New African American Books: Adult Fiction
March 11, 2010
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (The Inheritance Trilogy)
by N.K. Jemisin
Orbit
Available 10/01/10 in Mass Market Paperback
Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle.
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is the debut novel from a major new voice in fantasy fiction.
March 10, 2010
Modern Library
Available 01/26/10 in Hardcover
At his death in 1994, Ralph Ellison left behind roughly two thousand pages of his unfinished second novel, which he had spent nearly four decades writing. Long awaited, it was to have been the work Ellison intended to follow his masterpiece, Invisible Man. Five years later, Random House published Juneteenth, drawn from the central narrative of Ellison’s unfinished epic. Three Days Before the Shooting . . . gathers together in one volume, for the first time, all the parts of that planned opus, including three major sequences never before published.
Set in the frame of a deathbed vigil, the story is a gripping multigenerational saga centered on the assassination of the controversial, race-baiting U.S. senator Adam Sunraider, who’s being tended to by “Daddy” Hickman, the elderly black jazz musician turned preacher who raised the orphan Sunraider as a light-skinned black in rural Georgia. Presented in their unexpurgated, provisional state, the narrative sequences form a deeply poetic, moving, and profoundly entertaining book, brimming with humor and tension, composed in Ellison’s magical jazz-inspired prose style and marked by his incomparable ear for vernacular speech.
Beyond its richly compelling narratives, Three Days Before the Shooting . . . is perhaps most notable for its extraordinary insight into the creative process of one of this country’s greatest writers. In various stages of composition and revision, its typescripts and computer files testify to Ellison’s achievement and struggle with his material from the mid-1950s until his death forty years later. Three Days Before the Shooting . . . is an essential, fascinating piece of Ralph Ellison’s legacy, and its publication is to be welcomed as a major event for American arts and letters.
February 27, 2010
Oneworld Publications
Available 03/01/10 in Paperback
Riverhead Hardcover
Available 03/31/09 in Hardcover
Described by the New York Times as both beautifully written and devastating, this is a startling, hard-edged dissection of slavery – a tour de force of voice and storytelling. At the heart of the novel is the extraordinary character Lilith, a spirited slave girl struggling to transcend the violence into which she is born, her story narrated in one of the boldest literary voices to grace the page. Overflowing with high drama and heartbreak, at its centre is the conspiracy of the Night Women, a clandestine council of fierce slave women plotting an island-wide revolt. Rebellions simmer, incidents of sadism and madness run rampant, and the tangled web of power relationships dramatically unravels amid dangerous secrets, unspoken jealousies, inhuman violence, and very human emotion.
February 21, 2010
Atria
Available 02/16/10 in Hardcover
Following the phenomenal success of Essence bestsellers Dirty Red and Still Dirty, Vickie M. Stringer takes readers on another bumpy ride in Dirtier Than Ever with Red, Bacon, and Q — the crazy love-hate triangle who makes the series a favorite among urban fiction fans.
Q wished that Bacon had killed Red when he had the chance. Red knew that Q’s career as a hustler was over and he was counting on starting a new legit business with the money he had made. He had once believed her when she promised that the money didn’t mean a thing and she would give it all up to be with him.
Bacon returns from prison and suddenly Q is left for dead. With Q out of the picture, Bacon now has Red to himself. His sights are set on being the top hustler with Red by his side. He believes Red has finally changed when she reveals the truth about her past.
But all comes to a head when the snooping detective, Thomas, suspects Red’s involvement in Q’s getting shot and the murder of Zeke, Q’s best friend. With two murders, a tumultuous love affair, and money on her mind, Red must make a decision . . . does she turn over a new leaf or revisit her dirty ways of old?
Gritty, steamy, and intense, Stringer delivers another page-turning caper about a hustler in high heels who is Dirtier Than Ever.
February 21, 2010
One World/Ballantine
Available 04/20/10 in Paperback
Nikki Turner, Queen of Hip-Hop Lit, is back with one of her gutsiest female characters yet, a glamorous chick with a high-end hustle that can rival any man’s game.
As the respected, renowned concierge for a luxury hotel chain, Beijing Lee caters to the wealthy and famous. Whether it’s securing a dinner reservation, a fleet of limos, or a record deal, or protecting her clients from the paparazzi, there’s nothing Beijing can’t do. She’s stacked up an impressive pile of IOUs from the world’s eliteâ — and one day she decides it’s time to start cashing in. Before long, she’s a five-star diva running her own lucrative business, where she secures her clients their most outrageous — and increasingly illegal — desires.
But Beijing has her own addiction: a man named Lootchee, who lavishes her with even more diamonds and luxury than she already has. But behind Lootchee’s charm and over-the-top romantic gestures is a selfish, high-stakes hustler who lures Beijing into a dangerous web that takes even this seasoned enterpriser by surpise, and breaks her heart in the process.Once the ball finally drops, it’ll take a ghost from Beijing’s past to rescue her — not only from those who are out to seriously harm her, but from herself.
February 21, 2010
Mahogney Ink Publications is a new publishing house established in 2009. Here is a list of our current 2010 releases.
Re-release A Diamond For A Diva coming 03/10/10!
Is a tale of four high maintenance DIVAS who have everything an average woman could want in life except for true love. These women are all one year away from turning the big 30 without a man in sight for miles so they rekindle an old college bet to see who will get married first.
Revenge Of The Cheating Mistress coming April 2010!
Putting your heart and soul into a relationship then finding out your man is cheating will cut you deep. The emotions will take your mind to a place that no woman should go. You immediately want to pull out a blade, stalk him, fight him, bust his windshield, cut his tires, scratch his paint job, bust a cap in his butt and beat up the mistress if she knows about you. Basically, the only thing that can give you peace is Sweet Revenge.
Through My Spectacles coming 06/15/2010!
I can be your left-handed intellect but my right hand is stronger
My ambidextrous talents should overwhelm your senses knowing that my mental is stronger than my hand’s caress.
Which hand do you want?
We are too young for my left, so grab the right for reassurance
Grab the left when you realize i’m the F*** Best
and when you need me to lead you to a place full of deafening harmonious sounds
grab both my hands
close your eyes, feel gravity’s release while we travel to cloud nine
as long as you hands are intertwined with mine….
Mahogney Ink Publications
“Bringing A New Twist To Urban Publishing”
www.mahogneyinkpublication.com
Author Mahogneyinkpublications
February 21, 2010
Melodrama Publishing
Available 03/16/10 in Paperback
Kira’s quiet life in the islands is interrupted when she’s called back to Virginia to attend her cousin Nikki’s funeral. Reluctantly, Kira plans a short, incognito trip to do just that. However, her plans are derailed when news of her arrival spreads.
Now there’s a bounty on her head, and several snakes are ready to cash in. Behind enemy lines in her own hometown, Kira is faced with yet another battle to stay alive as she finds out once again, that she’s living on borrowed time. Will she be able to cheat death again, or will death snatch her from behind in part five of the Wifey series?
February 20, 2010
Mahogney Ink Publications
Available 04/01/10 in Perfect Paperback
Revenge Of The Cheating Mistress is centered around the life of an authoress/professional mistress named Larissa Calhoun. She is cute in the face and thin in the waist. One bad relationship after another causes her to explore her life’s purpose that is to make all men pay. In the midst of her drama, her rise to fame comes unexpectedly as her novels top the New York times and Essence magazine best seller’s lists. Things are going great until she discovers her ex-lover has become a pastor at one of the biggest mega-churches in the south. Larissa becomes angry and uses this as an excuse to convert back into her vengeful ways in hopes of finding out if the old saying is true once a cheater always a cheater.
February 13, 2010
Amistad
Available 01/01/10 in Hardcover
An ambitious and startling debut novel that follows the lives of four women at a resort popular among slaveholders who bring their enslaved mistresses
wench \’wench\ n. from Middle English “wenchel,” 1 a: a girl, maid, young woman; a female child.
Tawawa House in many respects is like any other American resort before the Civil War. Situated in Ohio, this idyllic retreat is particularly nice in the summer when the Southern humidity is too much to bear. The main building, with its luxurious finishes, is loftier than the white cottages that flank it, but then again, the smaller structures are better positioned to catch any breeze that may come off the pond. And they provide more privacy, which best suits the needs of the Southern white men who vacation there every summer with their black, enslaved mistresses. It’s their open secret.
Lizzie, Reenie, and Sweet are regulars at Tawawa House. They have become friends over the years as they reunite and share developments in their own lives and on their respective plantations. They don’t bother too much with questions of freedom, though the resort is situated in free territory — but when truth-telling Mawu comes to the resort and starts talking of running away, things change. To run is to leave behind everything these women value most — friends and families still down South — and for some it also means escaping from the emotional and psychological bonds that bind them to their masters. When a fire on the resort sets off a string of tragedies, the women of Tawawa House soon learn that triumph and dehumanization are inseparable and that love exists even in the most inhuman, brutal of circumstances — all while they are bearing witness to the end of an era. An engaging, page-turning, and wholly original novel, Wench explores, with an unflinching eye, the moral complexities of slavery.
February 8, 2010
NuWorle Publishing
Available 02/18/10 in Paperback
Since the release of his first novel, Clarence Nero has become a superstar of the literary world. His words pulse with the energy of life on the street, and his stories brim with conflict and emotion. Now we’re proud to reintroduce his first urban classic, which explores a young man’s experience living in and eventually freeing himself from one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in America.
At one time, Desire in New Orleans was the pride of public housing, and generations of teenage Cheekie’s family had lived there happily and safely. But by the 1970s, the project has seriously deteriorated into violence, drugs and poverty. Despite its downfalls, Desire remained a neighborhood fueled by the people, and their vibrant energy and love of fun transcending their oppressive surroundings. But it’s still no place for a young boy, and all Cheekie wants is to get out. Described through his young voice, the neglect and the nurturing, the violence and the inspiration of Desire come alive as Cheekie grows into manhood, finally escapes and forges ahead on an inspiring journey toward personal and professional success. We think you’ll love Clarence Nero’s critically acclaimed first novel.
