A Virgin & The Rich Jamaican Next Door by Candy Moore

Imagine being the daughter of a billionaire yet still enduring a tough upbringing. Caprice Turner's life has been filled with pain, heartache, and betrayal. Raised in a rough part of L.A., Caprice is likely the only virgin her age, a result of a devastating incident in her teenage years. Estranged from her father all her life, Caprice’s world takes a drastic turn with one phone call and a single request.

Due to the dire situation at home with her mother, Caprice has no choice but to accept her father's offer. Her life quickly transforms from one of struggle to living a lavish lifestyle with the man she has always longed to know. As Caprice tries to adjust to her new surroundings and get to know the family she never knew, she encounters the intriguing neighbor next door—a wealthy Jamaican named Damien King, AKA Owl.

Damien is everything Caprice never expected. Despite their rocky start and clashing personalities, there’s an undeniable chemistry between them. What begins as an enemies-to-lovers situation soon evolves into something deeper. Caprice finds herself drawn to Damien's charm and confidence, discovering that beneath his tough exterior lies a man who understands her pain and past.

But their budding relationship faces numerous obstacles. In the midst of this, old wounds are reopened, and Caprice must navigate through betrayal and secrets to find her own path to happiness.

"A Virgin & The Rich Jamaican Next Door" is an African American romance that beautifully blends the themes of enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, and second chance romance. Follow Caprice as she embarks on a journey of self-discovery, healing, and unexpected love in this captivating tale by Candy Moore.

In these powerfully rendered, prizewinning stories, working-class African Americans across the South strive for meaning and search for direction in lives shaped by forces beyond their control

The ten stories in this resonant collection deal with both the ties that bind and the gulf that separates generations, from children confronting the fallibility of their own parents for the first time to adults finding themselves forced to start over again and again.

In “Highway 18”a young Jehovah’s Witness going door to door with an expert field-service partner from up north is at a crossroads: will she go to college or continue to serve the church? “If You Hit Randall County, You’ve Gone Too Far”tells ofa family trying to make it through a tense celebratory dinner for a son just out on bail. And in the collection’s title story, a young girl experiences loss for the first time in the fallout from her father’s relationship with her babysitter.

Startling, intimate, and prescient on their own, these stories build to a kaleidoscopic understanding of both the individual and the collective black experience over the last fifty years in the American South. With We Are Taking Only What We Need, Stephanie Powell Watts has crafted an incredibly assured and emotionally affecting meditation on everything from the large institutional forces to the small interpersonal moments that impress upon us and direct our lives.