Barely eighteen, Kanika has everything to look forward to. She's fine, smart, and strong—qualities she inherited from a momma who made sure her little girl had every privilege—courtesy of Tony, one of Brooklyn's most powerful crime lords. Born to the life, Kanika knows the hustle from the inside out, but her future holds college and some quality time with Tony's second-in-command, Tyrell...Then Kanika's world explodes in a hail of bullets and blood when a hit takes down both the man who raised her and the mother she adores. Alone, shattered, and possibly a target herself, Kanika lets Tyrell convince her to attend college in Virginia and move in with her birth father. Down South has a whole other rhythm than Brooklyn, and the parent Kanika barely knows is a different kind of mobster than Tony was. Shon is angry and unpredictable...Determined as she is to make things work, Kanika is equally committed to finding out who killed Tony and her momma. She's not about to forget Tyrell. But nothing can prepare Kanika for what she's about to face: from temptation to danger to revelations that will call all her loyalties into question—and put her life on the line...

Winner of the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award!

7 starred reviews! "Monumental." —Booklist (starred review) * "A marathon masterpiece."—Kirkus (starred review) * "Necessary."—SLJ (starred review) * "Shocking and dramatic."—Shelf Awareness (starred review) * "Mesmerizing, confounding and vividly rendered."—Book Page (starred review) * "Williams-Garcia’s storytelling is magnificent; her voice honest and authentic."—Horn Book (starred review)

This astonishing novel from three-time National Book Award finalist Rita Williams-Garcia about the interwoven lives of those bound to a plantation in antebellum America is an epic masterwork—empathetic, brutal, and entirely human—and essential reading for both teens and adults grappling with the long history of American racism.

1860, Louisiana. After serving as mistress of Le Petit Cottage for more than six decades, Madame Sylvie Guilbert has decided, in spite of her family’s objections, to sit for a portrait.

While Madame plots her last hurrah, stories that span generations—from the big house to out in the fields—of routine horrors, secrets buried as deep as the family fortune, and the tangled bonds of descendants and enslaved, come to light to reveal a true portrait of the Guilberts.

Rita Williams-Garcia is one of the preeminent authors of our time. She has been honored with the Children's Literature Lecture Award from the American Library Association.

An elegant, vibrant, startling coming-of-age novel, for anyone who's ever felt the shame of being aliveKenya Curtis is only eight years old, but she knows that she's different, even if she can't put her finger on how or why. It's not because she's black—most of the other students in the fourth-grade class at her West Philadelphia elementary school are too. Maybe it's because she celebrates Kwanzaa, or because she's forbidden from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Maybe it's because she calls her father—a housepainter-slash-philosopher—"Baba" instead of "Daddy," or because her parents' friends gather to pour out libations "from the Creator, for the Martyrs" and discuss "the community." Kenya does know that it's connected to what her Baba calls "the shame of being alive"—a shame that only grows deeper and more complex over the course of Asali Solomon's long-awaited debut novel. Disgruntled, effortlessly funny and achingly poignant, follows Kenya from West Philadelphia to the suburbs, from public school to private, from childhood through adolescence, as she grows increasingly disgruntled by her inability to find any place or thing or person that feels like home. A coming-of-age tale, a portrait of Philadelphia in the late eighties and early nineties, an examination of the impossible double-binds of race, Disgruntled is a novel about the desire to rise above the limitations of the narratives we're given and the painful struggle to craft fresh ones we can call our own.

Kiyor and Bishop are both anti-relationships for similar reasons. Two people crossing paths with the same mindsets should be smooth sailing right? Wrong! Join Kiyor and Bishop for this chaotic and toxic ride.

Ivy, a daddy's girl from Bel Air, Maryland, is living the good life. She comes from a great home with a father and mother, and an adorable baby sister, living a fabulous life surrounded by love and wealth. Soon, her dreams erupt into nightmares when her daddy dies. Next, her mother commits suicide, and she's stuck taking care of her little sister, Amber. To make things worse, her first and only love, Dashawn, does her dirty. Feeling as though everyone gave up on her, Ivy snaps out on everyone she knows and burns bridges. Giving up hope, she runs away and plans on never coming back home. Finding herself not having anywhere to turn, Ivy ends up doing the unthinkable to make a living, and, soon gets addicted to chasing pretty money. She goes from rich, preppy girl to a sassy street walker in the blink of an eye. Finally, thinking the fast life is over and she's able to add stability to her life again, that dream is snatched away from her and Dutches, who is supposed to introduce Ivy to what real pretty money is, turns the heat up and the pressure on. Tired of chasing dreams, Ivy wants to go on her own, but she is now the property of Dutches. Will Ivy be able to keep up with the fast life, or will chasing pretty money get the best of her?