African American Family Fiction

Cami has an albatross holding her hostage to the memory of her dead parents: a 1713 golden period Stradivarius violin! Jim has an affinity towards the Strad and a desire to help Camille become a success. Though she is pursued by Jack, a cretin ruffian whom she thinks she loves, will this boaz, Jim, sell everything to keep her safe and protect his most prized possession? Romance, drama, and laughter are very much alive in this coming-of-age novella filled with heart, conscience, and trust.

Award-winning author Ernest Hill—who Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler called “one of our finest writers”—has drawn favorable comparisons to Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison with his powerful novels. Hill’s Family Ties tells the story of D’Ray Reid, who has put prison behind him and wants to repair his broken relationship with his mother. But when D’Ray comes home, lies and legal troubles haunt his every move.

When a late life love affair blooms between Mr. Forrest Payne, the owner of the Pink Slipper Gentleman's Club, and Miss Beatrice Jordan, famous for yelling warnings of eternal damnation at the Club's departing patrons, their wedding summons a legend to town. Mr El Walker, the great guitar bluesman, comes home to give a command performance in Plainview, Indiana, a place he'd sworn never to set foot in again.

What would you do if you were close to hitting rock bottom? Would you exhaust every possible option to better your situation? Or would you accept defeat and throw in the towel? Meet Pete and Terrence. Both fathers are of a similar age and live in the same city, but their lives are profoundly different. Though they share the unquestionable love a father has for their children, what challenges await them? Will they end up making the right decisions or make their situation worse?

Three women are tied together by blood, love and family secrets. Potent, poetic, powerful, told with deep love, and spanning from the Great Migration through the civil unrest of the ‘60s to the cultural shift of the early 2000s, Denene Millner’s beautifully wrought novel is a hymn to Black motherhood, exploring three women’s intimate struggle with generational trauma and healing.

A 13-year-old girl watches her white best friend totter along the edge of a building roof; a woman who lost her child in its first trimester finds empathy and horror in the waters of a city aquarium; a mother protects her teen daughter from a predatory love interest by taking revenge over a very French supper; and two estranged siblings take a road-trip with their dead father's ashes - rediscovering one another and reckoning with all the ways that trust can be betrayed and love can be redeemed.

Our narrator is a gifted photographer, an uncertain wife, an infertile mother, a biracial woman in an America that's coming undone. As she grapples with a lifetime of ambivalence about motherhood, yet another act of police brutality makes headlines, and this time the victim is Noah, a boy in her photography class. Unmoored by the grief of a recent, devastating miscarriage and Noah's fight for his life, she worries she can no longer chase the hope of having a child, no longer wants to bring a Black body into the world.

Joy Okafor is overwhelmed. The recently divorced life coach whose phone won’t stop ringing is also the dutiful Nigerian daughter who has planned every aspect of her mother’s seventieth birthday weekend on her own. As the Okafors slowly begin to arrive, Mama Mary goes to take a nap. But when the grandkids try to wake her, they find that she isn’t sleeping after all. Refusing to believe that her sister is gone-gone, Auntie Nancy declares that she has had a premonition: Mama Mary will rise again like Jesus Christ himself on Easter Sunday.

Tyrone loves his hair and all the cool shapes he can make with it. No clippers are coming anywher near him! But after an afternoon diving through the leaves in the park, Grandad Cleveland and Mum think it's time for a trip to the barbers. Tyrone does not want to go! But once he's sat in the chair in Dalisa's grooving salon, and after some history and comforting words from Grandad, Tyrone feels like a king!

Daquan loves his wife, Aviana, more than words can explain. Their life isn’t perfect, but it’s theirs, and he wouldn’t change any of it. That is until Aviana doesn’t return home from work one night. Daquan seeks out to find the love of his life, only to find out his wife has a secret life he knew nothing about. Is their love enough to save their marriage? Will it stop Daquan from taking their son and moving on with his life? Only time will tell.

Every holiday, aunties, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and neighbors come over to eat, sing, and celebrate life. But all our main character can think about is the sweet potato pie Granny makes just for her. As tables fill with baked macaroni and cheese, chitlins, and other sides a-steaming, she and Granny move the pie to keep it intact. The task becomes trickier as the room grows with dancing and card games and pie cravings. Just when all seems lost and there’s no more pie, Granny pulls out a sweet surprise.

The Bell family has had their ups and downs, though most have found solace far away from each other. When Patricia Bell, their Mama Bell, dies from cancer, it draws the disbanded family together to discuss a family reunion. As the undisputed matriarch, Mama Bell had been the force of good in the family and for her, even people who normally do not get along will come together and try to find common ground.

Tanya Norwell was a patient and loving wife. She was the type of spouse who would put up with most anything to keep her marriage together. During her 16-year marriage, Tanya often turned a blind eye to her husband's drunkenness and infidelities.

Camille Brousarde is tired and discouraged. She lives in the Watts area of Los Angeles, which has never recovered from the race riots. Her seven grown children seem directionless and adrift. When she decides to open a local restaurant, Camille's Gumbo Kitchen, she hopes that its tasty offerings will pull together not just her family, but her neighborhood, too. Crawfish Dreams is a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick.