Showing results by narrator "Adenrele Ojo" in All Categories

To seventeen-year-old Angie, who is mixed-race, Marilyn is her hardworking, devoted white single mother. But Marilyn was once young, too. When Marilyn was seventeen, she fell in love with Angie's father, James, who was African-American. But Angie's never met him, and Marilyn has always told her he died before she was born. When Angie discovers evidence of an uncle she's never met she starts to wonder: What if her dad is still alive, too?

In the aftermath of a devastating tornado that rips through the town of Tupelo, Mississippi, at the height of the Great Depression, two women worlds apart - one Black, one White; one a great-grandmother, the other a teenager - fight for their families' survival in this lyrical and powerful novel.

Jesus didn't say that the world would know we are his followers by our biting rhetoric, our political leanings, our charity work, or even by our knowledge of Scripture. He said the world would know us by our love for one another. Yet it's so easy to put others at arm's length, to lash out, to put up walls. Deidra Riggs wants us to put our focus on self-preservation aside and, like Jesus, make the first move toward reconciliation.

In the wake of San Francisco Noir, Los Angeles Noir, and Orange County Noir - all popular volumes in the Akashic Noir Series - comes the latest California installment, Oakland Noir. Masterfully curated by Jerry Thompson and Eddie Muller, the "Czar of Noir", this volume will shock, titillate, provoke, and entertain. The diverse cast of talented contributors will not disappoint.

In the years following the Civil War, Mariah Reddick, former slave to Carrie McGavock - the "Widow of the South" - has quietly built a new life for herself as a midwife to the women of Franklin, Tennessee. But when her ambitious, politically minded grown son, Theopolis, is murdered, Mariah - no stranger to loss - finds her world once more breaking apart. How could this happen? Who wanted him dead?

In Mississippi Noir, literary crime fiction master Tom Franklin has assembled a phenomenal short-story collection that highlights a mesmerizing and diverse set of styles and subject matter. Urban, suburban, and rural settings alike unveil new shades of darkness that fall upon Mississippi's past and present.

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. In the wake of Chicago Noir, Twin Cities Noir, and Kansas City Noir - all popular volumes in the Akashic Noir Series - comes the latest Midwest installment, St. Louis Noir. Masterfully curated by Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest (adapted for film, starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton), this volume will chill the listener with heartland menace.

Gabby was what you would call your average seven-year-old girl. Or at least she was average when you first met her. She had a big brother, she loved her mommy and daddy, she hated going to bed, and she definitely hated brushing her hair.

Marriage is an adventure unlike any other. At times, you andyour spouse may feel so close, connected, and in love that you're ready to takeon the world together. But other times, things grow distant, and you wonderwhere all the joy and excitement has gone. What is the secret to a happy,healthy, God-honoring marriage - one that will last through anything that comesyour way? Join Tony and Lauren Dungy in The Uncommon MarriageAdventure, a series of daily reflections for couples.

The heralded Queen of Hip-Hop Lit presents an addictive collection of celebrated urban authors with their fingers on the pulse of the streets. Street lit’s finest female voices—Keisha Starr, Tysha, LaKesa Cox, and Monique S. Hall—deliver searing stories about women who make hard sacrifices to stay on top of their hustle and seize the power, money, and fame they can’t live without.

"Work hard, and don't look for excuses", C. Vivian Stringer's parents told her, "and you can achieve anything." But her faith and perseverance would be tested many times. A gifted athlete, she had to fight for a place on an all-White cheerleading squad in the 60s. In 1981, just as her coaching career was taking off, her 14-month-old daughter, Nina, was stricken with spinal meningitis. Yet Stringer brought a small, poor, historically Black college to the national championships.

Skylar and Storm Morrison may be gorgeous twin sisters, but they are as different as night and day. Skylar is savvy and book-smart; Storm is shrewd and street-smart. But a twist of fate lands Storm in jail, where she must trade her Fendi bags and Prada boots for an orange jumpsuit and laceless white sneakers. Meanwhile, Skylar makes a name for herself by transforming the restaurant that once belonged to the twins’ late father into Legends, Philadelphia’s hottest new nightclub.

When MaryAnne Howland's son was turning 13, she organized a "Black Mitzvah" rite of passage celebration for him. Max is one of the one-in-three children in America being raised without a father in the home. Among African Americans, that number is reported to be as high as 72 percent. To help fill the father-shaped hole in Max's life as he transitioned from boyhood to manhood, MaryAnne invited four men from different corners of her life - an engineer, a philanthropist, a publisher, and a financial planner - to become Max's mentors.

With ex-firefighter Cole Brannigan in command of the Smoke Eaters, the dragon menace is under control. Thanks to non-lethal Canadian tech, the beasts are just tranquilized and locked up. But for Tamerica Williams, a job filled with action and danger has become routine. She's so bored she nearly gets her whole team killed, and Brannigan has to step in. When a new threat emerges, the legendary bird of fire - the Phoenix - spreading fire like a plague and whipping dragons into a frenzy, it's a perfect task for Williams, but killing the Phoenix just brings it back stronger.

Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort During the Time of COVID-19 is a collection of essays, poems, and interviews to serve as a lifeline for negotiating how to connect and thrive during this stressful time of isolation as well as a historical perspective that will remain relevant for years to come.

Why I Run: 35 Progressive Candidates Who Are Changing Politics is a collection of original essays from women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and progressive allies who have recently run for office. Contributors like Stacey Abrams, Deb Haaland, Jason Kander, Andrea Jenkins, and Michelle Lujan Grisham share what inspired them to run, what it takes to win, and what lessons can be learned in the face of a loss.

An encompassing, visionary, many-threaded work, Now It’s Time to Say Goodbye is an American novel of great scope and nearly mythological intensity. This is the third volume of Gospel Harmonies, a series of seven stand-alone books that follow the character of John in various guises as he attempts to navigate the uneasy relationship between the self and the postmodern world.

In this startling group memoir, four friends - Black and White, gay and straight, immigrant and American-born - use Toni Morrison’s novels as a springboard for intimate and revealing conversations about the problems of everyday racism and living whole in times of uncertainty. Tackling everything from first love and Soul Train to police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement, the authors take up what it means to read challenging literature collaboratively and to learn in public as an act of individual reckoning and social resistance.

The House of Erzulie tells the eerily intertwined stories of an ill-fated young couple in the 1850s and the troubled historian who discovers their writings in the present day. Emilie St. Ange, daughter of a Creole slaveowning family in Louisiana, rebels against her parents by embracing spiritualism and advocating the abolition of slavery. Isidore, her biracial, French-born husband, is horrified by the brutalities of plantation life and becomes unhinged by an obsessive affair with a notorious New Orleans vodou practitioner.

The first female sheriff of Toole County, Montana, Nicole Cobain earned the position through mental and physical grit, and when a young girl is found murdered on icy Lake Maria, every bit of it is tested. But what begins as a chase for the killer quickly unravels into a high-stakes medical transaction with harrowing consequences.