Beverley Kendall

There is a small tear at the top of the book spine. 

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Louisiana

A Novel

A LIBRARYREADS BONUS PICK!

"This romance has it all--flirty banter, deep emotion, and a smart, sassy heroine."--JENNIFER PROBST, New York Times bestselling author



She's brilliant, beautiful...and tired of being the only Black woman in the room.

Two years ago, Kennedy Mitchell was plucked from the reception desk and placed in the corporate boardroom in the name of diversity. Rather than play along, she and her best friend founded Token, a boutique PR agency that helps "diversity-challenged" companies and celebrities. With corporate America diversifying workplaces and famous people getting into reputation-damaging controversies, Token is in high demand.



Kennedy quickly discovers there's a lot of on-the-job learning and some messes are not so easily fixed. When Kennedy's ex shows up needing help repairing his company's reputation, things get even more complicated. She knows his character is being wrongly maligned, but she's reluctant to get involved--professionally and emotionally. But soon, she finds herself drawn into a PR scandal of her own.



"A smart, sexy rom-com that had me chuckling from the first page. I loved it."--BRENDA JACKSON, New York Times bestselling author



"Token is a rom-com perfect for our times. I can't wait to see it on the big screen!"--KAIA ALDERSON, author of Sisters in Arms

Token

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LaLa Thomas

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

The bond between two best friends is put to the test when one of them gets pregnant in this contemporary teen novel inspired by MTV's iconic reality show.

Erykah was looking forward to junior year at East Prep High. She has a cute boyfriend, gets good grades, and has the best bestie. Money is tight, though that's nothing new in her world. But everything changes when she gets pregnant. Having a baby at sixteen was definitely not part of the plan.

Kelly's plan was to dominate junior year--grade-wise and on the basketball court--and eventually get an athletic scholarship. It did not include helping her best friend through a pregnancy. But that's what best friends do, right? Besides, Kelly has every intention of being a good auntie.

As the two girls navigate the pregnancy, they'll learn some harsh realities about the world and be forced to make some huge decisions. They'll also discover a deep reserve of strength and compassion...for each other and themselves.

16 & Pregnant: A Novel honestly and openly explores pregnancy through the eyes of two young Black teens in modern-day Nevada. Debut author LaLa Thomas combines personal insights, heartfelt dialogue, and authentic emotions in this powerful portrait of American teen life.

16 and Pregnant

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Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

An Oprah's Book Club Novel

The great scholar, W.E.B. Du Bois, once wrote about what he called "Double Consciousness," a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that's made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma. To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family's past. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story -- and the song -- of America itself.

The Love Songs of W. E. B. du Bois

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Kristina Forest

A fresh love story about the will they, won't they--and why can't they--of first love. 


While on a school trip to the Poconos Mountains (in the middle of a storm) high school seniors, Zyla Matthews and Kai Johnson, run away together leaving their friends and family confused. As far as everyone knows, Zyla and Kai have been broken up for months. And honestly? Their break up hadn't surprised anyone. Zyla and Kai met while working together at an amusement park the previous summer, and they couldn't have been more different.
 
Zyla was a cynic about love. She'd witnessed the dissolution of her parents' marriage early in life, and it left an indelible impression. Her only aim was graduating and going to fashion school abroad. Until she met Kai.
 
Kai was a serial dater and a hopeless romantic. He'd put a temporary pause on his dating life before senior year to focus on school and getting into his dream HBCU. Until he met Zyla.
 
Alternating between the past and present, we see the love story unfold from Zyla's and Kai's perspectives: how they first became the unlikeliest of friends over the summer, how they fell in love during the school year, and why they ultimately broke up... Or did they?
 
Romantic, heart-stirring, and a little mysterious, Zyla & Kai will keep readers guessing until the last chapter. 

Zyla and Kai

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Ivelisse Housman

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

The start of a swoony, high-energy duology that Emily Lloyd-Jones, author of The Bone Houses, calls "reminiscent of classic fairytales yet brimming with a charm all its own."



"A world of glimmering fae that sparkles with mystery, adventure, and enchantment." --Andrew Joseph White, New York Times bestselling author of Hell Followed with Us



Iselia "Seelie" Graygrove looks just like her twin, Isolde...but as an autistic changeling left in the human world by the fae as an infant, she has always known she is different. Seelie's unpredictable magic makes it hard for her to fit in--and draws her and Isolde into the hunt for a fabled treasure. In a heist gone wrong, the sisters make some unexpected allies and find themselves unraveling a mystery that has its roots in the history of humans and fae alike.



Both sisters soon discover that the secrets of the faeries may be more valuable than any pile of gold and jewels. But can Seelie harness her magic in time to protect her sister and herself?



"Housman's stunning debut is the sort of love letter only an autistic author could write. Fae canon has been waiting for this one." --H.E. Edgmon, author of The Witch King



 

Unseelie

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Stephanie Kuehn

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Dani comes from the richest, most famous Black family in Texas and seems to have everything a girl could want. So why does she keep using and engaging in other self-destructive behaviour? Camila's Colombian-American family doesn't have much, but she knows exactly what she wants out of life and works her ass off to get it. So why does she keep failing, and why does she self-harm every time she does? When Dani and Camila find themselves rooming together at Peach Tree Hills, a treatment facility in beautiful rural Georgia, they initially think they'll never get along - and they'll never get better. But then they find a mysterious music box filled with letters from a former resident of PTH, and together they set out to solve the mystery of who this girl was... and who she's become. The investigation will bring them together, and what they find at the end might just bring them hope. From award-winning author Stephanie Kuehn comes a breath-taking tale of friendship and healing.

We Weren't Looking to Be Found

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Kelis Rowe

Sparks fly when Orion and Ray meet for the first time at a roller rink in Memphis. But these star-crossed souls have a past filled with secrets that threaten to tear them apart before their love story even begins. Found poetry, grief, and fate collide in this powerful debut.

Ray: Just once I'd like my birthday to be about me, and not the day my father died. I want to be Ray Jr., the tall girl from Memphis with the poetry beats and the braids that stay poppin'. And when I meet Orion at the skating rink, that's exactly who I am. He pulls my hand, and instead of being defined by my past, he races me toward my future.
 
Orion: When I dive into the pool, it's just me and my heartbeat. There's no dad, no dead sister, and no distracting noises. But I can't hold my breath forever. And since I met Ray, I don't want to. The closer we get, though, the more I see I'm not the only one caught in her wake.
 
With a lyrical blend of found poetry and poignant prose, this stunning debut captures young Black love and a decades-old family secret that may shatter a romance that feels written in the stars.

Finding Jupiter

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Chantal James

In seventeenth-century Peru, St. Martin de Porres was torn from his body after death. His bones were pillaged as relics, and his spirit was said to inhabit those bones. Four centuries later, nineteen-year old Ham is set adrift from his hometown of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Hidden beneath his clothes, he wears a pendant handed down from his foster mother, Miss Pearl. When Ham finally embarks on a fraught journey back home, he seeks the answer to a question he cannot face: is Miss Pearl still alive?

None but the Righteous

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Morgan Rogers

A refreshingly timely and relatable debut novel about a young woman whose life plans fall apart when she meets her wife. With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls' trip to Vegas to celebrate. She's a straight A, work-through-the-summer certified high achiever. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn't know...until she does exactly that. This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father's plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn't feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her father's expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows. In New York, she's able to ignore all the annoying questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamamoto. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she's been running from all along--the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.

Honey Girl

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Leila Mottley

A dazzling novel about a young Black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system--the debut of a blazingly original voice that "bursts at the seams of every page and swallows you whole" (Tommy Orange, best-selling author of There There)

Kiara and her brother, Marcus, are scraping by in an East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison. But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent--which has more than doubled--and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed.
 
One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. Her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department.
 
Rich with raw beauty, electrifying intensity, and piercing vulnerability, Nightcrawling marks the stunning arrival of a voice unlike any we have heard before. 

Nightcrawling

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Sarah Gailey

Upright Women Wanted

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Claudia Gray

A summer house party turns into a thrilling whodunit when Jane Austen's Mr. Wickham-one of literature's most notorious villains-meets a sudden and suspicious end in this brilliantly imagined mystery featuring Austen's leading literary characters.

The happily married Mr. Knightley and Emma are throwing a party at their country estate, bringing together distant relatives and new acquaintances-characters beloved by Jane Austen fans. Definitely not invited is Mr. Wickham, whose latest financial scheme has netted him an even broader array of enemies. As tempers flare and secrets are revealed, it's clear that everyone would be happier if Mr. Wickham got his comeuppance. Yet they're all shocked when Wickham turns up murdered-except, of course, for the killer hidden in their midst.

Nearly everyone at the house party is a suspect, so it falls to the party's two youngest guests to solve the mystery- Juliet Tilney, the smart and resourceful daughter of Catherine and Henry, eager for adventure beyond Northanger Abbey; and Jonathan Darcy, the Darcys' eldest son, whose adherence to propriety makes his father seem almost relaxed. In this tantalizing fusion of Austen and Christie, from New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray, the unlikely pair must put aside their own poor first impressions and uncover the guilty party-before an innocent person is sentenced to hang.

A VINTAGE ORIGINAL

The Murder of Mr. Wickham

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Malinda Lo

Acclaimed author of Ash Malinda Lo returns with her most personal and ambitious novel yet, a gripping story of love and duty set in San Francisco's Chinatown during the 1950s. "That book. It was about two women, and they fell in love with each other." And then Lily asked the question that had taken root in her, that was even now unfurling its leaves and demanding to be shown the sun: "Have you ever heard of such a thing?" Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the question took root, but the answer was in full bloom the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father--despite his hard-won citizenship--Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club

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Rainbow Rowell

Exclusive Special Edition

"Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits--smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try"--

Eleanor and Park

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Hafsah Faizal

An Ignyte Award Winner 2020
A TIME Magazine Top 100 Fantasy Book of All Time
A Paste Magazine Best YA Book of 2019
A PopSugar Best YA Book of 2019
A TeenVogue Book Club Pick for 2019
A Barnes & Noble Teen Book Club Pick for 2019

"Lyrical and spellbinding" --Marieke Njikamp, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author

Set in a richly detailed world inspired by ancient Arabia, Hafsah Faizal's We Hunt the Flame--first in the Sands of Arawiya duology--is a gripping debut of discovery, conquering fear, and taking identity into your own hands.

People lived because she killed. People died because he lived.

Zafira is the Hunter, disguising herself as a man when she braves the cursed forest of the Arz to feed her people. Nasir is the Prince of Death, assassinating those foolish enough to defy his autocratic father, the sultan. If Zafira was exposed as a girl, all of her achievements would be rejected; if Nasir displayed his compassion, his father would punish him in the most brutal of ways. Both Zafira and Nasir are legends in the kingdom of Arawiya--but neither wants to be.

War is brewing, and the Arz sweeps closer with each passing day, engulfing the land in shadow. When Zafira embarks on a quest to uncover a lost artifact that can restore magic to her suffering world and stop the Arz, Nasir is sent by the sultan on a similar mission: retrieve the artifact and kill the Hunter. But an ancient evil stirs as their journey unfolds--and the prize they seek may pose a threat greater than either can imagine.

We Hunt the Flame

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Sabaa Tahir

Oversized Paperback (4 to 6 lbs)

"Laia is a Scholar living under the iron-fisted rule of the Martial Empire. When her brother is arrested for treason, Laia goes undercover as a slave at the empire's greatest military academy in exchange for assistance from rebel Scholars who claim that they will help to save her brother from execution"--

An Ember in the Ashes

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The Book Eaters

Matt Ruff

Soon to be a New HBO® Series from J.J. Abrams (Executive Producer of Westworld), Misha Green (Creator of Underground) and Jordan Peele (Director of Get Out) The critically acclaimed cult novelist makes visceral the terrors of life in Jim Crow America and its lingering effects in this brilliant and wondrous work of the imagination that melds historical fiction, pulp noir, and Lovecraftian horror and fantasy. Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George—publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide—and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite—heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus’s ancestors—they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours. At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn—led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb—which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his—and the whole Turner clan’s—destruction. A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of two black families, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism—the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.

Lovecraft Country

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Emmi Itäranta

An effortlessly rich and lyrical mystery wrapped in a love story that bends space, time, myth and science, perfect for fans of Octavia Butler and Emily St. John Mandel. Sol has disappeared. Their Earth-born wife Lumi sets out to find them but it is no simple feat: each clue uncovers another enigma. Their disappearance leads back to underground environmental groups and a web of mystery that spans the space between the planets themselves. Told through letters and extracts, the course of Lumi’s journey takes her not only from the affluent colonies of Mars to the devastated remnants of Earth, but into the hidden depths of Sol’s past and the long-forgotten secrets of her own. Part space-age epistolary, part eco-thriller, and a love story between two individuals from very different worlds.

The Moonday Letters

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Denise Williams

When her flailing department lands on the university's chopping block, Professor Naya Turner's friends convince her to shed her frumpy cardigan for an evening on the town. For one night her focus will stray from her demanding job. When she meets a charming stranger in town on business, Naya starts to rebuild her confidence, which was left toppled by her abusive ex-boyfriend. Soon she's flirting with the chance at a more serious romantic relationship - except nothing can be that easy. The complicated strings around her dating Jake might destroy her career...

How to Fail at Flirting

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Mike Chen

From the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Brotherhood



"A love letter to the power of music, this thoughtful, humorous exploration of what constitutes living versus mere survival sees Chen (Light Years from Home) at the top of his game." --Publishers Weekly starred review



Being a vampire is far from glamorous...but it can be pretty punk rock.



Everything you've heard about vampires is a lie. They can't fly. No murders allowed (the community hates that). And turning into a bat? Completely ridiculous. In fact, vampire life is really just a lot of blood bags and night jobs. For Louise Chao, it's also lonely, since she swore off family ages ago.



At least she's gone to decades of punk rock shows. And if she can join a band of her own (while keeping her...situation under wraps), maybe she'll finally feel like she belongs, too.



Then a long-lost teenage relative shows up at her door. Whether it's Ian's love of music or his bad attitude, for the first time in ages, Louise feels a connection.



But as Ian uncovers Louise's true identity, things get dangerous--especially when he asks her for the ultimate favor. One that goes beyond just family...one that might just change everything vampires know about life and death forever.

 

Vampire Weekend

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Maggie Tokuda-Hall

In a world divided by colonialism and threaded with magic, a desperate orphan turned pirate and a rebellious imperial lady find a connection on the high seas.

The pirate Florian, born Flora, has always done whatever it takes to survive--including sailing under false flag on the Dove as a marauder, thief, and worse. Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, a highborn Imperial daughter, is on board as well--accompanied by her own casket. But Evelyn's one-way voyage to an arranged marriage in the Floating Islands is interrupted when the captain and crew show their true colors and enslave their wealthy passengers.

Both Florian and Evelyn have lived their lives by the rules, and whims, of others. But when they fall in love, they decide to take fate into their own hands--no matter the cost.

Maggie Tokuda-Hall's sweeping fantasy debut, full of stolen memories, illicit mermaid's blood, double agents, and haunting mythical creatures conjures an extraordinary cast of characters and the unforgettable story of a couple striving to stay together in the face of myriad forces wishing to control their identities and destinies.

The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea

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Ciel Pierlot

Lesbian gunslinger fights spies in space!

Three factions vie for control of the galaxy. Rig, a gunslinging, thieving, rebel with a cause, doesn't give a damn about them and she hasn't looked back since abandoning her faction three years ago.

That is, until her former faction sends her a message- return what she stole from them, or they'll kill her twin sister.

Rig embarks on a journey across the galaxy to save her sister - but for once she's not alone. She has help from her network of resistance contacts, her taser-wielding librarian girlfriend, and a mysterious bounty hunter.

If Rig fails and her former faction finds what she stole from them, trillions of lives will be lost--including her sister's. But if she succeeds, she might just pull the whole damn faction system down around their ears. Either way, she's going to do it with panache and pizzazz.

File Under- Science Fiction Independent Women | Robbing Hood | Keep Your Enemies Close | Guns Don't Kill People

Bluebird

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Chloe Benjamin

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Real Simple, Marie Claire, New York Public Library, LibraryReads, The Skimm, Lit Hub, Lit Reactor AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A captivating family saga."--The New York Times Book Review "This literary family saga is perfect for fans of Celeste Ng and Donna Tartt."--People Magazine (Book of the Week) If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life? It's 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children--four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness--sneak out to hear their fortunes. The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in '80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel struggles to maintain security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality. Both a dazzling family love story and a sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.

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