Catalog Search Results
1) Sweetsmoke
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During the time of the Civil War, Cassius Howard, a carpenter and slave on a Virginia tobacco plantation, risks everything to avenge the murder of Emoline, a slave woman who had previously taught him to read in secret and saved his live once.
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A new edition of this award-winning modern classic, with a new introduction In 1958 Georgia, the shade of a 13-year-old black girl's skin can make the difference in her fate. Tangy Mae is the smartest of her mother's ten children, but she is also the darkest-complexed. The Quinns-all different skin shades, all with unknown fathers-live with their charismatic, beautiful, and tyrannical mother, Rozelle, in poverty on the fringes of a Georgia town where...
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Mama Ruby novels volume 1
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Mama Ruby's known for taking things that aren't rightfully hers, like her best friend's stillborn infant, who she brought back to life and christened Maureen. She's also rumored to have done away with her husband. Some fear her, others try their best to avoid her. But Mama Ruby doesn't pay them any mind. Not when she's got the one gift God gave her--her precious baby girl.
4) Tumbling
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Noon and Herbie are deeply in love and living in a tightly knit African American neighborhood in South Philadelphia during the 1940s. But their marriage remains unconsummated because of a horrible incident in Noon's past, so each seeks comfort elsewhere: Noon in the warm acceptance of the neighborhood church; Herbie in the arms of Ethel, a jazz singer. Then one day an infant girl is left on their doorstep, and later Ethel blesses them with her five-year-old...
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Sherry has struggled all her life to understand who she is, where she comes from, and, most importantly, why her mother slapped her cheek one summer afternoon. The incident has haunted Sherry, and it causes her to dig into her family's past. Like many family histories, it is fractured and reluctant to reveal its secrets; but Sherry remains determined. In just a few days' time, her extended family will gather for a reunion, and Sherry sets off across...
6) Mrs. Wiggins
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"The daughter of a prostitute mother and an alcoholic father, Maggie Franklin knew her only way out was to marry someone upstanding and church-going. Someone like Hubert Wiggins, the most eligible man in Lexington, Alabama--and the son of its most revered preacher. Proper and prosperous, Hubert is glad to finally have a wife, even one with Maggie's background. For Hubert has a secret he desperately needs to stay hidden. And Maggie's unexpected charm,...
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"Raising four very different daughters on her own in rural Arkansas wasn't easy for Miss Pearly Bell. And she's always regretted that the sisters went their separate ways for good -- and never wanted to see each other again. But when Pearly is stricken with a terminal illness, she summons them all home - determined to somehow help them get right with each other and forgive... But that means dealing with past secrets and lies first."--
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Nancy Rawles pens a moving story about Huck Finn's slave friend Jim, told through the eyes of the wife Jim was forced to leave behind. Sadie shares her story of loss with her granddaughter as they weave Sadie's most treasured items-her mother's knife, a piece of a bowl from Africa, a piece of Jim's hat found when he was thought to be dead-into a quilt.
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"McFadden's reissued second novel takes an unflinching look at the corrosive nature of alcoholism ... This is not a story of easy redemption ... McFadden writes candidly about the treacherous hold of addiction." -Publishers Weekly "Riveting... . So nicely avoids the sentimentality that swirls around the subject matter. I am as impressed by its structural strength as by the searing and expertly imagined scenes." -Toni Morrison, author of Beloved "The...
13) Lita: a novel
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Lita Du Champ has moved to L.A. to start a new life, with a husband and two children. But family matters are calling her back to New Orleans, where she must face her dying father and deal with the ghosts of her past.
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In 1925, Josephine is the proud owner of a thriving farm. As a child, she channeled otherworldly power to free herself from slavery. Now, her new neighbor, a white woman named Charlotte, seeks her company, and an uneasy friendship grows between them. But Charlotte has also sought solace in the Ku Klux Klan, a relationship that jeopardizes Josephine's family. Nearly one hundred years later, Josephine's descendant, Ava, is a single mother who has just...
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"You just can't plan for this kind of thing. Diane Tate certainly hasn't. She never expected to slowly lose her talented husband to the debilitating effects of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. As a respected family court judge, she's spent her life making tough calls, but when her sixty-eight-year-old husband's health worsens and Diane is forced to move him into an assisted living facility, it seems her world is spinning out of control. As Gregory's...
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Cecil Street is a quiet, tree-lined haven in West Philadelphia, a place where everyone knows everyone else, a place removed from the turmoil and violence of the late 1960s. Yet the residents of Cecil Street have their problems. Joe and Louise's marriage is strained; Johnetta's sexy niece has arrived, ripe for trouble; and teenaged Shay tries to help best friend Neet deal with an unwanted pregnancy. When Neet's abortion goes tragically wrong, everyone...
18) Right beside you
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Felicia Hawkins has a successful career, money in the bank, a solid future and is hopelessly in love with her co-worker, widower Richard Grimes. Richard has his hands full juggling pre-Christmas work demands and raising two teen daughters. He is drawn to Felicia's calm spirit and determination, and everything they have in common. With messy, well-meaning matchmaking from family and friends, and a long-distance transfer Richard can't refuse, it will...
19) Jayla jumps in
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After learning that her mother was a Double Dutch champion, eleven-year-old Jayla forms a team hoping to stand out in her big, quirky family, and finds her life changed in ways she never imagined.
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