African American Historical Fiction

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.

Waiting to enter a movie theater to see "Dr. No," the first James Bond movie, Simon sees a cute Black girl standing in a separate line that leads to the balcony, the "colored" section. A friend tells him, "You're in the South. Stick with your own kind.” Simon doesn't. It's the steamy summer of 1963. Simon Klein has moved with his family, Jews from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Pickettville, Alabama, where his father has taken a job at a nearby Army base. He is as mystified of the South as Southerners are of a Jew While gathering information for a story he is writing for his school paper, Simon ...

Harriet Ann Jacob's autobiography documents her life as a slave and how she attained freedom for herself and her children. Harrowing in its descriptions of sexual abuse, Jacob's slave narrative is notable for the appeal it made to abolitionist women to open their eyes to the realities of slavery. Deemed too shocking for reading audiences at the time, the book was shelved before it was published in 1861 near the start of the Civil War.

Abigail was the last keeper of the house, the last to know the Howland family's secrets. Now, in the name of all her brothers and sisters, she must take her bitter revenge on the small-minded Southern town that shamed them, persecuted them, but could never destroy them.

When her aunt who raised her dies, sixteen-year-old Alana goes to live with her uncle on another plantation, the plantation her deceased parents lived on. After months of inquiries, she questions if they're really dead. She sets off to discover the past...her past.

Set in 19th-century California, Destiny’s Embrace introduces listeners to ranch owner Logan Yates, who must come to terms with his true feelings for Mariah Cooper, his beautiful, headstrong housekeeper. But just as Logan decides to make Mariah his own, her former lover reenters her life. Now Logan will have to show Mariah that the passion they share has been written in the stars.

If Cotton Could Talk," is a civil war era historical fiction novel about 19th-century slave life in the South. You will be introduced to a cast of characters; Black mothers and fathers who are fearless, smart, and devoted to family and justice. Heroes and heroines whose leadership gave enslaved people hope. But before freedom comes, they must survive other slaves who prove to be untrustworthy. At the same time ruthless, hostile, hateful men are determined to keep the status quo. Pre-Civil War, 1850, enslaved people could sense that their lives were going to change. Slaves reasoned that they...

Susie King Taylor, born a slave in 1848, would learn to read at secret schools and go on to teach countless others to read and write. Follow the course of the Civil War in her own words as she remembers her work as a nurse and teacher with an Army troop of African-American soldiers.

As a young woman, Naomi Simmons grabbed her one chance to escape the overwhelming demands of her selfish family by marrying devout older man Jacob Purcell. But it only landed her with a controlling, unfaithful husband who delights in hurling insults at her and their troubled now-teenage daughter, Ethel Mae. So, Naomi is amazed and touched when Homer Clark sees her for the vibrant, intelligent woman she truly is. Believing the handsome, worldly widower is her love of a lifetime, Naomi plans to leave with Homer and start fresh in the big city.

One girl’s escape. One nation’s shame. A fight for freedom begins. In the 1850s, Sunny Washington is torn from her family and thrust into a world of cruelty and injustice. Refusing to accept a life in chains, she escapes and sets out on a perilous journey through the antebellum South. Pursued by slave catchers and haunted by betrayal, Sunny must navigate the brutal grip of the Fugitive Slave Act while clinging to hope for a future beyond bondage. Along the way she encounters allies and fellow runaways whose lives intertwine with her own. But every step brings new dangers, testing her ...

Georgina Wilcox, a wallflower with hidden musical talents, is furious when her reclusive older sister—the recently widowed Viscountess—refuses sorely needed help from the Duke of Torrance, the only gentleman who has shown kindness to the bereft Wilcox sisters. Georgina decides to get back at her sister and shock the Viscountess by kissing the first willing stranger she meets in the enchanting gardens of Anya House. Unfortunately, her sister is not the sole witness. A group of reporters and the ton's leading gossips catch Georgina in a passionate embrace with a reticent composer.

Paint your toes. Pick up the wrong coffee and bagel order. Drive from Brooklyn to Jersey in traffic so slow you want to tear your hair out. It’s amazing all the useless things I can accomplish while on hold for three hours with customer service. Three hours when I should be getting the Date-in-a-Box website ready to launch at the big business expo in a few days. Except my shiny new website is glitching, and my inner rage-monster is ready to scorch some earth...when he finally picks up. Not the robot voice I expected but a real live human named Kal.

Johnny Holt Jr. comes home to Kentucky for the summer to find his father, JJ, has made alliances with a notorious slave owner, Spanish-born Edmond Maguerro, to turn Holt Lands into a million-dollar plantation. Johnny is indifferent. Much as he hates the idea because of his liberal views about slavery, he doesn’t involve himself until he meets Elisa, one of his father’s new slaves.

Shari dreamed of the day she would get her diploma and be the first in her family to earn her bachelor's degree. She's an average college student, into her books and adored by her boyfriend, Neil. Shari knew that the college experience would prepare, and open her up to a whole new world. She wasn't prepared for what she found. Shari's world becomes a haze as past and present collide, altering her grasp on what's real and what's not. As Shari fights to get answers and attempt to keep hold of her sanity, her world as she knows it, has become, Shari's Crossing.

Ya'll, let me tell you my story!Glad you could find your way here, and I welcome you to the Sellers Plantation here in the deep south of Mobile, Alabama. I'm anxious to get started with my story tellin,' so, I'm sharin' a little bout the story that I be tellin' to ya'll down below. When I wuz born, I be given the name Gertrude Ida Rollins, but as I be growin' folks just be callin' me Ms. Gertie. I wuz born in Mobile, Alabama in the year eighteen and eighty-eight. Yes, that be a long time ago for most of ya'll, but I thinks it be good to be learnin' bout the history that be comin' before you...

A Legacy Unearthed. A Nation Reborn. A Love Story That Transcends Time. When Calvin Osborne began tracing his ancestry, he uncovered a powerful truth buried in forgotten records: his great-great-grandfather, William Lacy, was born enslaved, fought for freedom, and helped shape a legacy that would span generations. Contraband Hearts follows William’s journey from the pre–Civil War South to the battlefields of Westport, where he served alongside pivotal figures in America’s defining conflict. After the war, he began a new life with his wife, Lucinda, in a small Kansas town—unknowingly...

Sometimes family is found in the most unlikely of places . . . In the small college town of Troy, Alabama, amidst the backdrop of 1967, Katia Daniels lives a life steeped in responsibility. At the Pike County Group Home for Negro Boys, she pours her heart into nurturing the young lives under her...

In 1947 St. Louis, Ms. Etta's is the place where a sinner can get all the boozy action he craves - that is until ladies' man Baltimore Floyd rolls into town and falls in the sack with the wrong woman.

Flip and Run: A Platinum Chocolate Sibling Saga Every silence has a song. Every goodbye finds its echo. From the fire escapes of the Lower East Side to the quiet hills of Wilkes-Barre, Flip and Run: A Platinum Chocolate Sibling Saga unfolds a powerful family saga about love, loss, and the unbreakable ties of a sibling bond that outlasts the streets, time, and tragedy. Raised just eleven months apart in the raw pulse of 1970s Manhattan, Runika “Run” Tamara Long and her older brother Flip learn early that family is not just love—it is survival. With an absent father and a mother whose ...

The year was 1877 and Reconstruction was working until Presidential politics removed the union troops from the South unleashing violent cold-blooded men to pray upon black Americans. Bertha and Tucker were raised in the ways of the Elders: maintain your dignity, know your history, and never compromise your values. Their children were more than sharecroppers. Junior, the oldest, was an astute businessman and new leader. Joan was a teacher. Joseph, the brother, no one wanted to fight. Rose fell in love with the wrong man. Gladys, the youngest, helped Rose through tough times. "If the Elders ...