Black Page Turners

The Grand Opening by: Carl Weber and Eric Pete
Before there was the family, there was just the business.

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.
Release: 8/25/15
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My Soul Then Sings by: Michelle Lindo-Rice
Is there a sin not worth confessing?

Ryan Oakes is keeping a huge secret, one that threatens his relationships with both his wife and son. As a new convert, his Conscience prods him to tell the truth but Ryan decides to employ every trick in the book to keep from confessing. But, when his marriage begins to suffer, he is forced to come clean. But at what cost?

Patricia Oakes is troubled by her husband’s unusual interest in Karlie Knightly. She is reminded that the only time Ryan cheated on her it was with Tiffany, Karlie’s mother. While she grapples with her fears, she can’t help but be flattered by Timothy Newhouse, a fellow surgeon on an especially difficult case. Will she seek solace in another man’s arms?

Can a male and female be truly platonic?

Karlie Knightly’s boyfriend, Jamaal Weathers is pressuring her to have sex and Karlie isn’t trying to displease God. On top of that, brutal reviews on her debut song cite her as too sweet and inexperienced. Luckily, her best friend, Brian Oakes has the perfect suggestion to help her find her edge. Against everyone’s advice, Karlie and Brian begin an adventure, which draws them closer. Will she uphold the commitment she made to God?

Brian Oakes is enjoying college life and in particular, college girls. When Karlie discovers his deepest secret, he realizes he feels more for her than just a friend. Will Brian reform his ways and grab his chance at true love?
Release: 8/25/15
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The Face That Changed It All by: Beverly Johnson
A revelatory and redemptive memoir from Beverly Johnson, the first black supermodel to grace the cover of Vogue, and who, over five hundred magazine covers later, remains one of the most successful glamour girls ever.

In The Face That Changed It All, Beverly Johnson brings her own passionate and deeply honest voice to the page to chronicle her childhood growing up as a studious, and sometimes bullied, bookworm during the socially conscious, racially charged ’60s. Initially drawn to a career in law due to the huge impact the Civil Rights movement had on her life, Beverly eventually made her mark as the first black cover model of American Vogue in 1974. A successful three-decade career in modeling followed.

Offering glamorous tales about the hard partying of the 1970s and Hollywood during the ’80s and early ’90s, Johnson details her many encounters and fascinating friendships with the likes of Jackie Kennedy, Halston, Calvin Klein, and Andy Warhol, as well as stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson, Eddie Murphy, Jack Nicholson, Keith Richards, and Warren Beatty. But not everything that glitters is gold, and Johnson’s memoir reveals the countless demons she wrestled with over the course of her storied career. She brings us into the heart of her struggles with racism, drug addiction, divorce, and a prolonged child custody battle over her daughter that tested her fortitude and sanity. She shares for the first time intimate details surrounding her love affair with the late tennis icon Arthur Ashe, giving little known insight into the heart, mind, and spirit of the revered tennis legend. She also pays homage to her mentor, the late Naomi Sims, while lifting the veil off the complicated, catty, and often times tense relationships between black models during her fashion heyday. Familiar names from the catwalk, such as Pat Cleveland and Iman, appear regularly in her story, illustrating how each had to fight various battles to survive not just the system at large, but each other.

Featuring gorgeous, never-before-seen photos from Johnson’s childhood and modeling days, The Face That Changed It All gives a no-holds-barred look at the lives of the rich, fabulous, and famous. It is also a story of failure and success in the upper echelons of the fashion world, and how Beverly Johnson emerged from her struggles smarter, happier, and stronger than ever.
Release: 8/25/15
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Stone Cold Lair by: Noire
Her billionaire family’s scandalous secrets are as big as their fortune. But consummate con-mami Mink LaRue plans to play them all for the ultimate high stakes. . .

As a newly-minted Dominion family heiress, Mink has new golden moves to snag even more of the family fortune. Trouble is, her hidden love games with seductive uncle-by-marriage-only Suge have them at bad-news odds–and more than her heart is in dirty sexy trouble. When the family patriarch is shot, Mink is up against a crossfire of old Dominion rivals, blackmailers, and elegant scammers out to take them down for good. What she needs is a surprise ally–her identical twin Dy-Nasty. But her scheming sibling’s conniving threatens to end Mink’s moneyed ride and ace her into lockdown. With disaster only one lie away, Mink has to flip the script on enemies she never saw coming–and turn her diamond-honed hustle into the supreme weapon. . .
Release: 8/25/15
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Best Kept Secrets by:Shelly Ellis
Between the fall-out from his father’s latest shady business dealings and his wife Charisse’s alcoholism, Evan Murdoch has his hands full. But he should be most concerned about the scandalous affair Charisse is having right under his nose–with his half-brother. Evan’s being pushed to the edge, and no one knows that better than Leila Hawkins…

Leila is back in Chesterton, divorced, penniless, and desperate enough to do anything to save her mother’s home from foreclosure–including turning to Evan, her former best friend. But Evan isn’t interested in friendship. Instead he makes Leila a shocking indecent proposal…

Meanwhile, Evan’s newlywed sister, Paulette, wants to be the perfect wife. But a blackmailing bad boy ex has reappeared in her life–and he’s threatening to reveal her most painful secret…

The scandals just won’t quit–and for everyone involved, desire, betrayal, and lies are all in a day’s work…
Release: 8/25/15
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Permanent Resident at the Altar by:Keisha Bass
If Ava has to wear her fake smile one more time while standing in a wedding party, she might come unglued. She and her boyfriend, Kevin, have been seriously dating for a year. As she approaches the marriage-ripe age of thirty-one, she can’t help but count down the days until her wedding day. It seems like everyone in her immediate world is getting hitched but her: cousin, friend, and even a co-worker who is shacking up while Ava’s trying to live life on the straight and narrow.

Kevin is the man of her dreams, but his mother doesn’t believe Ava is the woman of his. Two of his sisters seem to be on the same page with their mother, treating her like an outcast every chance they get. Ava’s only ally in Kevin’s world is his baby sister, Tweet, a drug addict who takes up a lot of his time. Trusting God is all Ava can do as she hopes for the best, but if Ava and Kevin are meant for each other, then why is it such a struggle to get down the aisle? What’s wrong with Ava? What’s wrong with Kevin? Or is Kevin’s mother the one calling the shots?
Release: 8/25/15
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Bi-Satisfied by:Nikki-Michelle
Summer Kennedy is a power player in Atlanta, GA. She has been on a journey of self-discovery since she was old enough to remember. From love to the identity of her real parents to her openly brazen sexuality, she has always felt something was missing. Working side by side with powerhouse lawyer and best friend David Hall, an openly bi-sexual black male, Summer feels a spark with David that dares to challenge the laws of attraction. Can Summer lose herself in David’s erotic call? When Michael, David’s friend and ex-lover, comes into town, the game of cat and mouse between two friends changes everything for Summer. Michael is aware of her sexual desires, and he uses her in his plot against the man who did something so unforgivable that ten years later, Michael is still looking to make him pay. In order to understand the method to Michael’s madness, you’ll have to take a walk on the wild side. Take a journey of learning to accept what society deems as unacceptable. Find out what happens when you mix sex, half-truths, and hidden agendas with burning lust and sexual curiosity.
Release: 8/25/15
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Mystic Park by: Regina Hart
Los Angeles talent manager Benita Hawkins has returned to tiny Trinity Falls, Ohio, to visit her elderly great aunt Helen–and hopefully convince her to move to assisted living. But that’s not the only move Benita hopes to inspire. After years of hometown hookups with her childhood sweetheart, university band director Vaughn Brooks, Benita wants more: for Vaughn to move to L.A. and settle down with her. She even gets involved in his work, planning to lure him to the City of Angels. . .

Vaughn has loved Benita since high school, but he also loves Trinity Falls. Hoping to seduce her to stay, he asks Benita to help out with the local production of his original musical. But when Benita takes her role too far, she may have blown both their dreams–unless she can prove to Vaughn that they want the same things out of life after all. . .
Release: 8/25/15
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Where a Man Stands by:Carter Paysinger
When Beverly Hills High School welcomed a skinny boy from the other side of the tracks, no one knew just how life-changing the decision would be, not just for Carter Paysinger but for all of Beverly Hills.

Carter grew up hearing his parents say, “Don’t just strive to be good. Always strive to be great.” He dreamed of finding greatness in playing professional baseball or becoming a black Donald Trump, but fate had different plans and, ultimately, he found his calling as a teacher and coach at the school that once embraced him, becoming a rock for the innumerable kids who came seeking an ear to listen or a shoulder to cry on. One such kid, a scrappy Jewish boy from a prominent family, would change the course of Carter’s life. His name was Steven Fenton.

Twenty years later, as Beverly Hills High fell into disarray—with principals hired and fired and families fleeing the school—as well as his own life coming apart, Carter ran into Steven Fenton again. Together, they found renewed passion and hope to fight for their school and test the limits of what community means. But when Steven convinced Carter to throw his hat into the ring as principal, the progressive Beverly Hills suddenly thought that its winningest and most beloved coach didn’t fit the profile for the Beverly Hills image. It was the beginning of a long road, but Carter could hear his father saying, “Don’t listen to those voices. Do what you have to do.”

Filled with hope, triumph, and the struggles that come to define us, Where a Man Stands is a beautiful fish-out-of-water story about the families formed in unlikely places and how, in the end, where you stand, and with whom, and for what, matters as much as anything.
Release: 8/25/15
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Pillars of Cloud and Fire by: Herbert Robinson Marbury
At the birth of the United States, African Americans were excluded from the newly-formed Republic and its churches, which saw them as savage rather than citizen and as heathen rather than Christian. Denied civil access to the basic rights granted to others, African Americans have developed their own sacred traditions and their own civil discourses. As part of this effort, African American intellectuals offered interpretations of the Bible which were radically different and often fundamentally oppositional to those of many of their white counterparts. By imagining a freedom unconstrained, their work charted a broader and, perhaps, a more genuinely American identity. In Pillars of Cloud and Fire, Herbert Robinson Marbury offers a comprehensive survey of African American biblical interpretation.

Each chapter in this compelling volume moves chronologically, from the antebellum period and the Civil War through to the Harlem Renaissance, the civil rights movement, the black power movement, and the Obama era, to offer a historical context for the interpretative activity of that time and to analyze its effect in transforming black social reality. For African American thinkers such as Absalom Jones, David Walker, Zora Neale Hurston, Frances E. W. Harper, Adam Clayton Powell, and Martin Luther King, Jr., the exodus story became the language-world through which freedom both in its sacred resonance and its civil formation found expression. This tradition, Marbury argues, has much to teach us in a world where fundamentalisms have become synonymous with “authentic” religious expression and American identity. For African American biblical interpreters, to be American and to be Christian was always to be open and oriented toward freedom.
Release: 8/25/15
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Hood Misfit 3 by: Brick & Storm
Never underestimate a misfit…All Enzo aka Shawn Banks, and Bianca “Angel” Smith wanted to do was leave the evidence of their old life behind them, but the past always has a way of coming back to haunt you. When International King Pin, Damien Orlando, was taken down, the streets of Atlanta thought DOA’s reign of terror was over, but sometimes even tied up ends can unravel. Step into the underworld of the NFL, where E.N.G.A takes on a whole new meaning, especially for Angel and Enzo. Neither one of them will be prepared for what happens when murder and mayhem takes to the streets of the ATL once again and pulls them in head first. Player steps back into the E.N.G.A world where both Enzo and Angel will see how far some will go to further their agenda.
Release: 8/25/15
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Shi’i Cosmopolitanisms in Africa by: Mara A. Leictman
Mara A. Leichtman offers an in-depth study of Shi‘i Islam in two very different communities in Senegal: the well-established Lebanese diaspora and Senegalese “converts” from Sunni to Shi‘i Islam of recent decades. Sharing a minority religious status in a predominantly Sunni Muslim country, each group is cosmopolitan in its own way. Leichtman provides new insights into the everyday lives of Shi‘i Muslims in Africa and the dynamics of local and global Islam. She explores the influence of Hizbullah and Islamic reformist movements, and offers a corrective to prevailing views of Sunni-Shi‘i hostility, demonstrating that religious coexistence is possible in a context such as Senegal.
Release: 8/25/15
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Word Warrior by: Sonja D. Williams
Posthumously inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2007, Richard Durham creatively chronicled and brought to life the significant events of his times. Durham’s trademark narrative style engaged listeners with fascinating characters, compelling details, and sharp images of pivotal moments in American and African American history and culture. In Word Warrior , award-winning radio producer Sonja D. Williams draws on archives and hard-to-access family records, as well as interviews with family and colleagues like Studs Terkel and Toni Morrison, to illuminate Durham’s astounding career. Durham paved the way for black journalists as a dramatist and a star investigative reporter and editor for the pioneering black newspapers the Chicago Defender and Muhammed Speaks . Talented and versatile, he also created the acclaimed radio series Destination Freedom and Here Comes Tomorrow and wrote for popular radio fare like The Lone Ranger . Incredibly, his energies extended still further–to community and labor organizing, advising Chicago mayoral hopeful Harold Washington, and mentoring generations of activists. Incisive and in-depth, Word Warrior tells the story of a tireless champion of African American freedom, equality, and justice during an epoch that forever changed a nation.
Release: 8/25/15
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Children & Young Adults

Pumpkin Day! by: Candice Ransom
In this Step 1 Step into Reading early reader, a boy and his family visit a pumpkin patch to pick out perfect autumn gourds—just in time for Halloween! Buoyant rhymes and joyful art evoke the excitement of the season.

Step 1 Readers feature big type and easy words for children who know the alphabet and are eager to begin reading. Rhyme and rhythmic text paired with picture clues help children decode the story.
Release: 8/25/15
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Game On by: Calvin Slater
Xavier Hunter hoped his senior year would be bad news-free. His old enemy is finally in lockdown and Xavier is out from under one mad-crazy relationship disaster. And he’s cool with his dream girl, Samantha Fox, dating other guys because fair is fair–he hasn’t been a saint. But he’s not hearing anything good about her new man, Sean. And showing Samantha the truth could be the one game Xavier can’t win. . .

With graduation and college coming up fast, Samantha has been thinking hard about her future. Maybe she and Xavier have too much baggage to get back together. And Sean is a chance to see things fresh and figure out what she really wants. So she doesn’t need Xavier telling jealous lies–especially when the drama he’s lighting up could crash and burn their futures for good. . .
Release: 8/25/15
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Untwine by:Edwidge Danticat
A haunting and mesmerizing story about sisterhood, family, love, and loss by literary luminary Edwidge Danticat.

Giselle Boyer and her identical twin, Isabelle, are as close as sisters can be, even as their family seems to be unraveling. Then the Boyers have a tragic encounter that will shatter everyone’s world forever.

Giselle wakes up in the hospital, injured and unable to speak or move. Trapped in the prison of her own body, Giselle must revisit her past in order to understand how the people closest to her — her friends, her parents, and above all, Isabelle, her twin — have shaped and defined her. Will she allow her love for her family and friends to lead her to recovery? Or will she remain lost in a spiral of longing and regret?

Untwine is a spellbinding tale, lyrical and filled with love, mystery, humor, and heartbreak. Award-winning author Edwidge Danticat brings her extraordinary talent to this graceful and unflinching examination of the bonds of friendship, romance, family, the horrors of loss, and the strength we must discover in ourselves when all seems hopeless.
Release: 8/29/15
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