by the Miami Herald, this updated and revised paperback edition of The New Jim Crow, now with a foreword by Cornel West, is a must-read for all people of conscience.

    

4. Yes, Chef: A Memoir by Marcus Samuelsson
   (Random House, 2012-06-26, Hardcover)
   

   It begins with a simple ritual: Every Saturday afternoon, a boy who loves to cook walks to his grandmother’s house and helps her prepare a roast chicken for dinner. The grandmother is Swedish, a retired domestic. The boy is Ethiopian and adopted, and he will grow up to become the world-renowned chef Marcus Samuelsson. This book is his love letter to food and family in all its manifestations. Yes, Chef chronicles Marcus Samuelsson’s remarkable journey from Helga’s humble kitchen to some of the most demanding and cutthroat restaurants in Switzerland and France, from his grueling stints on cruise ships to his arrival in New York City, where his outsize talent and ambition finally come together at Aquavit, earning him a coveted New York Times three-star rating at the age of twenty-four. But Samuelsson’s career of  “chasing flavors,” as he calls it, had only just begun—in the intervening years, there have been White House state dinners, career crises, reality show triumphs and, most important, the opening of the beloved Red Rooster in Harlem. At Red Rooster, Samuelsson has fufilled his dream of creating a truly diverse, multiracial dining room—a place where presidents and prime ministers rub elbows with jazz musicians, aspiring artists, bus drivers, and nurses. It is a place where an orphan from Ethiopia, raised in Sweden, living in America, can feel at home.   With disarming honesty and intimacy, Samuelsson also opens up about his failures—the price of ambition, in human terms—and recounts his emotional journey, as a grown man, to meet the father he never knew. Yes, Chef is a tale of personal discovery, unshakable determination, and the passionate, playful pursuit of flavors—one man’s struggle to find a place for himself in the kitchen, and in the world.

    

5. It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership by Colin Powell
   (Harper, 2012-05-22, Hardcover)
   

   It Worked for Me is filled with vivid experiences and lessons learned that have shaped the legendary public service career of the four-star general and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. At its heart are Powell’s “Thirteen Rules”—notes he gathered over the years and that now form the basis of his leadership presentations given throughout the world. Powell’s short but sweet rules—among them, “Get mad, then get over it” and “Share credit”—are illustrated by revealing personal stories that introduce and expand upon his principles for effective leadership: conviction, hard work, and, above all, respect for others. In work and in life, Powell writes, “it’s about how we touch and are touched by the people we meet. It’s all about the people.” A natural storyteller, Powell offers warm and engaging parables with wise advice on succeeding in the workplace and beyond. “Trust your people,” he counsels as he delegates presidential briefing responsibilities to two junior State Department desk officers. “Do your best—someone is watching,” he advises those just starting out, recalling his own teenage summer job mopping floors in a soda-bottling factory. Powell combines the insights he has gained serving in the top ranks of the military and in four presidential administrations with the lessons he’s learned from his immigrant-family upbringing in the Bronx, his training in the ROTC, and his growth as an Army officer. The result is a powerful portrait of a leader who is reflective, self-effacing, and grateful for the contributions of everyone he works with. Colin Powell’s It Worked for Me is bound to inspire, move, and surprise readers. Thoughtful and revealing, it is a brilliant and original blueprint for leadership.

    

6. The Cartel 4 by Ashley and JaQuavis
   (Kensington, 2012-11-01, Paperback)
   

   [MP3CD audiobook format in vinyl case.] [Read by Cary Hite] New York Times bestselling authors Ashley and JaQuavis deliver the highly anticipated fourth installment of the wildly popular ‘Cartel’ series. You thought the Cartel was over, but Diamonds are forever . . . The Diamond family has survived murder, deceit, and betrayal. Through it all, they’re still standing tall, and a new era has begun. After surviving an 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; the world is in his hands. 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. [*Produced by Buck 50 Productions]

    

7. Kill Alex Cross by James Patterson
   (Vision, 2012-11-20, Mass Market Paperback)
   

   The only wayDetective Alex Cross is one of the first on the scene of the biggest case he’s ever been part of. The President’s son and daughter have been abducted from their school – an impossible crime, but somehow the kidnapper has done it. Alex does everything he can but is shunted to the fringes of the investigation. Someone powerful doesn’t want Cross too close.To stop Alex CrossA deadly contagion in the DC water supply threatens to cripple the capital, and Alex sees the looming shape of the most devastating attack the United States has ever experienced. He is already working flat-out on the abduction, and this massive assault pushes Cross completely over the edge.Is to kill himWith each hour that passes, the chance of finding the children alive diminishes. In an emotional private meeting, the First Lady asks Alex to please save her kids. Even the highest security clearance doesn’t get him any closer to the kidnapper – and Alex makes a desperate decision that goes against everything he believes. A full-throttle thriller with unstoppable action, unrestrained emotion, and relentless suspense, Kill Alex Cross is the most gripping Alex Cross novel James Patterson has ever written.

    

8. Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery by Deborah Willis
   (Temple University Press, 2012-12-05, Hardcover)
   

   What freedom looked like for black Americans in the Civil War era

    

9. Salvage the Bones: A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
   (Bloomsbury USA, 2012-04-24, Paperback)
   

   Winner of the 2011 National Book Award A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch’s father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn’t show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn’t much to save. Lately, Esch can’t keep down what food she gets; she’s fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull’s new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child’s play and short on parenting.As the twelve days that make up the novel’s framework yield to their dramatic conclusion, this unforgettable family-motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce-pulls itself up to face another day. A big-hearted novel about familial love and community against all odds, and a wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty, Salvage the Bones is muscled with poetry, revelatory, and real.

    

10. How to Be Black by Baratunde Thurston
    (Harper Paperbacks, 2012-10-30, Paperback)
    

    Have you ever been called “too black” or “not black enough”? Have you ever befriended or worked with a black person? Have you ever heard of black people? If you answered yes to any of these questions, this book is for you. Raised by a pro-black, Pan-Afrikan single mother during the crack years of 1980s Washington, DC, and educated at Sidwell Friends School and Harvard University, Baratunde Thurston has more than over thirty years’ experience being black. Now, through stories of his politically inspired Nigerian name, the heroics of his hippie mother, the murder of his drug-abusing father, and other revelatory black details, he shares with readers of all colors his wisdom and expertise in how to be black. Beyond memoir, this guidebook offers practical advice on everything from “How to Be the Black Friend” to “How to Be the (Next) Black President” to “How to Celebrate Black History Month.”

     

11. An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-Year-Old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny by Laura Schroff
    (Howard Books, 2012-08-07, Paperback)
    

    Stopping was never part of the plan . . . She was a successful ad sales rep in Manhattan. He was a homeless, eleven-year-old panhandler on the street. He asked for spare change; she kept walking. But then something stopped her in her tracks, and she went back. And she continued to go back, again and again. They met up nearly every week for years and built an unexpected, life-changing friendship that has today spanned almost three decades. Whatever made me notice him on that street corner so many years ago is clearly something that cannot be extinguished, no matter how relentless the forces aligned against it. Some may call it spirit. Some may call it heart. It drew me to him, as if we were bound by some invisible, unbreakable thread. And whatever it is, it binds us still.

     

12. Home by Toni Morrison
    (Knopf, 2012-05-08, Hardcover)
    

    America’s most celebrated novelist, Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison extends her profound take on our history with this twentieth-century tale of redemption: a taut and tortured story about one man’s desperate search for himself in a world disfigured by war.Frank Money is an angry, self-loathing veteran of the Korean War who, after traumatic experiences on the front lines, finds himself back in racist America with more than just physical scars. His home may seem alien to him, but he is shocked out of his crippling apathy by the need to rescue his medically abused younger sister and take her back to the small Georgia town they come from and that he’s hated all his life. As Frank revisits his memories from childhood and the war that have left him questioning his sense of self, he discovers a profound courage he had thought he could never possess again. A deeply moving novel about an apparently defeated man finding his manhood—and his home.

     

13. Dear Father, Dear Son: Two Lives… Eight Hours by Larry Elder
    (WND Books, 2012-11-13, Hardcover)
    

    The latest book by New York Times best-selling author and nationally syndicated radio talk show host Larry Elder. “Dear Father, Dear Son” is a personal memoir of Elder’s troubled — one might even say tortured — relationship with his father, and the astonishing outcome that develops when Elder, at long last, confronts him. As reflected in the book’s subtitle — “Two Lives … Eight Hours” — one extraordinary, all- day conversation between Elder and his long- estranged father utterly transformed their relationship. “Dear Father, Dear Son” is the story of one man discovering a son he never really knew. And of the son finding a man, a friend, a father who had really been there all along.

     

14. The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln by Stephen L. Carter
    (Knopf, 2012-07-10, Hardcover)
    

    From the best-selling author of The Emperor of Ocean Park and New England White, a daring reimagining of one of the most tumultuous moments in our nation’s past   Stephen L. Carter’s thrilling new novel takes as its starting point an alternate history: President Abraham Lincoln survives the assassination attempt at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865. Two years later he is charged with overstepping his constitutional authority, both during and after the Civil War, and faces an impeachment trial . . . Twenty-one-year-old Abigail Canner is a young black woman with a degree from Oberlin, a letter of employment from the law firm that has undertaken Lincoln’s defense, and the iron-strong conviction, learned from her late mother, that “whatever limitations society might place on ordinary negroes, they would never apply to her.” And so Abigail embarks on a life that defies the norms of every stratum of Washington society: working side by side with a white clerk, meeting the great and powerful of the nation, including the president himself.  But when Lincoln’s lead counsel is found brutally murdered on the eve of the trial, Abigail is plunged into a treacherous web of intrigue and conspiracy reaching the highest levels of the divided government. Here is a vividly imagined work of historical fiction that captures the emotional tenor of post–Civil War America, a brilliantly realized courtroom drama that explores the always contentious question of the nature of presidential authority, and a galvanizing story of political suspense.

     

15. The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter Godwin Woodson
    (Tribeca Books, 2012-06-22, Paperback)
    

    This is a beautiful designed large format edition of the classic THE MIS-EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO by Carter G. Woodson. One of the most important books on education ever written.

     

16. How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks About Being Sick in America by Otis Webb Brawley
    (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2012-10-30, Paperback)
    

    How We Do Harm exposes the underbelly of healthcare today—the overtreatment of the rich, the under treatment of the poor, the financial conflicts of interest that determine the care that physicians’ provide, insurance companies that don’t demand the best (or even the least expensive) care, and pharmaceutical companies concerned with selling drugs, regardless of whether they improve health or do harm. Dr. Otis Brawley is the chief medical and scientific officer of The American Cancer Society, an oncologist with a dazzling clinical, research, and policy career. How We Do Harm pulls back the curtain on how medicine is really practiced in America. Brawley tells of doctors who select treatment based on payment they will receive, rather than on demonstrated scientific results; hospitals and pharmaceutical companies that seek out patients to treat even if they are not actually ill (but as long as their insurance will pay); a public primed to swallow the latest pill, no matter the cost; and rising healthcare costs for unnecessary—and often unproven—treatments that we all pay for. Brawley calls for rational healthcare, healthcare drawn from results-based, scientifically justifiable treatments, and not just the peddling of hot new drugs.Brawley’s personal history – from a childhood in the gang-ridden streets of black Detroit, to the green hallways of Grady Memorial Hospital, the largest public hospital in the U.S., to the boardrooms of The American Cancer Society—results in a passionate view of medicine and the politics of illness in America – and a deep understanding of healthcare today. How We Do Harm is his well-reasoned manifesto for change.

     

17. What Color Is My World?: The Lost History of African-American Inventors by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
    (Candlewick, 2012-01-03, Hardcover)
    

    Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, basketball legend and the NBA’s alltime leading scorer, champions a lineupof little-known African-American inventors in this lively, kid-friendly book.Did you know that James West invented the microphone in your cell phone? That Fred Jones invented the refrigerated truck that makes supermarkets possible? Or that Dr. Percy Julian synthesized cortisone from soy, easing untold people’s pain? These are just some of the black inventors and innovators scoring big points in this dynamic look at several unsung heroes who shared a desire to improve people’s lives. Offering profiles with fast facts on flaps and framed by a funny contemporary story featuring two feisty twins, here is a nod to the minds behind the gamma electric cell and the ice-cream scoop, improvements to traffic lights, open-heart surgery, and more – inventors whose ingenuity and perseverance against great odds made our world safer, better, and brighter.

     

18. Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me by R. Kelly
    (SmileyBooks, 2012-06-28, Hardcover)
    

    Who is R. Kelly? Three-time Grammy winner, who has sold more than 35 million records worldwide. Legendary writer and producer, who collaborated with such music icons as Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Jay-Z, and Aretha Franklin. Visionary cultural messenger, who created the hip hopera phenomenon Trapped in the Closet. Creative genius. Sex symbol. The man who puts the “R” in R&B. Through the iconic anthem “I Believe I Can Fly” and such sexy R&B mega-hits as “Bump N’ Grind,” “Ignition,” and “When a Woman’s Fed Up,” R. Kelly has proven to be one of the greatest musical talents of his generation. Yet his rollercoaster ride to the top has been as perilous as it has been exhilarating. In Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me, Kelly shares his life story through episodic tales and exclusive color photographs, exploring his meteoric rises and sudden falls. From the crippling learning disorder that rendered him unable to read or write, to the teacher/mentor who prophesized that his destiny was in music, not basketball, we follow his evolution from Chicago street performer to struggling L.A. musician and beyond. Kelly reveals his hard-won ascent to superstardom and his battle to move forward after legal and personal ordeals that threatened to destroy his life. Now back at the top, Kelly recounts the surprising twists and turns that have taken him to new heights of maturity and artistry. Part memoir, part keepsake, Soulacoaster unlocks the door to R. Kelly’s story as only he can tell it, promising his fans an intimate and unforgettable ride.

     

2012′s Bestselling African American Books for the Kindle

Here are the upcoming Amazon Kindle bestsellers for African American books (from Amazon.com).

1. Merry Christmas, Alex Cross by James Patterson
   (Little, Brown and Company, 2012-11-12, Kindle Edition)
   

   It’s Christmas Eve and Detective Alex Cross has been called out to catch someone who’s robbing his church’s poor box. That mission behind him, Alex returns home to celebrate with Bree, Nana, and his children. The tree decorating is barely underway before his phone rings again–a horrific hostage situation is quickly spiraling out of control. Away from his own family on the most precious of days, Alex calls upon every ounce of his training, creativity, and daring to save another family. Alex risks everything–and he may not make it back alive on this most sacred of family days. Alex Cross is a hero for our time, and never more so than in this story of family, action, and the deepest moral choices. MERRY CHRISTMAS, ALEX CROSS will be a holiday classic for years to come.

    

2. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 Digital Edition) by Ayana Mathis
   (Knopf, 2012-12-06, Kindle Edition)
   

   The newest Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection: this special eBook edition of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis features exclusive content, including Oprah’s personal notes highlighted within the text, and a reading group guide. Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one unforgettable family. In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented.  Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave.  She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation.  Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last—glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life. An emotionally transfixing page-turner, a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity, an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream.

    

3. Guilty Pleasures by Niyah Moore
   (Ambiance Books, 2012-12-12, Kindle Edition)
   

   WHAT’S YOUR GUILTY PLEASURE? Married lawyer, Hassan Walker, can’t seem to get enough of the Sugar Hill Gentleman’s Club, as he is in love with Jada James, a sultry dancer with an alter ego, Cinnamon. Unable to shake the taunting images of her out of his head, Hassan can not even have sex with his own wife, Roxi Walker, without envisioning his Sugar Hill temptress. Meanwhile, Roxi can no longer hide the secret affair that has swept her away from reality. Given an ultimatum to stop cheating or to lose her husband for good, Roxi tries but cannot seem to fulfill her husband’s request completely. Once all of the guilty pleasures start coming to light, Hassan, Roxi, Jada along with Ivan, Victoria, and Dawn will stop at nothing to cover up their dirty little secrets.

    

4. Hated by Many, Loved by None by Shan
   (SBR Publications, 2012-11-15, Kindle Edition)
   

   Jahzara, Honey and Tomeka are best friends til the end. The three of them would die for each other and have always had each other’s back. They each desperately wanted better lives and were willing to work extra hard in order to attain it. Relationship issues in their personal lives bring the girls closer together than ever before- especially when Jahzara brings a business proposal to the table. Betrayal, lies, jealousy and murder is only the beginning of what they have to overcome. Will they succumb to it all or will they rise above it and find their way out?

    

5. A Cinderella Story: Book One (The Come-Up) by CE Ryan
   (CE Ryan, 2012-12-17, Kindle Edition)
   

   Jayda Monroe knew she deserved more out of life than her menial, thankless job and constant struggle with money. Wanting more for herself had always left her disappointed, until finally, she took a leap of faith and decided to start living on her own terms and calling her own shots. Enter Shane Morris, the hottest hip hop star in the music world; there is nothing his money can’t buy and his wealth seems to be limitless. And the moment he lays eyes on Jayda, her entire life begins to change. Follow this ambitious young woman on her quest to live abundantly, be indulged shamelessly and become a BOSS in her own right.

    

6. Ti Amo (Battaglia Mafia Series) by Sienna Mynx
   (The Divas Pen LLC, 2012-12-12, Kindle Edition)
   

   Book 2 in the Battaglia Mafia Series (Book 1 – Destino by Sienna Mynx)Let there be war…Don Giovanni Battaglia will have his revenge. A bloody Mafia war has ravaged the southern region of Italy. Every man, woman, and child born under the name Calderone must be made to atone. That is the law. After two years of blood and bullets, the men sworn to follow without question find themselves wanting peace. But how can there be peace when the one person able to save their Don from the destructive path he is on is beyond their reach. Or is she?Mira Ellison lives…It’s 1991 and Mira has learned how to begin again. Her best friend is dead, and the fashion empire she built from scratch is now gone. All she has left is the fleeting memory of a bittersweet love, and a mocha-brown baby with her father’s eyes. She now has one single goal, to survive. She must protect her baby and hide from the Mafia men she is convinced are out to kill her. But is it all a lie? Soon Mira finds herself confronted by her past, and face to face with the man she loves but doesn’t trust. And Giovanni Battaglia is furious. He gives Mira a choice. She can become his Donna or be his enemy. And this time Mira has more than her life to lose.

    

7. The Warmest December by Bernice L. McFadden
   (Akashic Books, 2012-01-15, Kindle Edition)
   

   The long-awaited reissue of McFadden’s best-selling second novel praised by Toni Morrison, USA Today, Washington Post, and others–published simultaneously with McFadden’s new novel Gathering of Waters.”[A] masterpiece . . . full of heart and emotion . . . I hope you love the book as much as I did, and I hope it moves you as much as it did me, changes you as it did me.”–James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, from the new introductionFor Kenzie, growing up in the Lowe household means opening the bottom drawer of her father’s dresser to choose which belt she’ll be whipped with that night, furtive trips to the Bee Hive liquor store for her father’s vodka, and dreaming of the day she can escape apartment 5A.Buoyed by the lyrical, redemptive voice that characterizes McFadden’s writing, The Warmest December tells the powerful, deeply moving story of one Brooklyn family and the alcoholism and abuse that marked the years of their lives. Narrated by Kenzie Lowe, a young woman reminiscent of Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John, the story moves fluidly between the past and the present as she visits her dying father and finds that choices she once thought beyond her control are very much hers to make. The Warmest December is ultimately a cathartic tale of hope, healing, and forgiveness.

    

8. The Ultimate Merger (Hot Latin Men) by Delaney Diamond
   (Delaney Diamond, 2012-07-13, Kindle Edition)
   

   Two workaholics slow down long enough to find love when they least expect it.Renaldo da Silva is on the verge of entering the U.S. market with the purchase of a hotel in downtown Chicago. After working hard for several days straight, he heads to a local bar and sees a woman who instantly makes him reconsider how to spend his evening.When another one of her male counterparts unfairly becomes the lead on a project, Sabrina Porter leaves work intent on drowning her sorrows in wine and loud music at a local bar. Instead, she meets a sexy Brazilian who’s intent on showing her a different way to unwind.The Ultimate Merger is a short story. It’s the prequel to Second Chances, Book 4 of the Hot Latin Men series.

    

9. Unique by Nikki Turner
   (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2012-10-30, Kindle Edition)
   

   With only two hundred dollars, Unique packed her suitcase and headed to New York City for a brand new start.  It’s there that Unique meets big time boxing promoter, Kennard and it is love at first sight.  However, after nine months of living in the lap of luxury with Kennard, skeletons from Unique’s past show up and it will cost her a cool million dollars to not only keep her relationship but her life.  But Unique isn’t about to lose it all.  With the help of her best friend, she devises a major heist and to pull it off all she has to do it stay alive.

    

10. Uncle Catfish by Chandra Borden
    (Bergerdergan Publishing LLC, 2012-10-31, Kindle Edition)
    

    I’m a daddy’s girl. But that wasn’t always the case. For years I used to run to my father’s arms, squealing “Daddy, Daddy,” with hopes of stealing his heart. In return, Len Earle Woods would greet me the way he greeted everyone, with a laid back demeanor and a cool-dude smile. I wasn’t a daddy’s girl at that point. I was just another kid.But it would take one visit from Uncle Catfish, the summer before my eighth grade year, to change all of that.

     

11. A Gangsta’s Bitch Pt 1 by Leo Sullivan
    (Sullivan Publications, LLC, 2012-08-08, Kindle Edition)
    

    Gina Thomas is a gangsta’s bitch, down for whatever. Even after her man, Jack Lemon, is sent to prison, Gina does what she has to do for herself and her man. When Jack wins his appeal, vengeance is no longer just for the lord.Follow Gina as she rides out for her man, and shows how a real Gangsta’s Bitch gets down.

     

12. Daddy Dearest by Kevin Bullock
    (2012-08-29, Kindle Edition)
    

    After Carl “Hammer” Bobbit was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, he became obsessed with his daughter, Cataya. Through his best friend, Ron, he controls every aspect of her life. He regulates where she goes, what she watches on T.V and who she hangs with. He knows that Cataya hates him, but his fatherly instincts won’t allow him to lighten up, or confess to his guilt. Now that Cataya is a senior in high school, she has been living with her father’s mother ever since her own mother had been found murdered twelve years prior. She has very little contact with her mother’s side of the family, but has learned through them the truth surrounding her mother’s unsolved death. She proves that she’s cut from the same cloth as her father when she formulates an icy plan that would punish Hammer for the role that he played in her mother’s death. But she gets side tracked when Hammer escapes from prison and give the real meaning to Daddy Dearest.

     

13. The Cartel 4: Diamonds are Forever by Ashley
    (Urban Books, 2012-11-01, Kindle Edition)
    

    You thought The Cartel was over, but Diamonds are forever. . . .The Diamond family has survived murder, deceit, and betrayal. Through it all, they’re still standing tall, and a new era has begun. After surviving 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. New York Times bestselling authors Ashley and JaQuavis deliver the highly anticipated fourth installment of the wildly popular Cartel series.

     

14. Fifty Shades of Jungle Fever (The Ghetto Girl Romance Quadrilogy) by L. V. Lewis
    (Jungle Fever Press, 2012-10-30, Kindle Edition)
    

    FIFTY SHADES OF GREY to the second power meets Keisha and Jada from the Block. If you’ve wondered how an ethnic girl from the hood might’ve handled an arrangement with an experienced white Dominant, this is your book. If you’d like to see the sexiest TWIN DOMS in a contemporary romance series in interracial relationships, this is most definitely your book. Aspiring recording studio owners, Keisha Beale and Jada Jameson, score a rare meeting with venture capitalist Tristan White, and are thrust into a world beyond their wildest imaginations. Street-wise Keisha is startled to realize she wants this rich white man, despite the certainty that he is out of her league. Unable to resist Keisha’s sassy, irreverent, and fiercely independent spirit, Tristan knew from day one he wanted her, too–as his first African American submissive. Upper Class Jada of the Springfield Jamesons has traveled in almost the same circles as the White brothers, and has had a secret crush on Nathan White, the point guard for the Chicago Bulls, for quite some time. Both brothers have succumbed to jungle fever, and want a little coffee in their cream. Lured by Tristan White and his offer of fronting the capital for her business in exchange for kinky sex, Keisha finds herself with no other option. Keisha is also tortured by a demons from her past, and her inability to come to terms with them threatens to undermine the future of her business and her tumultuous, unconventional relationship with Tristan White. Erotic, amusing, and in places hilarious, the Ghetto Girl Erotica Trilogy is a parody with a unique take on a Fifty Shades-type story that will take you even further into the BDSM world, and promises to make the vanilla original Fifty Shades Blacker. The first two books focus on Keisha and Tristan’s romance, and the final two focus on Jada and Nathan’s.

     

15. Hood Love by Leondra LeRae
    (, 2012-10-09, Kindle Edition)
    

    Jonnae is tired, tired of her trifling dude Chink & tired of her chaotic home life. The chance meeting of Capo turns things from upside down to good all around. Take a ride with Jonnae as she realizes your first love isn’t always real love & that hood love can be a good love.

     

16. Salty: A Ghetto Soap Opera (Drama In The Hood) by Aleta Williams
    (Alana’s Book Line, 2012-03-28, Kindle Edition)
    

    This Intriguing, Sassy, Grimy, and Envious Ghetto Soap Opera is filled with street drama that will put you right in the mix of the madness…. At the end, you may even feel “Salty” yourself!To some, the city of Los Angeles is the home of the “Angels”; “that’s bull crap”, says the characters in this ghetto soap opera. Los Angeles for them, is the home of the “Scandalous” and only those that’s down for and ready for whatever will last…Jazz is a seventeen year old, sassy, diva who strives to carry herself with class and dignity. Thanks to her ego struck boyfriend, and envious cousin,she soon finds out that classiness will get you nowhere, but humiliated and heartbroken. Peter went from a nobody to a somebody: money, cars, and big butt light skin girls now make up his worth. Peter isn’t blind to the fact that he is being used; he just doesn’t care. It’s not until he steps on the toes of a known grimy gangster from Compton, that he realizes how dangerous these females really are. Pam can tell you first hand that “love don’t love nobody”, and that you have to love yourself first. After all, love is the reason she contracted the incurable.Follow the drama as it takes you on a world wind of events that will leave your mouth open and have you lusting for more.facebook.com/SaltyAGhettoSoapOpera

     

17. Juicy- Pandora’s Box by Nicety
    (, 2012-08-25, Kindle Edition)
    

    Growing up in an abusive home took a toll on Chicago twin sisters Pandora and Diamond and their 16-year-old sister, Lexi. An overbearing, controlling father pushes them to the edge and when enough became enough, they devised a plan to get out of his grasp for good. Sun was their unsuspecting victim and everything seemed to be going according to plan until Pandora decided to change the game. Now with blood on their hands, a newfound business and two suitcases full of cash, Pandora thinks she is sitting on top of the world. Forbidden fruit is tastier when it’s not rightfully yours as she pursues Diamond’s crush, Kojack, under false pretenses. Lexi is only 16 but her love of Yompers keeps her feeling grown and sexy as she does any and everything she wants while still trying to remain loyal to her sisters. But that is all tested when Pandora shows her sisters that blood isn’t thicker than water. Will Pandora remain on top or will she crash and burn? Find out!

     

18. Poison in the Shadows (Crimson Murder Mysteries) by J. K. Crimson
    (Manic Books, 2012-05-01, Kindle Edition)
    

    After nearly being fatally shot and left for dead in the grim streets of Detroit, ex-stripper, now turned homicide detective, Jordan Crimson, is still haunted by her past demons of when her street hustling boyfriend killed her best friend ten years ago. She had been successful at moving on while working around the clock solving murders to take her mind away from the emptiness and regret in her life. Until the body of Samantha Cox is discovered. As Jordan uncovers Samantha’s secret life of lies, sex, and betrayal, the past demons she thought were buried, are back once again. Will her investigation lead to Samantha’s killer or face to face of her own death?

     

All I Ever Wanted (Grayson Friends series, Book 8) by Francis Ray