Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, Adonis Garage introduces a talent exquisitely keyed to the register of New York City?s pulse and to the heartbeat of the day. Raw and graphic, with a brash and beautiful voice, Rynn Williams?s poetry immerses us in disillusionment and desire and bears witness to the meaning of survival. ø Judith Ortiz Cofer called Adonis Garage ?a book of life written by someone who has lived honestly and passionately, and whose art has been mastered in order to bear witness and find meaning in each day.? Rynn Williams's poems are ?brutally frank, brutally beautiful, and sexy,? said writer and critic Jonathan Holden.
When Tokyo Marshall and Adonis Reid first crossed paths, sparks undeniably flew. Their connection was instant and a dream come true for Tokyo, until it suddenly became her very worst nightmare. Finding out Adonis’s true colors and intentions made her realize that he was nothing but a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But when Adonis does the unexpected and saves her life by eliminating a major threat, Tokyo’s love for him refuses to die. Now with their differences pushed to the side, Tokyo and Adonis are willing to start afresh and mend their broken past. With an open mind and open heart, Tokyo heads to Adonis’s hometown, Dallas, the city he rules with an iron fist. Far away from home but smitten for one man only, Tokyo is going to learn exactly who Adonis truly is and all the drama that comes with him. Adonis is known to the streets of Dallas as the infamous ‘AD’ and the number one man you don’t want to get on the wrong side of. He’s one of the finest caliber of men Dallas has to offer and has an endless line of chicks willing to be at his beck and call any day and anytime... One particular chick has had Adonis once before and isn’t planning on letting him go so soon. She still wants him all to herself, regardless of the new woman in his life. So is Adonis really going to be tied down to one woman for the rest of his days as a Dallas king? And is Tokyo willing to love him for who he really is, flaws and all? Or will she be led astray by her own inner demons?
If 28-year-old Monique Morrison had only one wish, it would be to fall in love with a man sent from God; a man who will cherish her forever. But Monique makes a huge mistake when she chooses to help herself. Going against her Christian values, she decides to play house and move in with her musician boyfriend, Boris Cortland. Boris is in no hurry to get to the altar now that Monique has already signed on to play the role of a wife. Though she's in church Sunday after Sunday, praying for God to touch Boris's heart and turn him from his wicked ways, it seems Monique's pleas are going unanswered. Suffering from neglect, rejection, and plenty of verbal abuse, Monique has all but given up on her dream of a relationship that represents unconditional love; that is, until Adonis Cortland moves in and does for Monique all of the things that Boris won't do. Could Boris's own cousin be the man Monique had been seeking? "This book is profound yet enlightening. The characters are believable and unique. The storyline is entertaining, and the readers of the book should definitely walk away examining their own lives and how their lives affect others." —Pastor Ricky Harris of Alpha and Omega Baptist Church in Chicago, Illinois
In his prize-winning poetry collection Reliquaria, R. A. Villanueva embraces liminal, in-between spaces in considering an ever-evolving Filipino American identity. Languages and cultures collide; mythologies and faiths echo and resound. Part haunting, part prayer, part prophecy, these poems resonate with the voices of the dead and those who remember them. In this remarkable book, we enter the vessel of memory, the vessel of the body. The dead act as witness, the living as chimera, and we learn that whatever the state of the body, this much rings true: every ode is an elegy; each elegy is always an ode.
Whether exploring the porous borders between sin and virtue or examining the lives of saints and mystics to find the human experiences in stories of the divine, the poems in No Confession, No Mass move toward restoration and reunion. Jennifer Perrine’s poems ask what healing might be possible in the face of sexual and gendered violence worldwide—in New Delhi, in Steubenville, in Juárez, and in neighborhoods and homes never named in the news. The book reflects on our own complicity in violence, “not confessing, but unearthing” former selves who were brutal and brutalized—and treating them with compassion. As the poems work through these seeming paradoxes, they also find joy, celebrating transformations and second chances, whether after the failure of a marriage, the return of a reluctant soldier from war, or the everyday passage of time. Through the play of language in received forms—abecedarian, sonnet, ballad, ghazal, villanelle, ballade—and in free verse buzzing with assonance, alliteration, and rhyme, these poems sing their resistance to violence in all its forms.
A collection of 4 steamy black woman white man (BWWM) romance short stories with no cliffhanger! Off the Field - BWWM Football Sport Romance Emily was in between jobs and just trying to get back on her feet. Leaving a job interview with the New England Calvary, she had been full of hope of joining their first-rate medical team as a physical therapist. For the first time in a long time, she had been optimistic about the future. That’s when star quarterback Adonis Goodman crashed into her life. With his fancy sports car and charismatic smile, Emily was not prepared for the upheaval he caused. Two seconds, that’s all it took. Not even the length of time to throw a winning touchdown, or block an opponent, and Adonis’ life crashed, literally, into Emily. Pulling a beautiful woman from a burning car is not how he saw his day going. But, here is, trying to get her out before they both bite it. When he is attracted to her but she can’t stand the site of him, Adonis kicks it up a notch and unleashes his dazzling charm. Will that be enough to penetrate Emily’s tough shell and even tougher heart? Forbidden Love - BWWM Vampire Romance Alina was sent with her team of trained vampire hunters to clean up the Rochester area of vampire covens. They were successful and skilled in their task of eradicating the vampires. Until Jeremih, an heir to leading his own coven, creates his own team to fight against the hunters. Both sides have their own talents and the hunters’ numbers are dwindled just as the vampires’ are. Then in a fight near Alina and her hunters’ base, she is captured by the vampires and taken to a secret hideout in the backwoods of Minnesota. There Jeremih intends to get the information he needs about the hunters’ whereabouts from Alina, but she proves difficult to crack. Jeremih treats Alina with surprising gentleness and Alina soon realizes the vampires aren’t as bad as the hunters have made them out to be. Jeremih can’t deny he is attracted to Alina, but they are sworn enemies. Will the two fall into their hidden passion for each other? Will they get to be together? Jailbird - BWWM MC Biker Romance Nia doesn’t know if she can take any more pain. Her heart has been broken in ways that she never thought possible. Everything that she told herself that she would not tolerate, she has and everything that Jordan Rivers said that he wouldn’t do, he did. Yet, Nia still can’t seem to walk away. She is in too deep to give up now, at least, not without a fight. It seems that she is not the only one who believes that Jordan is worth fighting for. Jordan and Nia’s love is far from a fairy tale. In actuality, what they face, many couples have gone through and will go through, but what’s different, is how they handle adversity. Will these two grow together or grow apart? Is their love strong enough to withstand? Only time will tell and Jordan is facing a lot of it. Nia must decide if love is worth fighting for or if it would be easier to just walk away. Will Jordan finally be a man and stand up for the woman he loves? In this love story, Nia and Jordan find out that love is an action word and it takes effort. California Dreamer - BWWM Romance p-and-coming stadium jumper, Annique Rogers is competing for the top prize at the prestigious Del Mar Fairgrounds. After completing the first round with zero faults, she’s poised to take the top prize as she heads into the final round. Her horse stumbles, sending her flying through the air. Coming to her aid is the handsome, and available Dr. Connor Braun. But, Connor has a dark past in the form of his crazy ex-wife, Rosie, who has sabotaged every relationship Connor has had since their divorce five years before. When Rosie sees that Annique is not easily run off by her normal stunts, she pulls out all the stops to chase Connor’s latest fling away. But Connor and Annique are not willing to give up that easily. Will Rosie stop before she goes too far? Or will her jealousy push her over the edge, dragging Annique and Connor with her?
Who would guess that Godzilla, the Invisible Man, Elvis, Donald Duck, Ted Williams, and the Three Stooges might have something to say about the love and loss that shape the way we see the world? And yet these are the pop-culture coordinates that chart the emotional life brilliantly mapped out in Paul Guest?s second book of poems. Winner of the Prairie Schooner Prize in Poetry, this collection plumbs the depths of nature and culture (how, for instance, ?gar? in Old English means ?spear,? and an octopus can lose a limb during mating) to give form to the darkness and the light that make us human. ø In poetry whose tone is largely one of lament tempered by a wry and intelligent humor, Paul Guest does what a poet does best: he gives us the moments of his life refashioned to reflect the larger arc and meaning of our own?of life, that is, writ large.
After ten years of selecting great books from writers, new and established, Prairie Schooner celebrates the first decade of its Book Prize series by offering this collection of excerpts from each year's winners in fiction and poetry. Writers such as Brock Clarke, Anne Finger, Rynn Williams, and Paul Guest open windows to ordinary and fantastic experience showcasing the liveliness and power of contemporary literature. Greg Hrbek's darkly comic, genre-bending tales stand alongside Ted Gilley's stories about achieving bliss through pain and John Keeble's reflections on community and the difficulty of love. Here Shane Book's poems serve as an elegiac witness to suffering, while Kathleen Flenniken's poems consider ordinary women constructing their own significance, and Kara Candito's explore sex, loss, and human passions. Whether the topic is fantastic or quotidian, childbirth or monsters, South American airplane disaster or suburban Wisconsin, this writing carries us to the furthest reaches of human experience.
