The Freeman family--Charles, Laurel, and their daughters, teenage Charlotte and nine-year-old Callie--have been invited to the Toneybee Institute in rural Massachusetts to participate in a research experiment. They will live in an apartment on campus with Charlie, a young chimp abandoned by his mother. The Freemans were selected for the experiment because they know sign language; they are supposed to teach it to Charlie and welcome him as a member...

After a lifetime of womanizing, making babies, and then disappearing and taking no responsibility for his actions, Amos Davis is now afflicted with Alzheimer's disease. After crashing his car, he is faced with the three daughters he abandoned. Amos was never there for Cass, the child of his mistress-- why should this talented cake maker be sweet to him now? Toya was deeply scarred by Amos's public denial of her existence-- will seeing him again send...

"A searing and profound Southern odyssey by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward. In Jesmyn Ward's first novel since her National Book Award-winning Salvage the Bones, this singular American writer brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first-century America. Drawing on Morrison and Faulkner, The Odyssey and the Old Testament, Ward gives us an epochal story, a journey through Mississippi's past and present that is both an intimate portrait...

An American woman struggles with the genital mutilation she endured as a child in Africa in a New York Times bestseller “as compelling as The Color Purple” (San Francisco Chronicle).
In Tashi’s tribe, the Olinka, young girls undergo female genital mutilation as an initiation into the community. Tashi manages to avoid this fate at first, but when pressed by tribal leaders, she submits. Years...

Ada Howard, the wife of the preacher at Nashville's Full Love Baptist Tabernacle, has a whole lot of people to take care of. There's her husband and the flock that comes with him, plus the kids at the day care center where she works, two grown daughters, and two ailing, wayward parents. It's no wonder she can't find time to take care of herself. Then it comes: the announcement of her twenty-five-year college reunion in twelve month's time, signed...

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett's death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a traditional Caribbean black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking journey Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and...

"A reality star and a cupcake-baking football player pretend to be a couple in order to save his bakery in this sweet and sexy romance from Jamie Wesley, Fake It Till You Bake It. Jada Townsend-Matthews is the most reviled woman in America after turning down a proposal on a reality dating show. When she comes home to lick her wounds, Jada finds herself working at San Diego's newest cupcake bakery, Sugar Blitz, alongside the uptight owner and professional...

A poignant and satisfying story of hope, Kimberla Lawson Roby's One in a Million beautifully shows us the difference between what we think we want and what we actually need to be truly happy.

Kennedi Mason thinks she's the luckiest woman on earth. She loves her job, she has a wonderful best friend, and she's been married for ten years to her soul mate. There's nothing she can think of that could make her life any better.

Then one fateful

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A story of love and community, written by the hand of Zora Neale Hurston, one of the 20th century's greatest authors, and a woman who truly understands her characters' motivations. This modern classic edition of Jonah's Gourd Vine features an updated cover and a P.S. section which includes insights, interviews, and more.

Jonah's Gourd Vine, Zora Neale Hurston's first novel, originally published in 1934, tells the story of

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When a pregnant Tish's boyfriend Fonny, a sculptor, is wrongfully jailed for the rape of a Puerto Rican woman, their families unite to prove the charge false.