African American Fiction

Updated January 8, 2026
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Things fall apart
Achebe, Chinua.
Paper Book
The most widely read book in modern African literature, presented here in stunning hardcover, tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around a fearless Igbo warrior in Nigeria in the late 1800s, before and after the European colonization of the continent. ...
If Beale Street could talk : a novel
Baldwin, James 1924-1987
Paper Book
From one of the most important writers of the twentieth century comes a stunning love story about a young Black woman whose life is torn apart when her lover is wrongly accused of a crime--"a moving, painful story, so vividly human and so obviously based on reality that it strikes us as timeless"...
The wedding gift. [large print]
Bodden, Marlen Suyapa.
Paper Book
When prestigious plantation owner Cornelius Allen gives his daughter Clarissa's hand in marriage, she takes with her a gift: Sarah--her slave and her half-sister. Raised by an educated mother, Clarissa is not a proper southern belle she appears to be with ambitions of loving who she chooses and...
Fledgling : novel
Butler, Octavia E.
Paper Book
"A master storyteller, Butler casts an unflinching eye on racism, sexism, poverty, and ignorance and lets the reader see the terror and beauty of human nature." -- The Washington Post This is the story of an apparently young, amnesiac girl whose alarmingly unhuman needs and...
Kindred
Butler, Octavia E.
Paper Book
Experience the novel that redefined American literature by the New York Times bestselling author of Parable of the Sower, MacArthur "Genius," and Nebula and Hugo award winner Selected by The Atlantic as one of the "most consequential novels of the past 100 years"...
Parable of the sower
Butler, Octavia E.
Paper Book
This acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel of hope and terror from an award-winning author "pairs well with 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale" and includes a foreword by N. K. Jemisin (John Green, New York Times). When global climate change and economic crises lead to...
The business of lovers
Dickey, Eric Jerome
Paper Book
Unlike their younger brother Andre, whose star as a comedian is rising, neither Dwayne nor Brick Duquesne is having luck with his career - and they're unluckier still in love. Dwayne has just been fired from his latest acting role and barely has enough money to get by after paying child support to...
The son of Mr. Suleman
Dickey, Eric Jerome
Paper Book
From Memphis to L.A. and back again, Eric Jerome Dickey takes readers on an intense and sensual journey as Professor Pi Suleman deals with sexual assault and racism, fights being changed by his father's truths, and also discovers untruths his new partner Gemma Buckingham has hidden for her own...
Bad men and wicked women
Dickey, Eric Jerome
Paper Book
As a low-level enforcer in Los Angeles, Ken Swift knows danger - especially in his tangled romances. Divorced from one woman, in love with another, and with a strong desire to get to know a third, his life is far from perfect, and it becomes all the more complicated when his troubled daughter...
Resurrecting midnight
Dickey, Eric Jerome.
Paper Book
Hot on the heels of his bestselling noir-inspired series featuring the assassin Gideon, Dickey returns with another sizzler reminiscent of his earlier works that is sure to delight fans and newcomers alike. Set amidst the exotic and vibrant streets of Miami and Buenos Aires, Resurrecting Midnight is...
Junie : a novel
Eckstine, Erin Crosby
Paper Book
GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK * As the Civil War looms, a young girl must face a life-altering decision after awakening her sister's ghost in this "poignant story of love, family and friendship [that] celebrates the power of liberation" (People). "An...
Drunk on love
Guillory, Jasmine
Paper Book
An intoxicating and sparkling new romance by New York Times bestselling author Jasmine Guillory. Margot Noble needs some relief from the stress of running the family winery with her brother. Enter Luke: sexy, charming, and best of all in the too-small world of Napa, a...
The proposal : a novel
Guillory, Jasmine
Paper Book
When someone asks you to spend your life with him, it shouldn't come as a surprise -- or happen in front of 45,000 people.
The wedding date
Guillory, Jasmine
Paper Book
A groomsman and his last-minute guest are about to discover if a fake date can go the distance in this fun and flirty multicultural romance debut by New York Times bestselling author Jasmine Guillory--author of the Resse Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick The Proposal....
Transcendent kingdom
Gyasi, Yaa
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK! * Finalist for the WOMEN'S PRIZE Yaa Gyasi's stunning follow-up to her acclaimed national best seller Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama...
Short stories
Hughes, Langston 1902-1967
Paper Book
The Short Stories of Langston Hughes, written between 1919 and 1963, showcases the author's literary blossoming and the development of his personal and artistic concerns. Many of the stories assembled here have long been out of print, and others never before collected....
Their eyes were watching God
Hurston, Zora Neale.
Paper Book
Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.
Black leopard, red wolf
James, Marlon
Paper Book
One of TIME's 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time Winner of the L.A. Times Ray Bradbury Prize Finalist for the 2019 National Book Award The New York Times Bestseller Named a Best Book of 2019 by The Wall Street...
Sweetgrass
Monroe, Mary Alice
Paper Book
Sweetgrass is a historical tract of land in South Carolina that has been home to the Blakely family for eight generations. But Sweetgrass -- named for the indigenous grass that grows in the area -- is in trouble. Bulldozers are leveling surrounding properties. And the Blakelys could be...
Family of lies
Monroe, Mary.
Paper Book
Vera Lomax used every gold-digging trick in the book to land a rich, older husband. Now she balances a life of shopping and affairs with younger men with a major secret: the 16 year bribery of one of her husband's mistresses to keep her pregnancy under wraps. Unfortunately for Vera, Sarah Cooper is...
The art of desire
Montgomery, Selena
Paper Book
Trouble comes in threes... One doomed love affair after another has made lovely Alex Walton swear off men. Now, she's determined to try something that maybe she can succeed at- a writing career. Little does she know that a chance meeting with a strikingly handsome stranger, a...
Power of persuasion
Montgomery, Selena
Paper Book
Sometimes the power of love... A.J. Grayson has come a long way from adopted orphan to fast-rising executive at a cutting-edge Altanta technology firm. Now an anti-terrorist agency wants to use the revolutionary artificial intelligence system she developed to thwart a plot...
Rules of engagement
Montgomery, Selena
Paper Book
Dr. Raleigh Foster, an operative for a top-secret intelligence organization, knows that her work has its risks. So she doesn t hesitate when asked to infiltrate terrorist group Scimita. But when she's assigned a partner - brooding, sexy Adam Grayson - to pose as her lover, Raleigh discovers that the...
Beloved
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * This "powerful, mesmerizing story" (People) is an unflinching look into the abyss of slavery, from the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner. With an afterword by the author and a new introduction by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers....
The bluest eye
Morrison, Toni.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A PARADE BEST BOOK OF ALL TIME * From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner--a powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity that asks questions about race, class, and gender with characteristic subtlety and grace. * With a new introduction by Jacqueline...
Jazz
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
Set in Harlem in the 1920s, this novel chronicles a bittersweet triangle involving a middle-aged door-to-door salesman, his mentally unstable wife, and his eighteen-year-old girlfriend.
Love
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
From the internationally acclaimed Nobel laureate comes a richly conceived novel that illuminates the full spectrum of desire. More than the wealthy owner of the famous Cosey Hotel and Resort, Bill Cosey shapes the yearnings of six women for father, husband, lover, guardian, friend--yearnings that...
Paradise
Morrison, Toni.
Paper Book
"Rumors had been whispered for more than a year. Outrages that had been accumulating all along took shape as evidence. A mother was knocked down the stairs by her cold-eyed daughter. Four damaged infants were born in one family. Daughters refused to get out of bed. Brides disappeared on their...
Trouble is what I do
Mosley, Walter
Paper Book
Morally ambiguous P.I. Leonid McGill is back -- and investigating crimes against society's most downtrodden -- in this installment of the beloved detective series from an Edgar Award-winning and bestselling crime novelist. Leonid McGill's spent a...
Fortunate son
Mosley, Walter.
Paper Book
New York Times bestselling author Walter Mosley's novel about two boys, one ensconced in a life of privilege and the other in a life of hardship, explores the true meaning of fortune.In spite of remarkable differences, Eric and Tommy are as close as brothers. Eric, a Nordic Adonis, is graced by a...
Little green : an Easy Rawlins mystery
Mosley, Walter.
Paper Book
When Walter Mosley burst onto the literary scene in 1990 with his first Easy Rawlins mystery, Devil in a Blue Dress--a combustible mixture of Raymond Chandler and Richard Wright--he captured the attention of hundreds of thousands of readers (including future president Bill Clinton). Eleven...
Happy land
Perkins-Valdez, Dolen
Paper Book
A woman learns the incredible story of a real-life American Kingdom--and her family's ties to it--in this enthralling novel from the New York Times bestselling, NAACP Image Award-winning author of Take My Hand. As featured in The Washington Post ∙ People...

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