Abandoned as an infant and raised by protective, if secretive, Italian parents, Carlotta has never quite fit in her own life as the only Black person in her neighborhood. Even when she ventures to Harlem, where jazz, community, and a man’s love await her, she doesn’t feel fully at home. But when the dynamics in her adoptive family shift, and her role grows more tenuous, Carlotta has to decide where she belongs—no matter the threats or the price that must be paid.

Felicia Lyons, a stressed-out stay-at-home mom, struggles to sprint ahead of the demands of motherhood while her husband spends long days at the office. Felicia taps, utters mantras, and breathes her way through most situations, but on some days, like when the children won't stop screaming her name or arguing over toy trucks and pretzel sticks, she wonders what it would be like to get in her car and drive away.

From a triumph in radio serials to persevering in a burgeoning, male-dominated television industry, Abby Taylor has a million stories she’s dying to tell. The soap opera is her brainchild. Championed by her mother and sisters, nothing can stop Abby from becoming an aspirational voice for every woman in the country. Her life behind the scenes, however, is just as dramatic as any she could have invented. Stay tuned for an engrossing story of determination, grit, and love.

June Tremblay is struggling to find herself as a painter when she accepts a summer job as assistant to renowned artist Hiram Lammergeier on his private island off the Maine coast. The reclusive legend has one peculiar rule: under no circumstances is June to create any art of her own. Caught between her need to paint and her desire for Lammergeier, June rebels, and her transgression sets off a chain of retaliation that will shape the rest of her life.

It’s 1943 in London. Paige Miller, an ordinary shopgirl at the fabled department store Selfridges, falls for Danny, an American GI who comes by the books counter at the same time every day. As she slowly lets him into her heart, Paige realizes that Danny is keeping a secret. One that could change the course of the war—and both their lives.

It’s Ruth’s dream to be the world’s greatest female pilot. It’s Amelia—Lady Lindy herself—who achieves it. At first competitors, Ruth soon recognizes they share a passion for the skies and for supporting trailblazing female pilots everywhere. Together they form an all-women flying group, the Ninety-Nines, and over the years their achievements become more groundbreaking, their risks more personal, and their friendship closer than ever, until the day their best-laid plans come crashing down.

You will have ninety minutes to solve the murder. A startling declaration by a new Harvard instructor: sixty-seven-year-old Frances Glessner Lee. It’s 1945. Before her, six wary male students given to assumptions—especially when it comes to women without a formal education—are challenged to solve a real-life whodunit using Mrs. Lee’s creation, the crime scene diorama. Every detail is accurate. And every detail matters when solving a crime with no survivors…

Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother’s position as the estate’s medicine woman and cherished by the Master’s sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world. She’d been promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil’s Half Acre.

1950s Philadelphia: fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright. Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University, they fall madly in love. But William hails from one of DC’s elite wealthy Black families, and his par­ents don’t let just anyone into their fold.

The Davenports are one of the few Black families of immense wealth and status in a changing United States, their fortune made through the entrepreneurship of William Davenport, a formerly enslaved man who founded the Davenport Carriage Company years ago. Now it's 1910, and the Davenports live surrounded by servants, crystal chandeliers, and endless parties, finding their way and finding love—even where they’re not supposed to.

This fierce collection from New York Times bestselling historical fiction authors sweeps readers back in time with exhilarating short stories of unforgettable female characters. Spanning decades, these indelible women broke through barriers in disparate worlds of art, war, science, love, and injustice and paved the way for other women to follow. Strike a match and blaze a trail.

The daughter of a prostitute mother and an alcoholic father, Maggie Franklin knew her only way out was to marry someone upstanding and church-going. Someone like Hubert Wiggins, the most eligible man in Lexington, Alabama - and the son of its most revered preacher. Proper and prosperous, Hubert is glad to finally have a wife, even one with Maggie's background. For Hubert has a secret he desperately needs to stay hidden. And Maggie's unexpected charm, elegance, and religious devotion makes her the perfect partner in lies....

Transformative and breathtakingly honest, The American Queen is based on actual events that occurred between 1865 - 1889 and shares the unsung history of a Black woman who built a kingdom in Appalachia as a refuge for the courageous people who dared to dream of a different way of life. Over the twenty-four years she was enslaved on the Montgomery Plantation, Louella learned to feel one thing: hate. Hate for the man who sold her mother. Hate for the overseer who left her daddy to hang from a noose. Hate so powerful there's no room in her heart for love.

Beloved award-winning and New York Times best-selling author Mary Monroe delivers a hopeful and heartwarming story about an impossible Christmas dream, an unexpected act of goodwill - and a surprising chain of events that could gift joy far beyond the holiday season.

The year is 1921, and America is burning. A fire of vice and virtue rages on every shore, and Chicago is its beating heart. Nelly Sawyer is the daughter of the “wealthiest Negro in America”, whose affluence catapulted his family to the heights of Black society. After the unexpected death of her only brother, Nelly becomes the premier debutante overnight. But Nelly has aspirations beyond society influence and marriage.

Annie has always had high hopes for her future. But the reality of her life just isn’t measuring up. She loves her fiancé, Greg–doesn’t she? She’s going to get her degree and open her own business–won’t she? Then, a strange old woman shows up outside her house, and she seems to know a lot about Annie. An awful lot. Annie could tell the old woman to get lost. Yet there’s something about her Annie just can’t shake. And what she learns could change her life forever–but is it the life she envisioned?

It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.

The 13 chapters of The Art of War, each devoted to one aspect of warfare, were compiled by the high-ranking Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher Sun-Tzu. In spite of its battlefield specificity, The Art of War has found new life in the modern age, with leaders in fields as wide and far-reaching as world politics, human psychology, and corporate strategy finding valuable insight in its timeworn words.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids. Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job.

Felicia Lyons, a stressed-out stay-at-home mom, struggles to sprint ahead of the demands of motherhood while her husband spends long days at the office. Felicia taps, utters mantras, and breathes her way through most situations, but on some days, like when the children won't stop screaming her name or arguing over toy trucks and pretzel sticks, she wonders what it would be like to get in her car and drive away.

Bea and Awilda have been best friends from the moment Awilda threw her 14-year-old self across Bea’s twin-sized bed as if they had known each other forever. Bubbly, adventurous Awilda taught sheltered, shy Bea how to dress, wear her hair, and what to do with boys. She even introduced Bea to her husband, Lonnie, in college, who pledged to take good care of her for the rest of their lives. But philanderer Lonnie breaks that promise over and over again, leaving Bea to wrestle with her self-esteem and longtime secret addiction.

Abandoned as an infant and raised by protective, if secretive, Italian parents, Carlotta has never quite fit in her own life as the only Black person in her neighborhood. Even when she ventures to Harlem, where jazz, community, and a man’s love await her, she doesn’t feel fully at home. But when the dynamics in her adoptive family shift, and her role grows more tenuous, Carlotta has to decide where she belongs—no matter the threats or the price that must be paid.

Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother’s position as the estate’s medicine woman and cherished by the Master’s sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world. She’d been promised freedom on her eighteenth birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil’s Half Acre.

In 1930s Mississippi, Mary Johnson hates the oppressive heat, working on her family farm, and having to attend her minister father's church several times a week. But she loves Mason Carter, her musician boyfriend. Both fantasize about living the high life up north in the big city. When William Bevers, a wealthy old preacher, comes to court her, he promises a life of luxury along with money and status for her family. Mary wants nothing to do with him, but her parents decide for her. Determined to avoid a forced marriage, Mary elopes with Mason to the bright lights of Chicago.

This fierce collection from New York Times bestselling historical fiction authors sweeps readers back in time with exhilarating short stories of unforgettable female characters. Spanning decades, these indelible women broke through barriers in disparate worlds of art, war, science, love, and injustice and paved the way for other women to follow. Strike a match and blaze a trail.

Transformative and breathtakingly honest, The American Queen is based on actual events that occurred between 1865 - 1889 and shares the unsung history of a Black woman who built a kingdom in Appalachia as a refuge for the courageous people who dared to dream of a different way of life. Over the twenty-four years she was enslaved on the Montgomery Plantation, Louella learned to feel one thing: hate. Hate for the man who sold her mother. Hate for the overseer who left her daddy to hang from a noose. Hate so powerful there's no room in her heart for love.

It’s 1943 in London. Paige Miller, an ordinary shopgirl at the fabled department store Selfridges, falls for Danny, an American GI who comes by the books counter at the same time every day. As she slowly lets him into her heart, Paige realizes that Danny is keeping a secret. One that could change the course of the war—and both their lives.

From a triumph in radio serials to persevering in a burgeoning, male-dominated television industry, Abby Taylor has a million stories she’s dying to tell. The soap opera is her brainchild. Championed by her mother and sisters, nothing can stop Abby from becoming an aspirational voice for every woman in the country. Her life behind the scenes, however, is just as dramatic as any she could have invented. Stay tuned for an engrossing story of determination, grit, and love.

June Tremblay is struggling to find herself as a painter when she accepts a summer job as assistant to renowned artist Hiram Lammergeier on his private island off the Maine coast. The reclusive legend has one peculiar rule: under no circumstances is June to create any art of her own. Caught between her need to paint and her desire for Lammergeier, June rebels, and her transgression sets off a chain of retaliation that will shape the rest of her life.

1954: In the quaint town of Mendol, Oklahoma, Bailey Dowery is a Black dressmaker for the wives and daughters of local oil barons. She earns a good living fitting designer gowns and creating custom wedding dresses for the town’s elite. But beyond her needle and thread lies a deeper talent, one passed down from her mother: the gift of insight. With just a fleeting touch or brush against the skin, Bailey has sudden flashes of intuition.

One year after her mother’s death, a woman prepares to celebrate her fortieth birthday. Digging through a trunk in the attic, looking for keepsakes for the occasion, she discovers photographs that call into question everything she believed about her life. The truth is a different story—one of a little girl in danger, a lie, and a mother’s love so fierce it led her to do the unimaginable.

Beloved award-winning and New York Times best-selling author Mary Monroe delivers a hopeful and heartwarming story about an impossible Christmas dream, an unexpected act of goodwill - and a surprising chain of events that could gift joy far beyond the holiday season.

It’s Ruth’s dream to be the world’s greatest female pilot. It’s Amelia—Lady Lindy herself—who achieves it. At first competitors, Ruth soon recognizes they share a passion for the skies and for supporting trailblazing female pilots everywhere. Together they form an all-women flying group, the Ninety-Nines, and over the years their achievements become more groundbreaking, their risks more personal, and their friendship closer than ever, until the day their best-laid plans come crashing down.

A Woman of Endurance, set in nineteenth-century Puerto Rican plantation society, follows Pola, a deeply spiritual African woman who is captured and later sold for the purpose of breeding future slaves. The resulting babies are taken from her as soon as they are born. Pola loses the faith that has guided her and becomes embittered and defensive. The dehumanizing violence of her life almost destroys her. But this is not a novel of defeat but rather one of survival, regeneration, and reclamation of common humanity.