Pregnant fifteen-year-old Esch and her family live in Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, which puts them in the path of Hurricane Katrina, and as they try to stock the small amount of food they have in preparation for the disaster, the family's love for each other will be their only hope for survival.

In one West Philadelphia neighborhood, families come together in celebration of unity and togetherness. Their block parties provide a union that serves as a backdrop for discovering the truth about themselves and the people they think they know. Best friends Neet and Shay have depended on each other for most of their lives. However, their friendship will be tested when Neet becomes pregnant by one of the corner boys and Shay arranges an abortion that...

Pregnant after being raped, a young teenager on the streets of North Philadelphia puts her newborn up for adoption and vows to seek revenge, eventually crossing paths with a young FBI agent trying to outrun her shady past. North Philadelphia. Mita "Sweet Lips" Cruz survived a vicious assault at the hands of her stepfather on her fourteenth birthday. When she discovers that she is carrying the child of her rapist, it is too much for her damaged soul...

"Alice and her crew are doing their best to recover from the last boss battle, but some of them keep having these. . . dreams: visions of a dark past--and an even darker future. Sadly, the evil in Wonderland may not be as defeated as they'd hoped. Attacked by Nightmares unlike any they've ever seen, Alice will have to step between the coming darkness and the mortal world once more. But this time is different. This time, the monsters aren't waiting...

To save the life of a young girl who's being stalked by a ruthless hit man, Lincoln and his protégé, Amelia Sachs, are called upon to do the impossible: solve a truly "cold case" -- one that's 140 years old. The Twelfth Card is a two-day cat-and-mouse chase through the streets of uptown Manhattan as quadriplegic detective Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs try to outguess Thompson Boyd -- by all appearances a nondescript, innocuous man, but one whose...

"Belle Palmer is finally free! Separated from her father on the harrowing escape, Belle is lost and alone until she finds shelter with the Bests, the first free family she's ever known. For the first time in her sixteen years, Belle can speak her mind -- except for her feelings for a certain dark-eyed young man -- The Beau. Educated and handsome, at eighteen, Daniel Best is engaged to the prettiest (if a little spoiled) girl around. So when the bedraggled...

"Sixteen-year-old Bri wants to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. Or at least win her first battle. As the daughter of an underground hip hop legend who died right before he hit big, Bri's got massive shoes to fill. But it's hard to get your come up when you're labeled a hoodlum at school, and your fridge at home is empty after your mom loses her job. So Bri pours her anger and frustration into her first song, which goes viral . . . for all...

Liz Lighty has always done her best to avoid the spotlight in her small, wealthy, and prom-obsessed midwestern high school, after all, her family is black and rather poor, especially since her mother died; instead she has concentrated on her grades and her musical ability in the hopes that it will win her a scholarship to elite Pennington College and their famous orchestra where she plans to study medicine--but when that scholarship falls through...

In the Jim Crow South, white supremacy reigns and tensions are high. But Evalene Deschamps has other things to worry about. She has two little sisters to look after, an overworked single mother, and a longtime crush who is finally making a move. On top of all that, Evvie's magic abilities are growing stronger by the day. Her family calls it jubilation--a gift passed down from generations of black women since the time of slavery. And as Evvie's talents...

"Seventeen-year-old Farrah Turner is one of two Black girls in her country club community, and the only one with Black parents. Her best friend, Cherish Whitman, adopted by a wealthy white family, is something Farrah likes to call WGS--White Girl Spoiled. With Brianne and Jerry Whitman as parents, Cherish is given the kind of adoration and coddling that even upper-class Black parents can't seem to afford--and it creates a dissonance in her best friend...