An unusual and irresistible look at Maya Angelou's life as well as her myriad interests and accomplishments by the people who know her best--her longtime friends Marcia Ann Gillespie and Richard Long, and her niece Rosa Johnson Butler. Features over 150 sepia portraits, family photographs, and letters.

When Ryan Beecher returns home after a long deployment in Afghanistan, Lexy barely recognizes her husband. The man who left was cruel and abusive. The man who came back is a badly injured stranger with no memory of their life together. Lexy can't believe how much Ryan has changed. The wounded Marine is now gentle, caring and tender. Can Lexy trust this lover who seems to live only for her pleasure . . . as he seeks his salvation in her healing embrace?...

Tyler Anderson is poised to take over the reins of his family-owned computer gaming company. But first he has to launch his latest invention. That means teaming up with self-made marketing consultant Iris Beharie, whose brash confidence and sizzling beauty throw him off his game. Landing the plum Anderson Adventures account could save Iris's fledgling PR firm and prove she has what it takes to succeed. Too bad Tyler doesn't play well with others ....

"A powerful, timely debut, The Turner House marks a major new contribution to the story of the American family. The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over fifty years. Their house has seen thirteen children grown and gone--and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit's East Side, and the loss of a father. The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to...

"Stunning, suspenseful, and unforgettably evocative, Jason Overstreet s debut novel glitters with the vibrant dreams and dangerous promise of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance, as one man crosses the perilous lines between the law, loyalty, and deadly lies " For college graduate Sidney Temple, the Roaring Twenties bring opportunities even members of his accomplished black bourgeois family couldn t have imagined. His impulsive marriage to independent artist...

"As the Civil War rages between the states, a courageous pair of spies plunge fearlessly into a maelstrom of ignorance, deceit, and danger, combining their unique skills to alter the course of history and break the chains of the past... Elle Burns is a former slave with a passion for justice and an eidetic memory. Trading in her life of freedom in Massachusetts, she returns to the indignity of slavery in the South--to spy for the Union Army. Malcolm...

For all of the War Between the States, Marlie Lynch has helped with coded letters about anti-Rebel uprisings in her Carolina woods; tisanes and poultices for Union prisoners; and silent aid to fleeing slave and Freeman alike. Then the vicious Confederate Home Guard claims Marlie's home for their new base of operations in the guerrilla war against Southern resistors of the Rebel cause. Escaped prisoner Ewan McCall is sheltering in Marlie's laboratory;...

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft...

"In 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurston--the sole black student at the college--was living in New York, "desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world." During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life and transformed her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nearly a century later, this singular talent is recognized as one of the most influential and revered American...