Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing debut novel has stolen the hearts of reviewers and readers alike with its strong, assured voice. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed.

Fourteen-year-old Carey and six-year-old Jenessa have been living in the woods with their mother for as long as they can remember; the sheltering trees and a broken-down camper are all they know. But what they’ve never been told is that Carey vanished from the real world ten years ago, when their mother took her, causing an uproar in the media - and in her father’s life.

Ephram Jennings has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. Young Ruby, “the kind of pretty it hurt to look at,” has suffered beyond imagining, so as soon as she can, she flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York. Ruby quickly winds her way into the ripe center of the city - the darkened piano bars and hidden alleyways of the Village - all the while hoping for a glimpse of the red hair and green eyes of her mother.

In this gripping first novel, a young girl, orphaned when her mother murders an ex-lover, endures the shuffle of a foster child's life. Oprah enjoyed her book club pick so much that she narrates the audiobook edition!

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Diane McKinney-Whetstone, the award-winning and best-selling author of Tumbling, presents Trading Dreams at Midnight - - an Essence Book Club Recommended Read. Back in 1984, 15-year-old Neena's mother left and never came back. And now Neena is following in her footsteps.

Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s magnetic story collection breathes life into her Indigenous Latina characters and the land they inhabit. Against the remarkable backdrop of Denver, Colorado - a place that is as fierce as it is exquisite - these women navigate the land the way they navigate their lives: with caution, grace, and quiet force. In “Sugar Babies,” ancestry and heritage are hidden inside the Earth but tend to rise during land disputes.

At an opulent resort in Montego Bay, Margot hustles to send her younger sister, Thandi, to school. Taught as a girl to trade her sexuality for survival, Margot is ruthlessly determined to shield Thandi from the same fate. When plans for a new hotel threaten their village, Margot sees not only an opportunity for her own financial independence but also perhaps a chance to admit a shocking secret: her forbidden love for another woman.

Luna McGraw struggles to conquer the addictions that destroyed her marriage and caused her to lose custody of her beloved daughter, Joy. After eight years, Joy is back and Luna aims to rebuild everything that fell apart. She has a therapeutic job as a florist, a loving mother’s support, and a new man in her life who makes Luna feel things she’s been afraid to feel since forever.

Bone Gap is the story of Roza, a beautiful girl who is taken from a quiet Midwestern town and imprisoned by a mysterious man, and Finn, the only witness, who cannot forgive himself for being unable to identify her kidnapper. As we follow them through their melancholy pasts, their terrifying presents, and their uncertain futures, acclaimed author Laura Ruby weaves a heartbreaking tale of love and loss, magic and mystery, regret and forgiveness.

Esmeralda Santiago reminisces about her childhood in Puerto Rico and her early years in Brooklyn as the oldest of seven (soon to be 11) children. Her upbringing is turbulent on account of her parents’ relentless fighting, which only ever seems to stop when they have another baby. When her youngest brother has an accident, her mother decides to move to New York with her children to seek medical treatment. Arriving in the United States, 13-year-old Santiago experiences uprooting and a loss of identity while she tries to adapt to a culture and language that are foreign to her.

When Minerva and Keira King were born, they made headlines: Keira is black like Mama, but Minni is white like Daddy. Together the family might look like part of a chessboard row, but they are first and foremost the close-knit Kings. Then Grandmother Johnson calls, to invite the twins down South to compete for the title of Miss Black Pearl Preteen of America. Minni dreads the spotlight, but Keira assures her that together they'll get through their stay with Grandmother Johnson. But when their grandmother's bias against Keira reveals itself, Keira pulls away from her twin.

August 1956. After a night of rage and terror, Anna Nassad wakes to find her abusive husband dead and instinctively hides her bruises and her relief. As the daughter of Syrian immigrants living in segregated Alabama, Anna has never belonged, and now her world is about to erupt. Days before, Anna set in motion an explosive chain of events by allowing the first black postman to deliver the mail to her house. But it's her impulsive act of inviting him inside for a glass of water that raises doubts about Anna's role in her husband's death.

It’s 2013, and Circus Palmer, a 40-year-old Boston-based trumpet player and old-school ladies’ man, lives for his music and refuses to be tied down. Before a gig in Miami, he learns that the woman who is secretly closest to his heart, the free-spirited drummer Maggie, is pregnant by him.

Life went terribly wrong for Addie Bates in San Diego, and she's been running from dark memories ever since. For 15 years, the Sleepy Valley Nudist Colony has provided a safe haven for Addie to hide from the crime she committed. But when the residents pack up to go on exhibit at the 1935 world's fair in San Diego, Addie returns and must face the thrilling yet terrifying prospect of reuniting with her estranged sister, Wavey.

Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister, Cassandra, enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation. When their mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city's guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona's mysterious ways.

Lauren Groff’s acclaimed debut novel The Monsters of Templeton was short-listed for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, Arcadia opens in the late 1960s with a group of young idealists forming a commune in western New York State. Into this group is born Bit, who grows into a quiet, distant man. Over the course of 50 years, Bit witnesses the utopia crumble and the world change in unimaginable ways.

Bone Gap is the story of Roza, a beautiful girl who is taken from a quiet Midwestern town and imprisoned by a mysterious man, and Finn, the only witness, who cannot forgive himself for being unable to identify her kidnapper. As we follow them through their melancholy pasts, their terrifying presents, and their uncertain futures, acclaimed author Laura Ruby weaves a heartbreaking tale of love and loss, magic and mystery, regret and forgiveness.

Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister, Cassandra, enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Pablo Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation. When their mother hires Petrona, a live-in-maid from the city's guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona's mysterious ways.

Every year, the monarch butterflies - las mariposas - fly more than two thousand miles on fragile wings to return to their winter home in Mexico. Now Luz Avila makes that same perilous journey south as she honors a vow to her beloved abuela - the grandmother who raised her - to return her ashes to her ancestral village. As Luz departs Milwaukee in a ramshackle old VW Bug, she finds her heart opened by a series of seemingly random encounters with remarkable women.

In Barbara O’Neal’s novel of hope and renewal, two very different sisters discover that life is like a garden: Tend to it daily, nourish it with patience and optimism, and then watch the beauty unfold. After tragedy shatters her small community in Seattle, the Reverend Elsa Montgomery has a crisis of faith. Returning to her hometown of Pueblo, Colorado, she seeks work in a local soup kitchen. Preparing nourishing meals for folks in need, she keeps her hands busy while her heart searches for understanding. Meanwhile, her sister, Tamsin, as colorful as Elsa is unadorned and steadfast, finds her perfect life shattered when she learns that her husband is a criminal.

Truly Plaice, an overly large and ungainly girl, is the polar opposite of her sister, Serena Jane, the epitome of feminine perfection. With their parents dead, Truly and Serena Jane are separated: Serena Jane to live a life of privilege as the future May Queen and Truly to live on the outskirts of town, the subject of constant abuse and humiliation.

Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga. Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender.

Glorious is set against the backdrops of the Jim Crow South, the Harlem Renaissance, and the civil rights era. Blending the truth of American history with the fruits of Bernice L. McFadden's rich imagination, this is the story of Easter Venetta Bartlett, a fictional Harlem Renaissance writer whose tumultuous path to success, ruin, and revival offers a candid portrait of the American experience in all its beauty and cruelty.

Nothing can mend a broken heart quite like family. Sherry has struggled all her life to understand who she is, where she comes from, and, most important, why her mother slapped her cheek one summer afternoon. The incident has haunted Sherry, and it causes her to dig into her family's past. Like many family histories, it is fractured and stubbornly reluctant to reveal its secrets. But Sherry is determined to know the full story. In a few days' time, her extended family will gather for a reunion, and Sherry sets off across the country with her mother, Dumpling, to join them.

Diane McKinney-Whetstone, the award-winning and best-selling author of Tumbling, presents Trading Dreams at Midnight - - an Essence Book Club Recommended Read. Back in 1984, 15-year-old Neena's mother left and never came back. And now Neena is following in her footsteps.

With a head plagued by hallucinations, a medicine cabinet full of pills, and a closet stuffed with frilly, violet dresses, Hanna's tired of being the outcast, the weird girl, the freak. So she runs away to Portero, Texas, in search of a new home. But Portero is a stranger town than Hanna expects. She discovers secrets that would terrify any normal soul. Good thing for Hanna, she's far from normal. As this crazy girl meets an even crazier town, only two things are certain: Anything can happen, and no one is safe.

Phineas King knows better than to expect anything but shock and pity wherever he shows his face. Horribly scarred from the tragic accident that claimed his mother's life, he chooses to keep his distance from everyone, focusing his time and energy on the bees his family raises. So why does he start finding excuses to seek out Deborah Lantz, the beautiful new arrival in town?

Cassie Madison has it all: A high-powered advertising career; a stylish Manhattan apartment; and a sophisticated, rich, and gorgeous fiancé. It's a far cry from her childhood in Walton, Georgia, home of the annual Kudzu Festival and hot, sticky summers. And then there are all the bad memories, the heartache. When Cassie's estranged sister calls to say that her father is dying, Cassie knows it's time to set aside her feelings and go home and face the sister she hasn't seen in 15 years.

Calamity is confronting two big transitions: the death of her beloved father and the beginning of menopause, a physical shift that has rekindled her gift for finding lost things. Suddenly, she is getting hot flashes that seem to forge objects out of thin air, most notably a four-year old boy. As Calamity takes the child into her care, she discovers that all is not as it seems. Then, Calamity must reawaken to the mysteries surrounding her own childhood and the early disappearance of her mother.

Barbara O’Neal’s novel of food, friendship, and the freedom to grow your dreams brings together four very different women longing to savor the true taste of happiness. Popular blogger and foodie queen Lavender Wills reigns over Lavender Honey Farms, a serene slice of organic heaven nestled in Oregon wine country. Lavender is determined to keep her legacy from falling into the profit-driven hands of uncaring relatives, and she wants an heir to sustain her life’s work after she’s gone.