Black Page Turners

Memoirs of an Accidental Hustler by:J.M. Benjamin
Moving from a brownstone in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn to a housing project in the small town of Plainfield, New Jersey, young Kamil is exposed to another world and a different breed of people. Bonded by the pain caused by their absentee fathers, Kamil and his brother befriend a group of boys from the neighborhood, forming an unbreakable bond. The boys vow not to travel down the same road as their dads, making a pact to stay in school and out of the streets. When Kamil discovers the allure of the opposite sex, a childhood crush develops into something much more.

Walk with Kamil as he transitions from childhood to young adulthood and struggles with the very things his mother tried so hard to prevent him and his brother from embracing. What starts out as a game and a means of survival ultimately ends up serious and addictive.
Release: 2/28/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle) or (Paperback)

The Inheritance by:Rochelle Alers
In bestselling author Rochelle Alers’ passionate, uplifting new series, four friends from very different backgrounds find new beginnings amid the sultry beauty of New Orleans…

Corporate attorney Hannah DuPont-Lowell always pictured herself returning to New Orleans to retire—just not yet. But after her Manhattan company abruptly lays off its staff, there’s no better place to figure out a next move than the porch of her plantation-style home.

Nestled in the stunning Garden District, the DuPont House has been in Hannah’s family for two centuries. With its eighteen rooms and two guesthouses, it’s far more home than widowed Hannah needs. Still, it could make a wonderful inn, especially if she can convince her friends and former coworkers Tonya, Jasmine, and Nydia to join in the venture. But in the meantime, Hannah has a high school reunion to attend…

College Professor St. John McNair, Hannah’s one-time classmate, is still the finest guy in any room. Between Hannah’s willowy, blonde beauty, and his uncanny resemblance to Marvin Gaye, they make a striking pair. And gradually, their rekindled friendship moves toward romance. Still, Hannah is too bruised by her late husband’s infidelities to trust a man again. But her friends’ arrival and encouragement just might show her a path through uncertainty—straight to a vibrant, joyful new life…
Release: 2/28/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle) or (Paperback)

You’re Welcome, Cleveland by:Scott Raab
Scott Raab’s big-hearted companion to his darkly comic “sports-jeremiad-slash-memoir” The Whore of Akron follows the first two years of LeBron James’s return to Cleveland, where everybody just loves a good story of forgiveness—especially when you fulfill your promise and bring home an NBA Championship, the first major title for a Cleveland team since 1964.

“If I had a chance to return to Cleveland, and those fans welcomed me back, that’d be a great story.” —LeBron James in 2010, days after “The Decision”

In 2010, when LeBron James announced to the world that he was leaving for Miami, he broke the collective heart of his native city and destroyed the hopes of an entire tortured generation.

As LeBron headed south, unofficial spokesman Scott Raab sent him off with a middle-finger salute of his own—a deliciously obscene aria of sports fandom, Jewishness, and weight gain that became infamous as The Whore of Akron.

Four years—and two NBA championships later—LeBron came home to the Rust Belt faithful who had vilified him mercilessly, none more so than Raab. You’re Welcome, Cleveland is the story of both LeBron’s and Scott’s redemption as they pursue the one thing they crave more than anything in life—an NBA title for the city that made them men.

LeBron is back. So is Scott Raab. It’s a great story.

You’re Welcome, Cleveland.
Release: 2/28/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle) or (Hardcover)

Heels, Heartache & Headlines by:Ni-Ni Simone & Amir Abrams
It’s a showdown for the spotlight as Hollywood’s elite Pampered Princesses scramble to outshine each other for the ultimate crown. But being on top is never what it seems…

Heartbroken and humiliated, teen supermodel London Phillips is done with her pity party and ready to move on. But between the mean-spirited media, a shocking realization about her billionaire ex, and a vengeful obsession, London’s discovering that while confessions are good for the soul, deception is so much sweeter…

When it comes to juggling her cuties, Rich Montgomery is the queen. But now she’s fallen for a bad boy who comes with more drama than she ever did—and her fairytale love affair soon turns into a nightmare. Will she find a way out, or will pride get the best of her?
Spencer Ellington could teach an advanced class in revenge. So when she’s shunned by her frenemy, Heather Cummings, again, backstabbed by her bestie, Rich, and sucked into her parents’ sordid antics, she’s ready to roll up her designer sleeves and pull out all the stops. After all, frenemies fight. Divas wage war…
Release: 2/28/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle)

Beautiful Child: The True Story of a Child Trapped in Silence and the Teacher Who Refused to Give Up on Her by:Torey Hayden
From the bestselling author of One Child comes this amazing, true story of a mute and withdrawn seven—year—old girl and the special education teacher determined never to abandon a child in need.

Seven-year-old Venus Fox never spoke, never listened, never even acknowledged the presence of another human being in the room with her. Yet an accidental playground “bump” would release a rage frightening to behold. The school year that followed would be one of the most trying, perplexing, and ultimately rewarding of Torey Hayden’s career, as she struggled to reach a silent child in obvious pain. It would be a strenuous journey beset by seemingly insurmountable obstacles and darkened by truly terrible revelations—yet encouraged by sometimes small, sometimes dazzling breakthroughs—as a dedicated teacher remained committed to helping a “hopeless” girl, and patiently and lovingly leading her toward the light of a new day.
Release: 2/28/17
Click to purchase: (Paperback) or (Kindle)

Late Arcade by:Nathaniel Mackey
A new volume of the singular, ongoing, great American jazz novel

Nathaniel Mackey’s Late Arcade opens in Los Angeles. A musician known only as N. writes the first of a series of letters to the enigmatic Angel of Dust. N.’s jazz sextet, Molimo m’Atet, has just rehearsed a new tune: the horn players read from The Egyptian Book of the Dead with lips clothespinned shut, while the rest of the band struts and saunters in a cosmic hymn to the sun god Ra. N. ends this breathless session by sending the Angel of Dust a cassette tape of their rehearsal.

Over the next nine months, N.’s epistolary narration follows the musical goings-on of the ensemble. N. suffers from what he calls “cowrie shell at- tacks”—oil spills, N.’s memory of his mother’s melancholy musical Sundays— which all becomes the source of fresh artistic invention.
Release: 2/28/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle) or (Paperback)

Who Owns Haiti?: People, Power, and Sovereignty by:Robert Maguire
Although Haiti established its independence in 1804, external actors such as the United States, the United Nations, and non-profits have wielded considerable influence throughout its history. Especially in the aftermath of the Duvalier regime and the 2010 earthquake, continual imperial interventions have time and again threatened its sovereignty.

Who Owns Haiti? explores the role of international actors in the country’s sovereign affairs while highlighting the ways in which Haitians continually enact their own independence on economic, political, and cultural levels. The contributing authors contemplate Haiti’s sovereign roots from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including political science, anthropology, history, economics, and development studies. They also consider the assertions of sovereignty from historically marginalized urban and rural populations. This volume addresses how Haitian institutions, grassroots organizations, and individuals respond to and resist external influence. Examining how foreign actors encroach on Haitian autonomy and shape—or fail to shape—Haiti’s fortunes, it argues that varying discussions of ownership are central to Haiti’s future as a sovereign state.
Release: 2/28/17
Click to purchase: (Hardcover)

Witch Switch (Witch Wars) by:Sibeal Pounder
Young witch Tiga Whicabim is just starting to settle into glitzy Ritzy City when Fran the Fabulous Fairy discovers that Tiga’s best friend Peggy has gone missing–leaving behind only a note explaining that she’s “AWAY WITH THE FAIRIESÂ?? and evil Felicity Bat is now in charge. Soon after, other witches across town start to disappear.

Tiga and her friends set out to investigate and stumble upon an old, unsolved mystery that might just be the reason behind the disappearances. Can the girls use their witchy skills to save their friend and the city in time?

This companion to Witch Wars is a witch story like no other, filled with silly spells, delectable dresses, and ridiculous riddles, as well as hilarious black-and-white illustrations.
Release: 2/28/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle), (Hardcover), (Audible)

The Hate U Give by:Angie Thomas
Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, Angie Thomas’s searing debut about an ordinary girl in extraordinary circumstances addresses issues of racism and police violence with intelligence, heart, and unflinching honesty. Soon to be a major motion picture from Fox 2000/Temple Hill Productions.

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
Release: 2/28/17
Ages:14 And Up, Grades: 9 And Up
Click to purchase: (Kindle) or (Hardcover)

Walking Lions by:Ayelet Gundar-Gashen
After one night’s deadly mistake, a man will go to any lengths to save his family and his reputation.

Neurosurgeon Eitan Green has the perfect life–married to a beautiful police officer and father of two young boys. Then, speeding along a deserted moonlit road after an exhausting hospital shift, he hits someone. Seeing that the man, an African migrant, is beyond help, he flees the scene.

When the victim’s widow knocks at Eitan’s door the next day, holding his wallet and divulging that she knows what happened, Eitan discovers that her price for silence is not money. It is something else entirely, something that will shatter Eitan’s safe existence and take him into a world of secrets and lies he could never have anticipated.

WAKING LIONS is a gripping, suspenseful, and morally devastating drama of guilt and survival, shame and desire from a remarkable young author on the rise.
Release: 2/28/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle), (Hardcover), and (Audible)

Super Freak: The Life of Rick James by:Peter Benjaminson
Rick James played with Neil Young, self-produced his first album (later picked up by Motown), crossed rock and funk to come up with one of the best-selling albums of the 1980s, became one of the biggest pop stars of the era, turned a young white woman named Teena Marie into an R&B superstar, displayed an outrageously sex- and drug-filled lifestyle, was tried and found guilty of assaulting and imprisoning a young woman, went on to record new music that was compared to the Beatles’ White Album, and ended his life as a punch line for Dave Chappelle. James attempted to tell his own story–in two different books–but left out many incidents that showed who he really was. Now, based on court records, newspaper archives, and extensive interviews with dozens of family members, band members, friends, and lovers, here is the definitive biography of Motown’s most controversial superstar.
Release: 3/1/17
Click to purchase: (Kindle) or (Hardcover)

Cop Under Fire by:Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr
David A. Clarke, Jr., known by many as “America’s sheriff,” navigates the choppy waters of race relations, religion, politics, and law enforcement, sharing what it will take to once again become a great nation under God, with liberty and justice for all.

America has become increasingly divided and polarized in recent years. With growing animosity toward law enforcement professionals, government corruption, disregard for the constitution, and racial tension thanks to the media and hate groups, there seems to be no easy answer in sight.

But Sheriff David Clarke knows where we must begin. We must stop blaming others and take ownership of our family, community, and country. We must face our problems and turn to God for solutions.

Cop Under Fire is not a dry recitation of what has gone wrong in America. Deeply rooted in his personal life story, Sheriff Clarke’s unmatched passion, conviction, and patriotism is a rallying cry for our country. “America’s not perfect. But it still offers every American, black or otherwise, who is willing to work hard, the best chance of experiencing our full potential as human beings,” writes Clarke. “The challenge is to work for a better future without being fixated on the ugly scars of the past.”
Release: 2/28/17
Click to purchase: (Hardcover), (Kindle), (Audible), (Audio CD)

Love and Narrative From in Toni Morrison’s Later Novels by:Jean Wyatt
In Love and Narrative Form in Toni Morrison’s Later Novels, Jean Wyatt explores the interaction among ideas of love, narrative innovation, and reader response in Toni Morrison’s seven later novels. Love comes in a new and surprising shape in each of the later novels; for example, Love presents it as the deep friendship between little girls; in Home it acts as a disruptive force producing deep changes in subjectivity; and in Jazz it becomes something one innovates and recreates each moment-like jazz itself. Each novel’s unconventional idea of love requires a new experimental narrative form. Wyatt analyzes the stylistic and structural innovations of each novel, showing how disturbances in narrative chronology, surprise endings, and gaps mirror the dislocated temporality and distorted emotional responses of the novels’ troubled characters and demand that the reader situate the present-day problems ofthe characters in relation to a traumatic African American past. The narrative surprises and gaps require the reader to become an active participant in making meaning. And the texts’ complex narrative strategies draw out the reader’s convictions about love, about gender, about race-and then prompt the reader to reexamine them, so that reading becomes an active ethical dialogue between text and reader. Wyatt uses psychoanalytic concepts to analyze Morrison’s narrative structures and how they work on readers. Love and Narrative Form devotes a chapter to each of Morrison’s later novels: Beloved, Jazz, Paradise, Love, A Mercy, Home, and God Help the Child.
Release: 3/1/17
Click to purchase: (Paperback) or (Hardcover)