Harlem Girl Lost

Harlem Girl Lost
Author: Treasure E. Blue
Publisher: One World
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2008-12-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307495817

“A true urban novel filled with vivid images of the street.” –Black Issues Book Review Treasure E. Blue, street lit’s hottest newcomer, crafts characters that fly off the page and a story that burns with intensity. Set in Harlem, this searing novel is a poignant and gritty portrait of urban survival of the ghetto’s fittest . . . and most fierce. Silver Jones knows just how cruel life can be. Her mother was chewed up and spit out by its dark side–brutally murdered while turning a trick. Rather than live with her abusive grandmother, Silver runs away. Determined to escape the mean streets, Silver longs for an education. But after running into an old friend, a homeless youth named Chance whom she’d taken under her wing once upon a time, Silver puts her dreams of college on hold. Chance is grown now–and he’s a powerful drug overlord. But underneath the cool exterior is the same innocent boy Silver once loved. As they begin an affair, Silver tries to convince Chance to give up the lethal way of life that ruined both their childhoods. But Chance knows that walking away from the game means having to pay a deadly price. Silver won’t take no for an answer–even if it means delving into a seedy underworld and outscheming some of its most vicious drug-dealers and cold-blooded murderers. “Even in Blue’s world of double-crossing, misogyny, drugs and brutality, an against-all-odds fairy tale can come true.” –Publishers Weekly

Get It Girls

Get It Girls
Author: Treasure Blue
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2012-02-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1936399245

After being released from prison, Jessica Jones returns to Harlem to find that crack dealers have taken over and starts a fight to reclaim the the neighborhood.

Fly Betty

Fly Betty
Author: Treasure Blue
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2013-02-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1936399318

In the entertainment industry, there is a secret society of women vying for an opportunity to live a lavish lifestyle by snagging a famous young millionaire. Betty Blaise, or Fly Betty to those who truly know her, was not in it to be a wife. She had her sights set higher. While most of these women use sex as their weapon, Betty developed one that proves much more powerful. But when she encounters a man that she would never have anticipated falling for, the very rules Betty once lived and died by are going to be put to the test.

A Street Girl Named Desire

A Street Girl Named Desire
Author: Treasure E. Blue
Publisher: One World
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2008-12-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307498085

Bestselling author Treasure E. Blue returns with a gritty against-all-odds urban fairy tale set in the same unforgiving neighborhood as that of his breakout debut novel Harlem Girl Lost. Desire was born on the streets of Harlem–literally. Her mom, a crack-addicted prostitute, delivered her on a bitter winter’s night after turning a trick and being brutally beaten by the john. Taken from her mother by the state, Desire grows up unwelcoming foster homes, until a local Good Samaritan takes her in. With Miss Hattie Mae’s love and Christian guidance, Desire gains confidence, joins the church choir, and discovers that she’s got a set of pipes–which soon attract the attention of hip-hop’s biggest exec. But the road to superstardom is paved with dangers and temptations: drugged-out, violent rappers, untrustworthy pro athletes promising romance, and vicious drugs. Despite her phenomenal success and Miss Hattie Mae’s kindness, Desire seems destined for a fall from the top that will slam her back onto the pavement where her mama left her–until an unexpected angel picks her back up. . . .

Gone Missing in Harlem

Gone Missing in Harlem
Author: Karla FC Holloway
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2021-04-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0810143542

In her anticipated second novel, Karla Holloway evokes the resilience of a family whose journey traces the river of America’s early twentieth century. The Mosby family, like other thousands, migrate from the loblolly-scented Carolinas north to the Harlem of their aspirations—with its promise of freedom and opportunities, sunlit boulevards, and elegant societies. The family arrives as Harlem staggers under the flu pandemic that follows the First World War. DeLilah Mosby and her daughter, Selma, meet difficulties with backbone and resolve to make a home for themselves in the city, and Selma has a baby, Chloe. As the Great Depression creeps across the world at the close of the twenties, however, the farsighted see hard times coming. The panic of the early thirties is embodied in the kidnapping and murder of the infant son of the nation’s dashing young aviator, Charles Lindbergh. A transfixed public follows the manhunt in the press and on the radio. Then Chloe goes missing—but her disappearance does not draw the same attention. Wry and perceptive Weldon Haynie Thomas, the city’s first “colored” policeman, takes the case. The urgent investigation tests Thomas’s abilities to draw out the secrets Harlem harbors, untangling the color-coded connections and relationships that keep company with greed, ghosts, and grief. With nuanced characters, lush historical detail, and a lyrical voice, Gone Missing in Harlem affirms the restoring powers of home and family.

Little Girl Lost

Little Girl Lost
Author: Wendy Corsi Staub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2018-07-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062742027

From New York Times Bestselling Author Wendy Corsi Staub comes a gripping novel of psychological suspense, as a young foundling’s path to her biological parents leads to a killer with a chilling agenda. May, 1968 On a murky pre-dawn Mother’s Day, sinister secrets play out miles apart in New York City. In Harlem, a church janitor finds an innocent newborn in a basket. In Brooklyn, an elusive serial killer prowls slumbering families, leaving a trail of blood and a twisted calling card. Cloaked in lies, these seemingly unrelated lives—and deaths—are destined to intersect on a distant, blood-soaked day. October, 1987 Reeling from shocking personal discoveries, two strangers navigate a world where nothing is as it seems. Amelia Crenshaw embarks on a search to discover the truth about the birth mother who abandoned her, never suspecting she’s on a collision course with a killer. Detective Stockton Barnes, a brash young NYPD detective, trails a missing millionaire whose disappearance is rooted in a nightmare that began twenty years ago. The past returns with a brutal vengeance as a masked predator picks off victims whose fates intertwine with a notorious murder spree solved back in ‘68—or was it?

Fatou

Fatou
Author: Sidi
Publisher: Harlem Book Center
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2006
Genre: Harlem (New York, N.Y.)
ISBN: 9780976393900

Twelve year old Fatou travels from West Africa to America thinking she's furthering her education. Yet, she arrives in New York City greeted by a man three times her age-someone from her village who paid dowry to be her husband. Suffering through pedophiles, deplorably cruel living conditions, and slave life job eventual pushes over the edge. Fatou refuses to be a victim and exerts control of her life by becoming part of Harlem's fast money scene. This fast paced novel examines what happens when the bonds of family and tradition fall apart. And its shows how a strong and fearless woman can hold her own surrounded by grimey men in the dangerous drug game.

Harlem Shuffle

Harlem Shuffle
Author: Colson Whitehead
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2021-09-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0385545142

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, this gloriously entertaining novel is “fast-paced, keen-eyed and very funny ... about race, power and the history of Harlem all disguised as a thrill-ride crime novel" (San Francisco Chronicle). "Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked..." To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn't ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn't ask questions, either. Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa—the "Waldorf of Harlem"—and volunteers Ray's services as the fence. The heist doesn't go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes. Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs? Harlem Shuffle's ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It's a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. But mostly, it's a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead. Look for Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Crook Manifesto!

Mirror Girls

Mirror Girls
Author: Kelly McWilliams
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2022-02-08
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0759553858

A thrilling gothic horror novel about biracial twin sisters separated at birth, perfect for fans of Lovecraft Country and The Vanishing Half As infants, twin sisters Charlie Yates and Magnolia Heathwood were secretly separated after the brutal lynching of their parents, who died for loving across the color line. Now, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, Charlie is a young Black organizer in Harlem, while white-passing Magnolia is the heiress to a cotton plantation in rural Georgia. Magnolia knows nothing of her racial heritage, but secrets are hard to keep in a town haunted by the ghosts of its slave-holding past. When Magnolia finally learns the truth, her reflection mysteriously disappears from mirrors—the sign of a terrible curse. Meanwhile, in Harlem, Charlie's beloved grandmother falls ill. Her final wish is to be buried back home in Georgia—and, unbeknownst to Charlie, to see her long-lost granddaughter, Magnolia Heathwood, one last time. So Charlie travels into the Deep South, confronting the land of her worst nightmares—and Jim Crow segregation. The sisters reunite as teenagers in the deeply haunted town of Eureka, Georgia, where ghosts linger centuries after their time and dangers lurk behind every mirror. They couldn’t be more different, but they will need each other to put the hauntings of the past to rest, to break the mirrors’ deadly curse—and to discover the meaning of sisterhood in a racially divided land.