"A Dope Boy's Best Kept Secret" is a contemporary urban fiction novel that often revolves around themes of street life, love, betrayal, and the complexities of the drug trade. The story typically follows a young man (usually referred to as a "dope boy") who is deeply entrenched in the drug world, navigating the challenges and dangers that come with it. The narrative may explore his relationships with friends, family, and romantic interests, revealing how his lifestyle impacts those around him. As secrets unfold and loyalties are tested, the protagonist often faces moral dilemmas that force him to reconsider his choices. The book blends drama, suspense, and romance, providing a gritty yet captivating look at life on the streets.
In the third Camilla MacPhee Mystery, Camilla’s looking forward to cutting loose at Ottawa’s Bluesfest, the huge open-air extravaganza, and to seeing the tail end of her annoying office assistant, Alvin, who is finally quitting. Then the news comes from the East Coast. Alvin’s younger brother Jimmy has vanished from the midst of a Canada Day crowd in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Is he dead? Has he been abducted? Sleuthing irritably about Sydney on Alvin’s behalf, Camilla manages to make the usual quota of people froth at the mouth, including Jimmy’s frantic family, forlorn friends and puzzled teachers. She doesn’t spare the parish priest or even the guy at the chip stand. Before Camilla knows it, all roads lead back to Ottawa, where a killer with everything to lose waits to create havoc among the tents, guitar-pickers and happy, swaying crowds. If Camilla doesn’t sort out this whole mess, how many other people are going to die?
A powerful memoir of redemption from the son of blues legend John Lee Hooker Born in Detroit and exposed to the music world from an early age, John Lee Hooker Jr. began singing as a featured attraction in his father’s shows as a teenager. His father was a sharecropper’s son who became known for hit songs like “Boogie Chillin,” “I’m in the Mood,” and “Boom Boom,” and in 1972, he and his father performed live and recorded an album in Soledad Prison. Junior seemed to have a golden ticket to a successful music career as a child, but trouble brewed as his father’s marriage was in trouble and ripped apart the family. Drug addiction and a series of related crimes, including as a con player, landed Junior in and out of jails & prisons for several decades. An early brush with the law led to a sentence at Synanon, the infamous drug rehabilitation program turned religious cult. Later arrests resulted in time served in prisons including at Soledad, San Quentin, and Avenal. Shot, stabbed, and convicted multiple times, Junior was at his lowest point doing time at a Santa Rita jail, but it was at that moment that he found the Lord. He emerged clean and sober and began a successful career as a blues singer, earning two Grammy nominations as well as the Bobby “Blue” Bland Lifetime Achievement Award. He eventually devoted himself fully to his faith. Reverend John Lee Hooker Jr. testifies, preaches, and performs gospel music in churches and prisons in both Germany and America.
Emotions are high after Danielle made a devastating decision to protect the love of her life. She was more than willing to stand up for the man who has had her heart since the moment she saw him, even if standing behind him meant spending years in jail. In everyone else's eyes, she's a fool, but to Danielle, she made the right decision and would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Guess one could say she was a fool in love. Dallas never wanted Danielle to get sucked up into his crazy lifestyle. With so many regrets weighing on him, the main one being how he couldn't protect Danielle when she needed it the most, Dallas does the unthinkable. Their relationship was rocky from the start, and now with the separation between the two, they will see there's always room for more to come between them. What happens when the man who was once your superhero turns out to be the villain? On top of her personal life drama, Danielle and her brother, Reggie, find out a devastating secret about their father that leaves them speechless. As more drama surrounds them, enemies are coming out of nowhere, relationships are ending, and unexpected relationships are growing. In this Epic part two, everyone learns something new about their life. The past can either mold you or make you fold, and in the end, only the strong will survive. Will love be enough to fight for, or will they leave love exactly where they found it, on the mean streets of the Westside of Chicago?
"Mika Blake works in law enforcement, and is married to one of the most distinguished detectives on the police force. Everything looks good on the outside-- but Rasheem is controlling and two-timing, so Mika buries herself into her career. She soon crosses paths with Jakeel, an ex-con fresh out of prison. The jovial jailbird piques her interest, and Mika soon forgets that there are certain lines you just don't cross. Now she's playing with two men on opposite sides of the law. Can Mika walk away, or will she make a move that could lead to murder and mayhem in her once quiet life?"--Provided by publisher.
***FULL STANDALONE*** Aashiem Cazier grew up in a household with his father, who happens to be the chief of police, his mother, and two sisters. His middle-class upbringing is a far cry from the life that most of his peers lived in the hood, but his family's social status didn't stop Aashiem's love for fast money and his fascination with the allure of the game. Tired of being broke and under the roof of his strict father, on his eighteenth birthday, Aashiem takes part in a caper that changes the course of the rest of his life. Once life begins to change for Aashiem, he meets a beautiful self-made shawty with the Nola accent: Hysia. The slightly older woman is a bit intimidating but too intriguing for Aashiem to pass by. With a lot to learn about grown women and facing the obstacles that come along with getting his weight up, Aashiem soon learns that you can't play kid games with grown women and to watch who he calls a friend. A friend may be the very thing to cause the demise of Aashiem's relationship with Hysia and take his freedom, if it doesn't kill him first. Hysia was seven years old when Hurricane Katrina hit, and she watched her mother die right in front of her. At the age of eighteen, she becomes responsible for her younger sister, Hydia, and hustler becomes Hysia's middle name. She believes in securing her own bag and not having to depend on anybody for anything. Putting her dreams on hold, she goes hard to send her sister off to college. Hysia wasn't looking for love when she met the caramel colored, dreaded up Aashiem, but he was too charming for her to resist. Even after several red flags were noticed, Hysia couldn't break free from the spell that was him. Hysia is as strong as they come, but she has one weakness. Something that only she and her sister know about. It's the very thing that makes Hysia terrified of being alone. That vulnerability allows her to fall hard for Aashiem. So hard that when she finds out about a secret that he's been keeping, it literally feels like she's dying inside, but somehow, she must pick up the pieces. Love isn't always pretty. But if it's true love, it will always prevail.
Fleetwood Mac's distinctive sound, first really captured in the 1977 record Rumours, launched the group into the commercial stratosphere, and over the past three decades they have never looked back. All along the way their dysfunctional relationships have informed their professional success, as well as their personal downfalls. By writing and singing about their problems, Fleetwood Mac has transformed what breaks them apart into what keeps them together. They have turned their dark relationship dilemmas into glittering entertainment. In this highly entertaining chronicle, author Donald Brackett provides readers with a special opportunity to review the band's complicated history and reconsider the personal, dynamic sources of their classic albums and enduring hits. The band drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie started in 1967 has gone through more personnel changes and stylistic innovations than any other pop group in our cultural history. The story of the group began when John Mayall and Alexis Korner, the band's mentors, launched a mid-'60s British blues revival. Ex-Mayall players Fleetwood and McVie then went on to form an incendiary band of psychedelic blues under the name Fleetwood Mac. But it was not until hearing a little-known 1973 record from Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks that Mick Fleetwood heard the future sound and true pop potential of his own group.
A major player in the narcotics business doesn’t learn that the woman who stole his heart is an undercover DEA agent…until it’s too late. The divorce decree delivered to Limbo’s Pennsylvania prison cell was the consequence of a single bad decision: choosing the streets instead of his family. Limbo’s downward spiral gained momentum after a group of miscreant federal agents ruined his livelihood. But that only fueled his ambition to win. Now Limbo has one thing in mind: getting back to the streets with his notorious entourage, the Crips, to rebuild his empire and replenish his family’s wealth, even if it means murder. The unprincipled agents have other plans, though. They have laid a compelling trap that’s certain to put Limbo behind bars forever—Rhapsody, a gorgeous white woman. Things spin out of control, though, when a purely sexual encounter turns into an intimate love affair. White Heat examines a convicted felon’s narcotics business, sexual exploits, violent encounters, and dealings with state and federal officials who act above the law.
Special Anniversary Omnibus: Get all three books for the price of one! _____ Part 1: Going to New York _____ The strange true story of the first influencer. Oliver, a hacker living in Germany, meets Donna online. She's an American girl living in New York. After chatting and talking on the phone for months, he finally decides to surprise her with a visit. But he soon finds out that things are not what they appeared to be, and that this visit will change his life forever. “Nobody has ever killed themselves over a broken arm. But every day, thousands of people kill themselves because of a broken heart. Why? Because emotional pain hurts much worse than physical pain.” -Oliver Markus Malloy, Bad Choices Make Good Stories “Don't ever think you're better than a drug addict, because your brain works the same as theirs. You have the same circuits. And drugs would affect your brain in the same way it affects theirs. The same thought process that makes them screw up over and over again would make you screw up over and over as well, if you were in their shoes. You probably already are doing it, just not with heroin or crack, but with food or cigarettes, or something else you shouldn't be doing.” -Oliver Markus Malloy, Bad Choices Make Good Stories "A must read. One of those rare books that sucks you in from the first to the last page." ★★★★★ - Amazon Review _____ Part 2: The Heroin Scene in Fort Myers _____ America has a heroin problem. Oliver moves from New York to Florida. Battling with depression, he gets sucked into the seedy underworld of Fort Myers, where he encounters a number of female drug addicts. He empathizes with them because of his own traumatic past. Oliver feels compelled to try to help them escape the addict lifestyle, but learns the hard way that he is in way over his head. "A truly fascinating and unexpected look at the darker side of addiction." ★★★★★ - A. Allyson, Goodreads _____ Part 3: Finding Happiness in Los Angeles _____ If you're a fan of Dave Chappelle or John Oliver, you'll love this book. After writing a book about his bizarre adventures in America's underbelly, Oliver finally finds love among his readers on Goodreads. "I think it will become a standard for people who are dealing with loved ones struggling with addictions." ★★★★★ - B. Bridges, Amazon Review Dear Reader, You're a little late to the party. Where the hell have you been? This is already the third and final part of the trilogy, and you're only joining us now? Tsk tsk tsk. Let me get you up to speed on what you've missed so far: In book one, Going to New York, you missed the utterly fascinating, nay spellbinding saga of me growing up in Germany and later emigrating to New York. I was a brooding, troubled teenage hacker. Wow! Good stuff! It's almost like my life was the perfect kind of crazy to make a really awesome book! Anyway, being a teenage hacker came in handy later in life. I went from rags to riches thanks to my keen understanding of technology and how to use the web to my advantage. In New York I was married to Donna, a girl I had met online. She was an agoraphobic, prone to temper tantrums. And fun was had by all, which led to a divorce 16 years later. That's where the story gets really interesting. I began dating. It didn't go well. I was no good at it. OK, truth be told, I was really bad at it. Apparently I had terrible taste in women. A heroin-addicted hooker named Alice broke my heart and robbed me of my will to live. Doesn't sound very fun, does it? But it's a fun read, I promise. Dark, but fun. Mesmerizing even! Brokenhearted, I moved from New York to Florida. That's where the first book ends. The second book you missed (I'm not mad at you. I'm just disappointed.) is called The Heroin Scene in Fort Myers, which is a very fitting title, believe me. Sometimes I'm a slow learner, so I dated my way through the heroin scene in Florida, and I couldn't figure out for years why I wasn't finding any wife material. But oh how I tried. And tried. In all the wrong places. Pretty sad. I'm not proud of it. After years of sad pathetic sex with heroin addicts I was a wreck. My younger self wouldn't have even recognized me. Lucy and Veronica had turned me into a broken, humiliated shell of a man. My heart had been ripped out of my chest so many times, it was a miracle I hadn't killed myself yet. (Seriously, it's a fun read. I promise!) At the end of the book I had it up to here with heroin addicts. I told myself never again would I let myself be sucked in by the sweet lies of manipulative, fake love. The name of the final chapter was NO MO HO. No more whores. I needed to change my life before my life was going to kill me. I hopped on a plane, back to my native Germany, to lick my wounds and heal before returning to America. That's where the second book ended. And now, for our third and final act...
