Year 1
November 2014
A Wanted Woman by Eric Jerome Dickey
The assassin called Reaper is a woman of a thousand faces, and just as many accents. In the blink of an eye, she can become anyone. Some desirable. All dangerous.
For Reaper, the Trinidad contract should be simple: infiltrate the infamous Laventille Killers’ organization, earn access to her political target, eliminate him, and then escape from the island.
When complications arise and the job goes bad, Reaper has no viable exit plan. The LK warlords want her publicly executed, and their pursuit is far-reaching and merciless. Trawling for low-profile assignments is all Reaper can do to keep her skills sharp and garner money to survive. And for an assassin with so many changeable identities, her newest one is too frighteningly real—as an expendable pawn between two warring organizations. Now, trapped on an island paradise turned prison, Reaper discovers that family ties run deep on both sides. Somewhere, sometime, someone has to be trusted—but one wrong move could suddenly become her last breath.
December 2014
The Red Queen Dies by Frankie Y. Bailey
The year is 2019, and a drug used to treat soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder, nicknamed "Lullaby," has hit the streets. Swallowing a little pill erases traumatic memories, but what happens to a criminal trial when the star witness takes a pill and can't remember the crime? When two women are murdered in quick succession, biracial police detective Hannah McCabe is charged with solving the case. In spite of the advanced technology, including a city-wide surveillance program, a third woman is soon killed, and the police begin to suspect that a serial killer is on the loose. But the third victim, a Broadway actress known as "The Red Queen," doesn't fit the pattern set by the first two murders.
With the late September heat sizzling, Detective Hannah McCabe and her colleagues on the police force have to race to find the killer in a tangled web of clues that involve Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and Abraham Lincoln's assassination.
January 2015
Debbie Doesn’t Do It Anymore by Walter Mosely
Millions of men (and no doubt many women) have watched famed black porn queen Debbie Dare—she of the blond wig and blue contacts-"do it" on television and computer screens every which way with every combination of partners the mind of man can imagine. But one day an unexpected and thunderous on-set orgasm catches Debbie unawares, and when she returns to the mansion she shares with her husband, insatiable former porn star and "film producer" Theon Pinkney, she discovers that he's died in a case of hot tub electrocution, "auditioning" an aspiring "starlet." Burdened with massive debts that her husband incurred, and which various L.A. heavies want to collect on, Debbie must reckon with a life spent in the peculiar subculture of the pornography industry and her estrangement from her family and the child she had to give up. She's done with porn, but her options for what might come next include the possibility of suicide. Debbie . . . is a portrait of a ransacked but resilient soul in search of salvation and a cure for grief.
February 2015
When the Night Whispers by Savanna Welles
That night was the first time I tasted champagne—French he told me, and as I loved all things French I was enchanted. I barely remember what we said—only that I did most of the talking: about leaving the South, my dreams of becoming a writer, my thoughts of Harlem . . . and of you. He said very little, only this: "The moment I saw you I knew you would be mine forever. And even death, even that, could not part us."
Jocelyn's life feels empty, devoid of passion and purpose. After she finds a journal written by her "doomed" great-grandmother, Caprice, she is spellbound by her story: the escape from a loveless marriage, her seduction by a nameless lover who is both "demon and savior." Then, as if stepping out of a dream, Jocelyn meets Asa, her mysterious next door neighbor.
Asa is charming, handsome, and daring and, as if by magic, she is drawn into his hedonistic lifestyle. Yet there is something unsettling about Asa. Luna is suspicious of this man, and although Jocelyn is dismissive of Luna and amused by her friend's warnings, she can't completely ignore them. She begins to wonder if things with Asa aren't quite what they seem.
March 2015
Voodoo season by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Meet Marie Levant. The great-great granddaughter of the beloved, tantalizing Marie Laveau, she is compelled by unseen forces to leave her medical career in Chicago behind and return to her roots. But once she arrives in New Orleans, Marie is both seduced and horrified by this mysterious landscape whose slave-holding past merges with the spoils of the twenty-first century. A place where the Quadroon Balls of yesterday are a present reality, and women of color are still being abused and -- even more horrifying -- rendered "undead." Yet through it all, Marie can't help but sense that she's lived here before . . . and that maybe there's more to this city's history -- and her own.
April 2015
Perfect Peace by Dr. Daniel Black
When the seventh child of the Peace family, named Perfect, turns eight, her mother Emma Jean tells her bewildered daughter, “You was born a boy. I made you a girl. But that ain’t what you was supposed to be. So, from now on, you gon’ be a boy. It’ll be a little strange at first, but you’ll get used to it, and this’ll be over after while.”
From this point forward, Perfect’s life becomes a bizarre kaleidoscope of events―while the rest of his family is forced to question everything they thought they knew about gender, sexuality, unconditional love, and fulfillment.
May 2015
Message from a Mistress by Niobia Bryant
Through good times and bad, longtime friends Jaime, Renee, Aria, and Jessa have shared just about everything. But all hell breaks loose when Jessa texts them a shocking revelation: she's been sharing her bed—with one of their husbands. Worse, she refuses to name which husband. And all three wives believe they have reason to worry. . .
The betrayed trio vow to stick together. But before the identity of Jessa's lover is revealed, each woman's deepest secrets will be exposed for all to see—and they'll need each other more than ever.
June 2015
Keeping Secrets by Penny Mickelbury
omeone is murdering wealthy, married--and deeply closeted gay people in their own automobiles while parked in deserted parking lots in Washington, DC. Someone the victims allowed into their cars late at night. Someone who knows their most guarded and protected secret. Five murders so far on the same day of the month. Police Lieutenant Gianna Maglione, head of the DC Police Department's Hate Crimes Unit, has a month to find and stop the killer or she'll find Body #6. But she has another problem in ace newspaper reporter Mimi Patterson, who thinks the public, especially the gay public, has a right to know that a serial killer is on the prowl. Until Mimi, Gianna had managed to keep the murders a secret. A newspaper story would create a sensation and most likely drive the killer underground. They clash, the reporter and the cop, but only in public. Their private attraction to each other is as dangerous to them as, well, as a serial killer. Secrets=Death, and almost everybody has at least one. Including cops and reporters.
July 2015
One Night by Eric Jerome Dickey
On a cold and rainy night during the Christmas season, a woman who has suffered great personal loss and a successful businessman from Orange County meet by chance at a gas station in Los Angeles County. They have nothing in common, but as they engage in conversation and move from con games to assault to robberies, within hours they end up sequestered in an upscale hotel room. During intimacy, they continue to confide in each other and try to come to grips with their problems and their seasonal loneliness. For one night, their passion is boundless, but with every tick of the clock, their separate pasts close in. They push the limits of time, devotion, and even the law as they attempt to catch a glimpse of the future. They need each other for a lifetime but will have only one night.
August 2015
The Girl on the Train by Paula Watkins
Every day the same.
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life - as she sees it - is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.
Until today.
And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?
September 2015
Your Face in Mine by Jess Row
One afternoon, not long after Kelly Thorndike has moved back to his hometown of Baltimore, an African American man he doesn’t recognize calls out to him. To Kelly’s shock, the man identifies himself as Martin, who was one of Kelly’s closest friends in high school—and, before his disappearance nearly twenty years before, skinny, white, and Jewish. Martin then tells an astonishing story: After years of immersing himself in black culture, he’s had a plastic surgeon perform “racial reassignment surgery”—altering his hair, skin, and physiognomy to allow him to pass as African American. Unknown to his family or childhood friends, Martin has been living a new life ever since.
Now, however, Martin feels he can no longer keep his new identity a secret; he wants Kelly to help him ignite a controversy that will help sell racial reassignment surgery to the world. Kelly, still recovering from the death of his wife and child and looking for a way to begin anew, agrees, and things quickly begin to spiral out of control.
October 2015
The Woman He Loved Before by Dorothy Koomson
Libby has a nice life with a gorgeous husband and a big home by the sea. But over time she is becoming more unsure if Jack has ever loved her - and if he is over the death of Eve, his first wife. When fate intervenes in their relationship, Libby decides to find out all she can about the man she hastily married and the seemingly perfect Eve. Eventually Libby stumbles across some startling truths about Eve, and is soon unearthing more and more devastating family secrets. Frightened by what she finds and the damage it could cause, Libby starts to worry that she too will end up like the first woman Jack loved..