African American Historical Fiction

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea opens in the early 1970s with young César, a street tough of Afro-Cuban descent, standing outside a US Navy recruitment office at the crack of dawn. The Vietnam War is raging, the navy has only recently begun the serious process of integration, and the country is reeling from racial turmoil and unrest.

Inspired by the extraordinary events of Dr. May Chinn’s life, Angel of Harlem is a deeply affecting story of love and transcendence. Weaving seamlessly scenes from the battlefields of the Civil War, during which her father escaped from slavery, to the Harlem living rooms and kitchen tables where May is sometimes forced to operate on her patients, this fascinating novel lays bare the heart of a woman who changed the face of medicine.

Written in a voice that’s alternately humorous, lacerating, and wise, Long Division features two interwoven stories. In the first, it’s 2013: after an on-stage meltdown during a nationally televised quiz contest, fourteen-year-old Citoyen “City” Coldson becomes an overnight YouTube celebrity. The next day, he’s sent to stay with his grandmother in the small coastal community of Melahatchie. Before leaving, City is given a strange book without an author called Long Division. He learns that one of the book’s main characters is also named City Coldson—but Long Division is set in 1985.

At the turn of the twentieth century, in a time of great change, two women—separated by societal status and culture but bound by their expected roles as the daughters of famed statesmen—forged a lifelong friendship. Portia Washington’s father Booker T. Washington was formerly enslaved and spent his life championing the empowerment of Black Americans through his school, known popularly as Tuskegee Institute, as well as his political connections. Dedicated to her father’s values, Portia contributed by teaching and performing spirituals and classical music.

Acclaimed historical novelist Vanessa Riley is back with another novel based on the life of an extraordinary Black woman from history: Haiti’s Queen Marie-Louise Coidavid, who escaped a coup in Haiti to set up her own royal court in Italy during the Regency era, where she became a popular member of royal European society.

Birmingham, 1929: Robert Lee Harrington, a master carpenter, has just moved to Alabama to pursue a job opportunity, bringing along his pregnant wife and young daughter. Birmingham is in its heyday, while Robert and his family find much to enjoy in the city, it’s also a stronghold for the Klan. 2019: Meghan McKenzie, a young reporter, has grown up hearing family lore about her great-grandfather’s murder—but no one knows the full story. Determined to find answers, Meghan travels to Birmingham. But as her investigation begins to uncover dark secrets, her life may be in danger.

Early 1900s London: Taken from his homeland, twelve-year-old Celestine spends most of the time locked away in the attic of a large house by the sea. The only time Celestine isn’t bound by confines of the small space is when he is acting as an unpaid servant to English explorer Sir Richard Babbington, As the years pass, he desperately clings on to memories of his family in Africa, even as he struggles to remember his mother’s face, and sometimes his real name . . .

Here is Gayl Jones' classic novel, the tale of blues singer Ursa, consumed by her hatred of the 19th-century slave master who fathered both her grandmother and mother.

Set largely in the culture-blending Vieux Port of Marseille at the height of the Jazz Age, the novel takes flight along with Lafala, an acutely disabled but abruptly wealthy West African sailor. While stowing away on a transatlantic freighter, Lafala is discovered and locked in a frigid closet. Badly frostbitten by the time the boat docks, the once-nimble dancer loses both of his lower legs, emerging from life-saving surgery as what he terms "an amputated man." Thanks to an improbably successful lawsuit against the shipping line, however, Lafala scores big in the litigious United States.

Twelve-year-old Ann Maria Weems works from sunup to sundown, wraps rags around her feet in the winter, and must do whatever her master or mistress orders—but she has something that many plantation slaves don't have. She has her wonderful family around her. To Ann, her teasing brothers, her older sister, and her protective and loving parents are everything. And then one day, they are gone. Separated from her family by her master and shipped off as a housemaid, Ann learns something about independence and about love before the opportunity for escape arrives.

A murder and a case of mistaken identity brings the police to Hannah Elias’ glitzy, five-story, twenty-room mansion on Central Park West. This is the beginning of an odyssey that moves back and forth in time and reveals the dangerous secrets of a mysterious woman, the fortune she built, and her precipitous fall.

June 1957. One hot afternoon in the backwaters of the Deep South, a young black farmer named Tucker Caliban salts his fields, shoots his horse, burns his house, and heads north with his wife and child. His departure sets off an exodus of the state’s entire black population, throwing the established order into brilliant disarray. Told from the points of view of the white residents who remained, A Different Drummer stands, decades after its first publication in 1962, as an extraordinary and prescient triumph of satire and spirit.

Sultan Asam -has always known that to rule a kingdom, treason and war are inevitable. He also knows what he has to lose. This goes beyond a kingdom. It goes to the safety of the ones he loves the most. His two sons, wife and Sultana as well as the child she carries. He knows that if he fails, his family will be in danger, this he cannot allow... Aasil- wants the throne that his cousin holds. He is willing to do anything to become Sultan and rule. To have what he wants, he must be sure to end not only his cousin; but any heirs he would leave behind. And he means to do so. Sultana Zingae- ...

Angelic Essie Belle Johnson and devilish Laura Reed both agree that they need to do something to spice up their lives and earn more money. So, they start their own church on the street in front of their Harlem apartment. With Laura's gift for performing and Essie's melodious voice, the two quickly become a hit and must move their services into a renovated theater. But as their congregation grows, a host of misfits enter the scene - some honest, but others who just want a piece of the pie.

The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town. Thus begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the Mississippi River, towards the elusive promise of the free states and beyond.

2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist - Historical Fiction Seeking to pursue his dream in music, and harboring a grave secret, young Gerard Rougeaux leaves his native Montreal for New York City in 1909, embarking on a journey that then takes him to Paris at the height of the Jazz Age. There, years later, Gerard becomes haunted by strange dreams of a boy falling through space, as his story entwines with the family he has left behind-his half-sister Jeannette and her two children, struggling to make their way in New York after the economic crash of 1929. Continuing the family epic ...

Five-year-old Clara Bynum is dead, drowned in the Potomac River in the shadow of a seemingly haunted rock outcropping known locally as the Three Sisters. River, Cross My Heart weighs the effect of Clara's absence on the people she has left behind: her parents; the friends and relatives of the Bynum family; and, most especially, Clara's sister, 10-year-old Johnnie Mae, who must come to terms with the powerful and confused emotions stirred by her sister's death as she struggles to decide what kind of woman she will become.

Paris was born and raised a slave on a South Carolina rice plantation. As a young boy, he used to look up at the birds, flying freely above him. He longed to be free like the birds, but in 18th century, pre-Revolutionary times, it seemed impossible. However, when the British came seeking slaves willing to desert their masters to fight their cause, a 15-year-old Paris saw his chance, and took it.

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 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.

Her kingdom had been stolen from her… The one thing that she loved most had been denied her… And, as Kassiyon was marched back to Transvovia as penance for the crimes of her lover, the Gilgothian king, she knew she would do anything to return to her people…to return to the only thing that meant everything to her. However, Bakko II had other ideas. He had watched her fight fiercely on the battlefield. And, Bakko was forced to admit that he admired the Gilgothian Hellcat. Only Transvovian female warriors fought as she had! And, there was nothing he wanted more than to have her passion ...