Allyson Johnson
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"The early years of Sarah Vaughan's career coincided with the waning of the swing era, and this biography shows how the change both fuelled and limited her career." - The New Yorker
"Queen of Bebop explores the hard choices of many a jazz singer when rock 'n roll began stealing audience focus, relying on a variety of performers to shed light on Vaughan's mindset. A welcome and well-researched accounting of Vaughan's life story. " - NPR.org
"Necessary...
22) The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice: Black Lives, Healing, and US Social Transformation
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Racial Justice and Restorative Justice Working Together to Transform the Black Experience in America.
This timely work will inform scholars and practitioners on the subjects of pervasive racial inequity and the healing offered by restorative justice practices. Addressing the intersectionality of race and the US criminal justice system, social activist Fania E. Davis explores how restorative justice has the capacity to disrupt patterns of mass incarceration...
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The first comprehensive biography ever published about America's favorite living pop icon, Beyoncé, from New York Times bestselling biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli.
Beyoncé Knowles is a woman who began her career at the age of eight performing in pageant shows and talent contests, honing her craft through her teenage years until, at the age of 16, she had her first number one record with Destiny's Child. That hit-making trio launched Beyoncé's...
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A compelling reconstruction of the life of a black suffragist, Adella Hunt Logan, blending family lore, historical research, and literary imagination
Born during the Civil War into a slaveholding family that included black, white, and Cherokee forebears, Adella Hunt Logan dedicated herself to advancing political and educational opportunities for the African American community. She taught at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute but also joined the segregated...
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The word cowboy conjures up vivid images of rugged men on saddled horses, men lassoing cattle, riding bulls, or brandishing guns in a shoot-out. White men, as Hollywood remembers them. What is woefully missing from these scenes is their counterparts: the black cowboys who made up one-fourth of the wranglers and rodeo riders. This book tells their story. When the Civil War ended, black men left the Old South in large numbers to seek a living in the...
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A general's wife and a slave girl forge a friendship that transcends race, culture, and the crucible of Civil War.
Mary Anna Custis Lee is a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington, wife of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and heiress to Virginia's storied Arlington house and General Washington's personal belongings.
Born in bondage at Arlington, Selina Norris Gray learns to read and write in the schoolroom Mary and her mother keep for the slave...
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"Bridging women's history, the history of the South, and African American history, this book makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery. Historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers draws on a variety of sources to show that slave-owning women were sophisticated economic actors who directly engaged in and benefited from the South's slave market. Because women typically inherited more slaves than land, enslaved people were often...
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Whispers of Shadow & Flame is the incredible second book in the historical fantasy Earthsinger Chronicles by L. Penelope.
The Mantle that separates the kingdoms of Elsira and Lagrimar is about to fall. And life will drastically change for both kingdoms.
Born with a deadly magic she cannot control, Kyara is forced to become an assassin. Known as the Poison Flame in the kingdom of Lagrimar, she is notorious and lethal, but secretly seeks freedom from...
29) Elysium
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Lily Palmer flees with her daughter to take refuge on her uncle's farm in Louisiana. Here she finds herself in a world struggling with the after effects of the Civil War. For the first time, she is confronted with her own careless assumptions about race as she learns to appreciate the humanity of everyone around her. Threatening the fragile peace she achieves, her love for Alistair Whiteaker collides with her own dark past, shattering all hope for...
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Nicolette Chamard, a woman of color in the most color-conscious city in the world, rejoices when the Union Army marches into New Orleans. At last her people will be free, and even knowing her collaboration with the Union will put her in danger, she means to help make it happen. Marcel Chamard, Nicolette's privileged white half-brother, surveys the same parade and sees conquerors, not liberators. If the Union wins the war, it will mean the end of the...
31) The Wrong Todd
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Why had she ever promised to do something so crazy?
After winning her bid at the bachelor auction, Sabine Blakeman vows she is never doing another embarrassing favor for a friend. This is especially true for favors that involve spending large sums of money and buying men whose last names she doesn't even know.
In twenty bachelors, Sabine maybe expected to find several Davids, Mikes, or Johns. But what were the odds of two Todds?
And...
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In The Alchemy of Us, scientist and science writer Ainissa Ramirez examines eight inventions-clocks, steel rails, copper communication cables, photographic film, light bulbs, hard disks, scientific labware, and silicon chips-and reveals how they shaped the human experience. Ramirez tells the stories of the woman who sold time, the inventor who inspired Edison, and the hotheaded undertaker whose invention pointed the way to the computer. She describes,...
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A Charleston belle with slavery on her conscience. A slave with rebellion in her heart. In South Carolina in 1858, no friendship could be more dangerous.
Caro Jarvie's father, who owns her, loves her and educates her. He raises her for a life she can never have-as a wealthy planter's daughter. When he dies, he can't protect her, and she is cast back into slavery. But she can't forget her father's promise. As she grieves for him, she yearns for freedom.
Emily...
34) White Lines II
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In her most stunning, riveting, unstoppable novel yet, bestselling and critically acclaimed author, Tracy Brown delivers the not-to-be-missed sequel to WHITE LINES
On the surface, it appears that Sunny has got it all—looks, money, a beautiful home, a healthy daughter, and friends who love her. But Sunny has a secret-something she hasn't even told her best friend. The truth is Sunny is unhappy. She still misses her beloved Dorian, and worries that...
35) Union's Daughter
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One woman abhors her past. The other fights for freedom. Will their battle for emancipation leave them casualties of war?
South Carolina, 1862. Emily Jarvie is determined to send her family's slave-owning history to its grave. When the Union Army captures the Sea Islands, she returns to the south to teach the former slaves, part of the Army's unusual experiment in racial equality. Despite her loyalty to the Union cause, her Southern heritage raises...
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From the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of Blackberries, Blackberries and Water Street comes an astonishing new novel. A lyrical exploration of love and loss, The Birds of Opulence centers on several generations of women in a bucolic southern black township as they live with and sometimes surrender to madness.
The Goode-Brown family, led by matriarch and pillar of the community Minnie Mae, is plagued by old secrets and embarrassment over...
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Born in the mid-nineteenth century, Sophie Lyons was a master thief, con artist, blackmailer and smuggler. Much of her success as a criminal was due to the fact that she was fearless, reckless, sharp and cunning - everything a woman of her time was not supposed to be. As a young child, Sophie's parents forced her to steal when she showed a talent for pickpocketing. Strong-willed and smart, she blossomed into a beautiful teenager who caught the eye...
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Looking for some humorous Science Fiction? You're going to love this spoofy action and adventure series!
Liam admits it. He messed up big time. Book 2 continues the story of estranged alien mates on the starship Liberator. Captain Liam Synar and PeaceKeeper Ania Looren are still trying to make peace with their turbulent pasts.
Ambassador Ania Looren was content with how she had lived her very long life. If given the choice, she would have...
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Ntozake Shange's most beloved novel, Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, is the story of three “colored girls,” three sisters and their mama from Charleston, South Carolina. Sassafrass, the oldest, is a poet and a weaver like her mother, gone north to college and living with other artists in Los Angeles, trying to weave a life out of her work, her man, her memories, and her dreams. Cypress, the dancer, leaves home to find new ways of moving and easing...
40) Indigo Field
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In the rural South, a retired colonel in an upscale retirement community grieves the sudden death of his wife on the tennis court. On the other side of the highway, an elderly Black woman grieves the murder of her niece by a white man. Between them lies an abandoned field where three centuries of crimes are hidden, and only she knows the explosive secrets buried there. When the colonel runs into her car, causing a surprising amount of damage, it sparks...