Thursday, November 29, 2018

The Bad Boy I Love Dual by B. Love Series Review :Urban Fiction for The Grown and Sexy

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The Bad Boy I Love B. Love
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Blurb:
All of Chenille Abrams' dreams came true the day she married NFL star Brayden Carpenter. He's the down-to-earth, loving, and protective man she never thought she'd find. And with her own successful career, Chenille plans to be more than just a famous athlete's wife. She's determined to balance work, marriage, and motherhood, as the couple awaits their first child . . .

Until their son is born with a crippling heart ailment. Until a devastated Brayden starts putting his career above everything else. And when tragedy strikes, Chenille struggles to find a reason to go on--as Brayden takes comfort from anywhere but home . . .

Little by little, Chenille picks up the pieces as she and Brayden try to make their marriage work once more. But when he fathers a baby that the mother can't keep, will this be the final blow? Or can they find a way past betrayal into unexpected hope--to at last have a future worth 
everything?

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The Bad Boy I Love 2 B. Love
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Blurb:
For Misery, things just keep getting worse. No matter how much money he makes and success he sees, he consistently finds himself surrounded by darkness. Thankfully, Isla enters his life and becomes the light he needs to make his way through. As things get better for him, Isla’s life gets shaken in the most unexpected way. 

Chaos has only one goal – to be a better father than his father. Though Carmen isn’t his first pick for the mother of his child, he’s devoted to doing all he can to make sure his baby has the family he never did. When Carmen becomes his main priority, business and personal relationships suffer – including the one he’s trying to build with Fiona. 

What happens when the most lethal man in the streets is cornered by the woman he hurt? Gunner finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun. His gun. Being held by the person he least expected to ever come for him. In seconds, everyone in the room becomes victim to April’s need to avenge her shattered heart. Will Gunner be able to make his way out alive, or will he become the first man on April’s payback list? 

Misery, Chaos, and Gunner all get a taste of the rewards and risks of loving a good woman. There is one goal in this riveting two-part series, all three men must ask themselves… can a bad boy truly love a good woman the way she needs to be loved? 

Series Review 
3 out of 5 stars
As an urban fiction snob, I’ve found some comfort in B. Loves Urban fiction titles.

I’ve grown into a somewhat more reformed reader, titles like Pastor’s Side Bish, and Drug Dealer: Part 3 he dies, don’t appeal to the 30-something-year-old me. 

But there is a new crop of urban fiction titles and authors that have taken to better writing and transformed what I remember urban fiction to be.

While there’s still some weeding that needs to be done, I’ve changed my mind on it, just a bit.

B. Love’s UF has given me something to escape to that’s just as appealing as Monday’s episode of Love and Hip Hop whatever city is on at the time. Giving just enough street and drama to please the reader, but not turning those of us off that are kind of over these books. 

Told from multiple points of view, The Bad Boy I love Parts one and two were engaging and good for absent-minded reading. Sometimes you want to snuggle up with a book that entertains you but doesn’t have a lot to it. No thinking is needed. I needed that.

Misery, Chaos, Gunner, Fiona lovingly known as Fe, Isla the model-baddie and the later introduced Genisi, along with its supporting cast of bad girlfriends and irritating baby mama’s the story packed a lot into it.

Though it was a lot of people to follow it never hindered the reading and I was never confused enough to have to backtrack to remember who was who, the flow was effortless and timely.

Love does that she gets you to care about her characters, in a way you don’t expect.

Though her contemporary romances will always be my jam, her urban fiction titles often do what they set out to do—giving us street with backstory, and romance that is almost saucy enough to be rated NSFW.

 The sex scenes are descriptive and spicy, to say the least.

The relationships develop quickly but hold solid in both books. 

They cannot be read separately though, but a two-book series is far more reasonable than some of the thirteen-book series that are out there. Not to mention they’re less than 300-pages a piece, easy reading.

I would recommend starting with this author’s new adult-ish romances first but if your tastes are a little more street, this is a decent place to start.

Drama with realistic conflict, troublesome baby mamas, men on the path to do the right thing, saucy sex, and a semi-happily ever after.

What more can you ask for?

Tuesday, November 6, 2018

10 Novels Releasing This Month by African-American Authors I'm Looking Forward To: Get Your One-Click Finger Ready!

Woman Wearing Pink Blazer, Pants and Green Heeled Shoes Holding Yellow Covered Book

I don't know about any of you but it is really difficult to narrow down new releases in African-American fiction. So I decided to make it a monthly, or weekly--or something thing (LOL) where I share the new releases that I find. All of the below are due out this month. I know I'll be grabbing up a bunch of these.

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1. Harlem by Eric Jerome Dickey-Out November 15th. Only available as an e-book.
“People called me Harlem. I dubbed myself after that dangerous neighborhood that I’d never seen. I read life is rough in Harlem, and a black man isn’t expected to live to see twenty-five. I was twenty-three. The clock was ticking.”


When Harlem gets off on a murder charge due to insanity, the asylum he’s sent to feels worse than death, with one exception: the beautiful nurse Daphane. As their relationship grows, so do the stakes: she has the ability to help him escape, and he has the ability to set her free from her abusive relationship. Yet Harlem has one big secret: he was perfectly sane when he committed his crime. But in the end, Daphane’s own secret may be the deadliest of all. . . .


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In these stories, Jemisin sharply examines modern society, infusing magic into the mundane, and drawing deft parallels in the fantasy realms of her imagination. Dragons and hateful spirits haunt the flooded city of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow south must figure out how to save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated short story “The City Born Great,” a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis’s soul.

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Always the optimist, TV assignment editor Allison Sullivan makes no excuses about the enthusiastic life she leads. As doors of opportunity present themselves, whether in her profession, in her love life, or her friendships, Allison is one to take the task on full speed ahead. But when Allison meets the man she’s investigated in person, the world around her seems to pause as she fumbles to recover from the dynamic energy that clings from him to her. She’s never felt desire forge so deeply within, and the chance at a clandestine meeting raises the stakes on an ensuing love affair. 


Award-winning film director Lance Valentine isn’t looking for love, but in the midst of filming a new motion picture, he meets Allison Sullivan in an impromptu dinner at the home he was raised in. At first sight, her beauty takes his breath away, and he finds himself unable to explain the flutter in his heart or the battle in his spirit at the crescent curve of her smile. Career driven and focused on building his empire, Lance has never taken a chance on anything other than his creativity. Until Allison. 



While neither of them is looking for romance, they’ll both soon find that an endless possibility of love is within their reach.


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Black girls are disappearing in suburban Atlanta and no one is paying attention…


Sick and troubled Atlanta housewife Tamara Johnston has spent years trying to forget her past, but when she learns four black girls have disappeared near her hometown, the memories haunt her once again. As a favor (and to exorcise her own demons), she agrees to help a journalist friend publicize the cases of the missing girls. Thanks to their efforts, the story goes viral and the police are forced to get involved. When bodies are discovered, the department sends local detective Barrington Dunn to calm the angry and grieving community.



But something is off. Barrington is a robbery detective who’s never worked a homicide and the department doesn’t seem serious about solving the murders. What’s worse, they’ve left him with only one good lead…a police sketch. And when it’s released to the media, Tamara’s world is turned upside down. 



The sketch looks like someone she knows. 



Now Tamara is convinced the murders are connected to horrific events from her childhood, and she’s certain she knows who did it. There’s only one problem: no one believes her. As she returns to her hometown to unravel the secrets and lies from her past, including her own, Detective Dunn must navigate racial politics, departmental sabotage, and his growing attraction to Tamara in order to catch a crafty serial killer before he kills again. And for Tamara, the shocking truth is worse than she could have imagined.

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They beat the odds and turned their lives around. But now three best friends will go head-to-head with ambition, deception--and each other . . .


Derrick. Ricky. Jamal. One's responsible; one's still a player; one's upwardly-mobile. Sentenced to the Branch Avenue Boys' Youth Institute at twelve, they grabbed the chance for better futures. They stayed tight even when their lives diverged--but the times . . . they are a-changing.
New deputy mayor Jamal is anti-corruption, which means severing ties with Ricky, now a "criminally-adjacent" businessman. But political power plays and unrequited love will lead Jamal to a lethal choice . . .  
Ricky doesn't mind running a front for DC's biggest drug dealer, but when he pursues a sexy customer at his strip club and discovers she's a cop, any wrong move could end Ricky's good times permanently . . .
Now the Institute's new leader, Derrick is torn between his job and his fiancée, Melissa. But when a cute new instructor who supports him and his mission arrives, he wonders if he should leave Melissa behind, not the Institute. However, this dilemma is nothing compared to a problem brewing right under his nose, and the fallout will strike at the heart of the three friends' bond--and put more than their survival on the line . . .

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From the author of Unicorn Smoke and the creator of the popular Twitter account by the same, Loud Ass Black People is a completely unapologetic personal take by Halsted Jones on blackness and the Black experience in America. Told through hilarious short stories and essays, the book is filled with laughs, colorful commentary, and craziness that will build camaraderie among kinfolk in a cover-to-cover masterpiece.

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Lita Payne is a thirty-something beautiful, successful and engaging urban professional in the beautiful city of Chicago. On the surface, Lita truly appears to have it all. Her husband is a handsome Senior Executive for a construction company making well over six figures but Lita is definitely successful in her own right as Senior Fundraising Coordinator for a non-profit. Lita has three beautiful children, an amazing condo, luxury cars, full bank accounts and exciting, loving friendships. Now that Lita is in her 30s, she’s starting to examine the lifestyle she’s chosen for herself and wonders if it really makes her happy. 


Even though Lita is very successful in her career, her passion has always been to start her own marketing and public relations firm but her husband is not in support of it. Lita also feels her marriage has been lacking the passion and intimacy she desires. Lita begins to question the future of her marriage and what seems like it’s out of the blue, she meets an intriguing man who challenges her on both a professional and personal level. This begins the start of Lita’s personal journey through discovering who she really is amidst the persona she’s so eloquently carved out for herself. Lita realizes that some of the challenges that are on the horizon for her causes her to seek various measures of coping, which in turn doesn’t always lead to the most desirable outcomes. 



Between launching a new business, marital discord, the destruction of a close friendship, grief and loss, and past family secrets, Lita begins to strip away the layers of herself in order to find out who she really is in Discovering Lita.

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8. Her Second Chance (A Sheppard's Place Novel) by Bette Ford- Out November 14th
A fiercely independent woman…
Trenna McAdams’s main goal in life is independence. After a tragic (and tragically wrong!) marriage, she’s finally realized her dream of running a prestigious preschool, bringing her closer than she ever thought possible to being truly happy. If only she wasn’t constantly distracted by the attentions of the charming, dynamic Darrin Morgan. Sure, she likes the way he fills out the shoulders of his custom-made suits, but there’re also those rumors in their office building about his womanizing ways. Surely, he could get any woman he wants. And Trenna isn’t interested in being a notch on anyone’sbedpost.


A successful, smooth-talking man…

Four years ago, Darrin Morgan’s life changed the moment he laid eyes on Trenna McAdams. With every fiber of his being, he knew she was the one for him. But she was a recent widow, and Darrin respected that. Now that he’s found out she’s dating again, he’s ready to show Trenna that he can be everything she’s ever wanted and everything she ever needed.



New Love or old entanglements…

Talented and confident, Morgan-Green’s top attorney is everything that Trenna can do without. Should do without. If only Darrin’s sweet-talk didn’t make her toes curl—or inspire other kinds of sensations too; emotions she never realized she could feel.



As she discovers Darrin’s true character, she becomes more and more enmeshed by his charm, strength, and compassion. But Trenna’s late husband proves to be as much of an obstacle to Trenna’s happily-ever-after as he was when he was alive. Can Trenna defeat her ghosts before she lets this second—and perhaps only—chance at true love pass her by?

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9. Becoming by Michelle Obama- Out November 13th
An intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States.


In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era. As First Lady of the United States of America—the first African-American to serve in that role—she helped create the most welcoming and inclusive White House in history, while also establishing herself as a powerful advocate for women and girls in the U.S. and around the world, dramatically changing the ways that families pursue healthier and more active lives, and standing with her husband as he led America through some of its most harrowing moments. Along the way, she showed us a few dance moves, crushed Carpool Karaoke, and raised two down-to-earth daughters under an unforgiving media glare. 



In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. 



Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.

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10. The Black Market Kiki Swinson
Kiki Swinson’s bestselling “tension-packed” (Library Journal) and “unrelenting” (Publishers Weekly) novels burn with extraordinary characters, triple-down twists—and a raw portrait of Southern life only she can deliver. Now she turns up the heat as a young woman cashes in on a sure thing—only to find some addictions are always 
killer . . . 
 
 Break the rules
At first, med student Misty Heiress just wants to help. With her cousin Jillian in constant pain, and the doctor refusing to prescribe, Misty steals opioids from the Virginia Beach pharmacy where she works. But when Jillian starts reselling them to local dealers and gets big money, Misty grabs an unbelievable opportunity to get out of crushing debt—and fulfill all of her and Jillian's dreams . . .
 
Live the dream
Soon Misty's boss, Sanjay, learns the truth and wants in. In no time, their illegal business dominates the street—and racks up a fortune. But when demand quickly outstrips supply, Sanjay way overplays his hand—and the Feds come calling . . .
 
Pay the price
Now Sanjay is out to pin everything on Misty and walk away scot-free. Jillian is cracking under the strain of drug addiction. And as ruthless competition aims to take Misty and her accomplices out for good, deception, betrayal, and killer secrets may not be enough to keep them all from paying the ultimate price .
. .

Thursday, November 1, 2018

Zora & Me: The Cursed Ground: Zora Would Be Proud


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Zora & Me The Cursed Ground
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A powerful fictionalized account of Zora Neale Hurston's childhood adventures explores the idea of collective memory and the lingering effects of slavery.

"History ain't in a book, especially when it comes to folks like us. History is in the lives we lived and the stories we tell each other about those lives."

When Zora Neale Hurston and her best friend, Carrie Brown, discover that the town mute can speak after all, they think they've uncovered a big secret. But Mr. Polk's silence is just one piece of a larger puzzle that stretches back half a century to the tragic story of an enslaved girl named Lucia. As Zora's curiosity leads a reluctant Carrie deeper into the mystery, the story unfolds through alternating narratives. Lucia's struggle for freedom resonates through the years, threatening the future of America's first incorporated black township -- the hometown of author Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960). In a riveting coming-of-age tale, award-winning author T. R. Simon champions the strength of a people to stand up for justice.
 

Review 
4 out of 5 stars
Reading stories set during the time of slavery twists the stomach into a knot.

Though most of us have never and might never have to experience such a cruel era of servitude and dehumanization it’s a sore spot. A spot that smarts at the mere mention.

But it’s also a time to take it all in, a time to learn, and a time to understand. A time to come together mentally, and collectively.

Zora and Me and The Cursed Ground are a time-telling story of the slave era—told through the voice of a pre-teen girl who’s best friend happens to be the now illustrious Zora Neale Hurston.

Told in the juxtaposition of two different time eras, post and pre-slavery, there is a startling and searing similarity between the past and present. Effortless and seamless transitions between the times allowed for clutter-free reading. The author does a stellar job of weaving the two sides together as they eventually overlap but do so without stuttering about.

Beautifully written, and engaging, the reader will be enraptured in a world so far from their own but it will feel like it’s happening right in front of them like a 3-D film.

Thoroughly impressive and downright realistic, this book is a must-have.

The characters are rich and practically leaped off the page with life.

Enough can’t be said about the goodness of this novel—and readers will yearn for more adventures of these two girls—both young and old readers alike.

A solid piece of literature, worth buying!