Essence® best-selling author Michelle Stimpson delivers a stirring tale about learning to appreciate life by slowing down. Tori Henderson’s marketing career in Houston is on the fast track. But when her aunt falls ill, Tori returns to her tiny hometown to provide care - and ends up reconnecting with an old crush.

Blamed as a child for her baby sister's death, Dianne Rucker swore she'd never come back to Dentonville, Texas. But the kind aunt who took her in after her mother abandoned her is getting remarried, and she misses the cousins who came to be sisters, Yolanda and Regina. Going back to Dentonville also means facing her drug-addicted mother, now slipping even farther into schizophrenia. But Dianne isn't the only one struggling, and Aunt Gloria may have the most life-altering secret of all.

Fans of T.D. Jakes' Cover Girls will delight in Michelle Stimpson's debut book Boaz Brown. LaShondra Smith has been waiting for a man like Stelson Brown. He is intelligent, funny, and a man of God - but he's white. Can LaShondra get past her prejudices and fears and allow herself to love this man she's always dreamed of?

Essence best-selling author Michelle Stimpson crafts the inspiring tale of a strong woman juggling independence with her desire for a family. Single mother Peaches Miller is rattled when her fiancé gets a promotion that would require they move far away. Then, her son’s father comes back into her life. But Peaches isn’t sure either man can make her happy—or whether she needs any man at all.

Dalee didn't grow up in a religious family. In fact, the last time Kerri went to church, she only attended for the cool door prizes and food served at Vacation Bible School. But when her wealthy roommate, Stephanie, gets engaged, Kerri's finds that her only hope for financial survival is an editing job at a Dallas area mega-church. While waiting for her interview, Kerri makes a quick, desperate decision to meet Christ - in the ladies' room, of all places - so she can fulfill every aspect of the stated criteria for employment.

Raising four very different daughters on her own in rural Arkansas wasn't easy for Miss Pearly Bell. And she's always regretted that the sisters went their separate ways for good - and never wanted to see each other again. But when Pearly is stricken with a terminal illness, she summons them all home - determined to somehow help them get right with each other and forgive.... But that means dealing with past secrets and lies first.

Bernadine Brown is a woman with money to spend. Henry Adams is a town in desperate need of cash. But after Bernadine puts up the money, she has some ideas about how the town should be run. Will the townspeople be willing to shake up their comfortable lives to share the gift they’ve been given with others who really need it?

Omega Addams thought it was a typical work day until a detour on the way home changes everything. She's almost killed, but an innocent bystander, Mitchell Franklin, takes a bullet for Omega during a gas station robbery. In the aftermath, Omega has no idea that God expects her to “pray it forward” until a spiritual battle unfolds before her eyes. Another innocent bystander is in trouble; unless Omega gets her prayer life together, others will die without Christ. It's a chain reaction that highlights the responsibility of a Christian—hot, cold, or lukewarm.

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 heart-stirring tale of a young slave girl, torn between her love for a handsome aristocrat and her faith in God, transcends genres with its awe-inspiring power and emotional intensity.

Avery Keene, a brilliant young law clerk for the legendary Justice Howard Wynn, is doing her best to hold her life together - excelling in an arduous job with the court while also dealing with a troubled family. When the shocking news breaks that Justice Wynn - the cantankerous swing vote on many current high-profile cases - has slipped into a coma, Avery’s life turns upside down. She is immediately notified that Justice Wynn has left instructions for her to serve as his legal guardian and power of attorney.

Sometimes you go in search of a new beginning. Other times, it finds you. Tonya Martin enjoys her job as a professional chef for a Wall Street bank, her East Harlem walk-up, and the freedom to live and love by her own rules - right up until the day she finds herself suddenly downsized. But a spontaneous trip to New Orleans opens up a new opportunity. With time on her hands and her daughter soon graduating college, Tonya has the chance to reach for her own long-cherished dream - opening a restaurant on her friend Hannah's beautiful Garden District estate.

Hidden away near the end of Long Island, New York, is a community where affluent African Americans, their friends, and the wannabes have secretly vacationed for more than 75 years. Unlike the bluffs of Martha’s Vineyard, black folks here own five miles of prime beachfront. With a mix of legacy families, new money, hangers-on, and thirsty developers, drama can never be far behind in a place called...the BLACK HAMPTONS.

Sugar arrives in the small town of Bigelow, Arkansas, like an ominous storm. She saunters down the street in a blonde wig and spiked heels, cigarette dangling between red-painted lips. Without even speaking to her, the women in town hate her. But when she moves in next door to Pearl, a woman who tragically lost her daughter 15 years earlier, the two women bond over tragic pasts.

Good things never happen in November—at least not for the Reynolds women. It was the month they lost their patriarch. And the month when fourteen-year-old Trinity went missing during a tropical storm. So Hope Reynolds isn’t surprised when it becomes the month she walks in on her boyfriend kissing another woman. Or when she receives a panicked call from her mother about a mistake that could cost the family their treasured beach house.

When mystery author D. B. Ziegler is late delivering her book, Abi Schore steps in to help. Surely she can give her favorite author moral support over the holiday break and get the manuscript to her boss at Tea & Sympathy Publishing in time for the new year. When Abi shows up on Ms. Ziegler’s doorstep bearing holiday treats, she’s met by the author’s handsome grandson Dov, who reveals a startling plot twist. His grandmother isn’t able to finish the book and Dov promised he’d complete it so fans won’t be disappointed—a task that’s harder than he ever imagined.

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.

When Heather McKinley dreamed of becoming a doctor, she imagined curing sick kids and sporting pink stethoscopes. She never anticipated the sleepless nights, grueling exams, and endless labs. And she certainly never knew that her medical school earned the nickname Dead Med thanks to the tragic history of students overdosing on illegal drugs. But Heather would never consider doing anything like that. That is, until her longtime boyfriend dumps her, she finds herself failing anatomy, and her world starts to crumble.

Tilly Farriday isn’t feeling very jolly this season. Recently divorced and broke, she’s squatting in one of her rental agency’s properties until her new home is ready. The sprinkles on top of the burnt Christmas cookie that is her life? The new owner shows up early, forcing Tilly to hide in the attic to save her job…and what remains of her dignity.

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.

Oakland-bred LaVeesha “Vee” Gilliam (Coco Jones) is a determined single mother of an autistic son and a gifted aspiring coder. When Vee loses her job as a food-services worker at the onsite restaurant at Grapengine, a large Silicon Valley tech company, she’s unable to pay for her son’s much-needed specialized education. By a twist of fate, mistaken identity, and her tech skills, Vee meets Troy Wilson (Keith Powers), the company’s wealthy founder and CEO and a wunderkind in the tech industry, who believes that Vee is a college-educated techie who works at his company.

As the days grow shorter and the temperature drops, Halloween approaches. Come, brave listener, pull up a chair, and spend some time with master storyteller Stephen Fry as he tells us some of his favourite ghost stories of all time, in truly terrifying spatial audio. From the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow to the tortured spirits of M.R. James, from Edgar Allan Poe’s terrifying tale of a doppelganger to Charlotte Riddell’s Open Door that should definitely stay shut, join Stephen as he tells you some truly terrifying tales.

Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."

As Charly struggles to recover from her brain injury, she begins to realize that the events of that fateful night are trapped in the damaged right side of her brain. Now, she must put the jigsaw pieces together to discover the identity of the man who tried to kill her...before he finishes the job he started.

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.

Essence® best-selling author Michelle Stimpson delivers a stirring tale about learning to appreciate life by slowing down. Tori Henderson’s marketing career in Houston is on the fast track. But when her aunt falls ill, Tori returns to her tiny hometown to provide care - and ends up reconnecting with an old crush.

Essence best-selling author Michelle Stimpson crafts the inspiring tale of a strong woman juggling independence with her desire for a family. Single mother Peaches Miller is rattled when her fiancé gets a promotion that would require they move far away. Then, her son’s father comes back into her life. But Peaches isn’t sure either man can make her happy—or whether she needs any man at all.

Ever since his mother passed away two years ago, Caleb Pine has been stuck while the rest of his family seem to have moved on. Alone at Christmas, he finds himself drawn back to Martha’s Vineyard and the Gingerbread Inn, where his family spent a wonderful Christmas holiday when he was a teen. To his surprise, the local girl he almost kissed under the mistletoe all those years ago is now grown up and running the Inn.

Dr. Allison Hall is staring down the prospect of her first Christmas in a new town and her first without her son, who is spending the holiday with her ex. As the new doc on the block, she's on duty for the Christmas shift and glad of it. When one of her favorite patients lands back in the hospital, and it looks like this might be his last Christmas, she hopes she can help connect him to his estranged daughter. Dante Price thinks Allison should mind her own business. He's a nurse - and admittedly a bit of a Christmas Scrooge.

Blamed as a child for her baby sister's death, Dianne Rucker swore she'd never come back to Dentonville, Texas. But the kind aunt who took her in after her mother abandoned her is getting remarried, and she misses the cousins who came to be sisters, Yolanda and Regina. Going back to Dentonville also means facing her drug-addicted mother, now slipping even farther into schizophrenia. But Dianne isn't the only one struggling, and Aunt Gloria may have the most life-altering secret of all.

Theresa Hopson is the successful owner of one of the hottest new stores in Durham, North Carolina: Miss Thang's Holy Ghost Corner and Church Women's Boutique. But success isn't enough without someone to share it with. Theresa needs a God-fearing, intelligent, hard-working, and loving man. Unfortunately, the pickings are slim. Reverend Parvell Sykes is greedy and conniving, and the only other single, successful man in town hasn't seen the inside of a church in years. But God works in mysterious ways.

The recipe for forgiveness begins with an open heart and a full belly. Sisters Rose Tillman and her sister Marvina Nash haven't spoken in decades—not since Rose sent Marvina $40 to register their business and Marvina used that money for her own personal purposes. Now retired, Rose wants to open the restaurant they'd once dreamed of. But, to her horror, Rose realizes she's forgotten their mother's secret spice mix recipe, known to only one other person in the world.

Fans of T.D. Jakes' Cover Girls will delight in Michelle Stimpson's debut book Boaz Brown. LaShondra Smith has been waiting for a man like Stelson Brown. He is intelligent, funny, and a man of God - but he's white. Can LaShondra get past her prejudices and fears and allow herself to love this man she's always dreamed of?

Essence best-selling author Vanessa Davis Griggs is not afraid to tackle controversial subject matter in her faith-based fiction. Forever Soul Ties follows Butterfly and Ethan - two high school friends mired in unhappy marriages. After a chance encounter, they embark on an illicit affair. But when Butterfly is found out, stress is placed on her already struggling marriage and her standing in her church.

Dalee didn't grow up in a religious family. In fact, the last time Kerri went to church, she only attended for the cool door prizes and food served at Vacation Bible School. But when her wealthy roommate, Stephanie, gets engaged, Kerri's finds that her only hope for financial survival is an editing job at a Dallas area mega-church. While waiting for her interview, Kerri makes a quick, desperate decision to meet Christ - in the ladies' room, of all places - so she can fulfill every aspect of the stated criteria for employment.