Two Essence® bestselling Urban Books authors have teamed up to bring the Motor City drama in this latest installment of the popular Girls from da Hood Series. All the Way In, by Treasure Hernandez: Born into the struggle, Sonya and Melody are far from living the good life. They’re missing meals, have no clean clothes to put on their backs, and are forced to sleep in abandoned houses. There are zero possibilities in sight for a legal come-up for either young woman. The desperate teens have no choice but to beg, borrow, and steal if they hope to survive on the savage streets of Detroit. In a twist of fate, the pair link up, adapting a bloodthirsty, anything-goes, what’s-yours-is-mine attitude that they inflict upon all with whom they come in contact. Sonya and Melody are made of no sugar, no spice, and definitely nothing nice! Escaping a Thug’s Love, by Ms. Michel Moore: The Dexter Linwood Area is one of the most notorious neighborhoods in Detroit. Sable and Mike Mike were both born into that pure madness. When they fall in love, the young couple soon becomes DLA royalty, and they embrace all the chaos that comes along with it. Whenever he rocks, she rolls. If she hustles, he grinds. Their gangsta lifestyle is picture-perfect until Mike Mike starts popping pills and getting high on the regular. Soon, bills are not getting paid, vehicles are being repossessed, and shutoff notices become the norm. The last straw is when Sable’s jewelry mysteriously comes up missing. Now, the hood princess wants out of their toxic relationship. Will Mike Mike let her go?
In the third installment of the runaway hit series Girls from Da Hood, street fiction veterans KaShamba Williams and Mark Anthony are joined by newcomer MadameK, as they turn up the heat with fiery stories that will leave readers breathless.
Rings on every finger. Hood and educated AF. You've met her. Wearing all her feelings and responding with a side-eye or a tongue-pop. You've seen her. At the grocery store. In restaurants. On the subway. At the bus stop. In a car you pulled up next to blaring whatever matches her mood. Hair in some natural or protective style for the Gods. Ebony Stewart. An around the way girl. One part human, all parts womxn. You know these poems because they be familiar. They be your grandmama, mama, auntie, and sis stories. Welcome to Home.Girl.Hood. Re-released by Button Publishing Inc. 2022.
Three Urban Books authors have teamed up to bring the drama in this latest installment of the popular Girls from da Hood Series. Get It, Get It! by Ms. Michel Moore: Monica was conceived on a pile of dirty clothes in the corner of a trap house. Cursed with a mother who worshiped the crack pipe more than her children, she quickly learned a Detroit reality: Get it how ya live or die trying. The young teenager is forced to beg, borrow, and steal to make sure she and her siblings survive to see another day. Cutthroat and conniving, Monica will make it, no matter who she has to step on or step over. You Can’t Break Usby Treasure Hernandez: Voodo and his girl, Moni, are inseparable. Like a modern Bonnie and Clyde from the hood, they let no one, even family, get in their way. When the people they do “around the way” business with turn out to be verified snakes, the ruthless couple gets revenge the only way they know how—street justice. With the law in hot pursuit, it’s Voodo and Moni against the world, just like they always knew it would be. So Far Gone by Katt: Sometimes love is the best feeling in the world, but the wrong kind of love can turn you into an entirely different person. When good-girl-turned-bad Renee gets together with Keithon, it’s them against the world, until the streets get to talking and their fairy-tale relationship turns into a full-blown nightmare. Karma steps in and has her way with the couple, and their lives will never be the same.
With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “The fights against hunger, homelessness, poverty, health disparities, poor schools, homophobia, transphobia, and domestic violence are feminist fights. Kendall offers a feminism rooted in the livelihood of everyday women.” —Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist, in The Atlantic “One of the most important books of the current moment.”—Time “A rousing call to action... It should be required reading for everyone.”—Gabrielle Union, author of We’re Going to Need More Wine A potent and electrifying critique of today’s feminist movement announcing a fresh new voice in black feminism Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. That feminists refuse to prioritize these issues has only exacerbated the age-old problem of both internecine discord and women who rebuff at carrying the title. Moreover, prominent white feminists broadly suffer from their own myopia with regard to how things like race, class, sexual orientation, and ability intersect with gender. How can we stand in solidarity as a movement, Kendall asks, when there is the distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others? In her searing collection of essays, Mikki Kendall takes aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement, arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women. Drawing on her own experiences with hunger, violence, and hypersexualization, along with incisive commentary on reproductive rights, politics, pop culture, the stigma of mental health, and more, Hood Feminism delivers an irrefutable indictment of a movement in flux. An unforgettable debut, Kendall has written a ferocious clarion call to all would-be feminists to live out the true mandate of the movement in thought and in deed.
A dark, engrossing, blood-drenched tale of the familiar threats to female power—and one girl’s journey to regain it. Five starred reviews greeted this powerful story from Elana K. Arnold, author of the Printz Honor winner Damsel. You are alone in the woods, seen only by the unblinking yellow moon. Your hands are empty. You are nearly naked. And the wolf is angry. Since her grandmother became her caretaker when she was four years old, Bisou Martel has lived a quiet life in a little house in Seattle. She’s kept mostly to herself. She’s been good. But then comes the night of homecoming, when she finds herself running for her life over roots and between trees, a fury of claws and teeth behind her. A wolf attacks. Bisou fights back. A new moon rises. And with it, questions. About the blood in Bisou’s past, and on her hands as she stumbles home. About broken boys and vicious wolves. About girls lost in the woods—frightened, but not alone.
Essence bestselling author Brenda Hampton headlines this edgy fifth instalment of stories from three of Urban's best writers. Readers will be clamouring for more stories of tough, street-smart women - who boldly navigate life in the hood, a 'man's world'. Stories include 'Trick, Don't Treat' by Brenda Hampton, 'Queen Pynn' by Keisha Ervin and 'Breaking Down a Brickhouse' by Edd McNair. Each tale features tough, resilient women who cope with drugs, murder and mayhem, whilst showing the men what they're made of.
