Showing results by narrator "Bahni Turpin" in All Categories

In this mighty follow-up to his number one best seller Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Man Booker winner Marlon James once again draws on a rich tradition of African mythology, fantasy and history to imagine a mythic world, a lost child, a 177-year-old witch, a deadly regal chancellor and a mystery with many answers.... Part adventure tale, part chronicle of an indomitable woman - the witch Sogolon - who bows to no man, this is an unforgettable exploration of power, personality and the places where they overlap, set in a world at once ancient and startlingly modern.

It's 1986, the heart of the Cold War. Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She's brilliant and talented, but she's also a black woman working in an all-white boys' club, and her career has stalled with routine paperwork - until she's recruited to a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic, revolutionary president of Burkina Faso, whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention. In the year that follows, Marie will observe Thomas, seduce him and ultimately have a hand in the coup that will bring him down.

In Borne, a young woman named Rachel survives as a scavenger in a ruined city half destroyed by drought and conflict. The city's dangerous, littered with discarded experiments from the Company - a biotech firm now derelict - and punished by the unpredictable predations of a giant bear. Rachel ekes out an existence in the shelter of a run-down sanctuary she shares with her partner, Wick, who deals his own homegrown psychoactive biotech. One day, Rachel finds Borne during a scavenging mission and takes him home. Borne as salvage is little more than a green lump - plant or animal?

Buckhanon takes us into the life of 15-year-old Shivana Montgomery, who believes all black women wind up the same: single and raising children alone, like her mother. Until the sudden visit of her free-spirited Aunt Jewel, Shivana spends her days desperately struggling to understand life and the growing pains of her environment. When she accidentally becomes pregnant by an older man and must decide what to do, she begins a journey towards adulthood with only a mysterious voice inside to guide her.

From the hair on her head to the tips of her toes, Azira knows that she is awesome! And whether it’s styled in twists, curls, braids, Bantu knots, a textured bun, or left totally natural, her hair is just one of the countless things that helps Azira celebrate who God made her to be. She’s able to live out a beautiful story because God has crowned her with glory - and Azira wants you to do the same! 

In this radiant, highly anticipated debut, a cast of unforgettable women battle for independence while a maelstrom of change threatens their Jamaican village. Capturing the distinct rhythms of Jamaican life and dialect, Nicole Dennis-Benn pens a tender hymn to a world hidden among pristine beaches and the wide expanse of turquoise seas. At an opulent resort in Montego Bay, Margot hustles to send her younger sister, Thandi, to school. Taught as a girl to trade her sexuality for survival, Margot is ruthlessly determined to shield Thandi from the same fate.

Corduroy is excited to celebrate Christmas! To get ready, he decorates his tree, bakes cookies, and wraps presents. When the snow starts falling on Christmas Eve, Corduroy hangs up his stocking and leaves a note for Santa. Merry Christmas, Corduroy! 

Twenty-three dollars and 11 cents - that’s all that 35-year-old Chloe Davis Michaels has to her name after she is driven from her home and career as a jet-setting Hollywood publicist, desperate to protect her unborn child from her crazed newlywed husband. She thought she had it all. Now Chloe seeks refuge in her Midwestern hometown to “get prayed up” by the women in her family. Chloe’s impromptu homecoming takes us into the world of eight African-American women who make up the Davis clan - three mothers and five daughters, including Chloe.

In the Piedmont of North Carolina, two families' paths become unexpectedly intertwined over 20 years. Jade and Lacey May are two mothers determined to give their children the opportunities they never had. After a harrowing loss, Jade wants to hand down the tools her son, Gee, will need to survive in America as a sensitive young Black man. Meanwhile, Lacey May, having left the husband she loves, strives to protect her three half-Latina daughters from their charming father's influence.

This is the story of one brave family: Mildred Loving, Richard Perry Loving, and their three children. It is the story of how Mildred and Richard fell in love, and got married in Washington, DC. But when they moved back to their hometown of Virginia, they were arrested (in dramatic fashion) for violating that state's laws against interracial marriage. The Lovings refused to allow their children to get the message that their parents' love was wrong, and so they fought the unfair law, taking their case all the way to the Supreme Court - and won!

In The Memory Librarian, music, fashion, film and activist icon Janelle Monáe returns to the Afrofuturistic world of her critically acclaimed album, Dirty Computer, to explore how different threads of liberation—queerness, race, gender plurality, love—become tangled in a totalitarian landscape...and to discover costs of unravelling them.

In the New England university town of Elm Harbor, a murder begins to crack the veneer that has hidden the racial complications of the town's past, the secrets of a prominent family, and the most hidden bastions of African-American political influence. At the center is Lemaster Carlyle, the university president, and his wife, Julia Carlyle, a deputy dean at the divinity school - African Americans living in "the heart of whiteness".

As the year passes, the narrator's favorite dress goes through a series of creative changes, from dress to shirt to tank top to scarf and so on, until all that's left of it is a good memory. Assisted by her patient and crafty mama, the narrator finds that when disaster strikes her favorite things, she doesn't need to make mountains out of molehills - she makes molehills out of mountains instead!

The dancer. The mother. The cop. The artist. The wife. These women live by countless unspoken rules. How to dress; who to trust; and which streets are safe and which are not. The rules grow out of a kaleidoscope of fear, anguish, power, loss and hope. Maybe it is only these rules which keep them alive. When their neighbourhood is rocked by two murders, the careful existence these women have built for themselves begins to crumble.

Evie is disillusioned about love ever since her dad left her mum for another woman - she's even throwing out her beloved romance novel collection. When she's given a copy of a book called Instructions for Dancing, and follows a note inside to a dilapidated dance studio, she discovers she has a strange and unwelcome gift. When a couple kisses in front of her, she can see their whole relationship play out - from the moment they first catch each other's eye to the last bitter moments of their breakup.

The Church Gal Crew is leading the way to salvation at Mt. Zion Holiness Church. Feisty Natalia Freemon is the “head” of the crew. Rebellious and outspoken, she has no problems challenging the church status quo. Years later however, her loss of faith will tragically impact her life. Michelle Hanks, a country girl from a hardworking farm family is the peacemaker and “soul” of the crew. Although struggling with self-confidence she is wise beyond her years and can’t wait to escape the farm life and find success; even if it costs her soul.

In Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Sogolon the Moon Witch proved a worthy adversary to Tracker as they clashed across a mythical African landscape in search of a mysterious boy who disappeared. In Moon Witch, Spider King, Sogolon takes centre stage and gives her own account of what happened to the boy, and how she plotted and fought, triumphed and failed as she looked for him. It's also the story of a century-long feud—seen through the eyes of a 177-year-old witch—that Sogolon had with the Aesi, chancellor to the king.

Elisa Brown is driving back from her annual, somber visit to her son Silas’s grave when something changes. Actually, everything changes: her body is more voluptuous; she’s wearing different clothes and driving a new car. When she arrives home, her life is familiar - but different. There is her house, her husband. But in the world she now inhabits, Silas is no longer dead, and his brother is disturbingly changed.

Check it out: not just a book about sex, but a look at girl culture by teenagers. No stuffy school textbook. No nosy adults. Just a diverse group of teen girls from a community youth project who had questions about sexuality. To find answers, they collected stories, poetry, and artwork from other youths. They also interviewed frontline health experts to get solid facts about the personalities and pressures that young women have to deal with. It's a great mix of real-life examples and life-saving info.

Banneker Homes is a low-income high rise in Harlem where gentrification weighs on everyone's mind. There is Swan in apartment 6B, whose excitement about his friend's release from prison jeopardises the life he's been trying to lead. Mimi, in apartment 14D, who hustles to raise the child she had with Swan, waitressing at Roscoe's and doing hair on the side. And Quanneisha B. Miles, a former gymnast with a good education who wishes she could leave Banneker for good, but can't seem to escape the building's gravitational pull.