Showing results by narrator "Jaime Lincoln Smith" in All Categories

Roland Summers wonders if there’s a reason he keeps running into Charlottesville's new medical examiner, Lennox Roswell. First, there was the wedding of his good friend Stonewall Courson and then they participated in a career panel at a local high school; and then again at the grocery store. He soon discovers they are neighbors. What confuses Roland more than anything is his fierce attraction to Lennox.

Lovers Rock stars Jamaica: its language, its landscape, its vibe, its humor, its edge and its persistent, dogged beauty. These seven stories imagine strange, quirky, familiar and delicious encounters between people in search of romantic love in the twenty-first century. Featuring characters from of all walks of life, each story is connected by the unique vibe of Jamaican desire.

In order to keep his twin daughters with him while he travels and works, widowed dad Parnell Cabot needs a wife of convenience and Rose Woods wants the job. She also wants Parnell. Rose makes him an offer he can't refuse. Parnell wants nothing more than a strictly business affair, but the intense sexual chemistry between them dictates otherwise, and Rose tests Parnell's level of endurance at every prefect moment.

A critic explores the paradox of finding community in “the dozens” while grieving. A violent town ritual causes an all-too-familiar moral panic. An email thread between friends on why we need an updated Green Book but for public toilets. All across the nation, “Karens” become illegal overnight. These are just a few of the hilarious worlds contained in Damon Young’s groundbreaking anthology featuring the best, funniest, and Blackest essays, short stories, letters, and rants.

Over the course of 100 luminous player profiles, the best sports newsroom on the planet paints vivid portraits of the game’s most compelling characters. The Basketball 100, edited by award-winning reporters David Aldridge and John Hollinger, also answers the game’s toughest, most important questions: How should we weight championship rings, versus statistical profiles, versus the “eye test”? Were the great players of yesteryear, like Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell, propelled by the inferior athleticism of their competition or would they have been transcendent in any era?

A corporate aristocracy descended from Africa rules a colony on a distant planet. Life here is easy—for the rarified and privileged few. The aristocrats enjoy a powerful cybernetic technology that extends their life spans and ensures their prosperity. Those who serve them suffer under a heavy hand. But within this ruthless society are agents of hope and change. In a secret underwater laboratory, a separatist cult has created a threat to the aristocracy. The Primes are highly intelligent, manipulative products of genetic engineering, designed to lead a rebellion.

Sports reporter Tanika “Nikki” Ryan is at the top of her game until she isn’t. Squinting at the teleprompter and flubbing lines, she loses her coveted Thursday Night football spot to a younger, less qualified woman—and that’s only the start of her troubles. After her impaired sight leads to an accident nearly costing her life, Tanika finds herself in the office of handsome widowed optometrist Gideon Miles. There, mysterious circumstances lead Tanika to an enchanted pair of glasses, changing her world—and Gideon’s—forever.

Law and Zuri met in the most unconventional way, but their connection was straight out of a storybook. It was genuine, poetic, and undeniable. However, haters will always ruin it. Learning what truly sent Law her way, Zuri cut off all ties with the man who had finally reminded her of what truly being unconditionally loved felt like.

After a traumatic injury took him off the job, prosecutor Solomon Shepard is back to work, teaming up with Sheriff Billie Gray to hunt down Utah’s most dangerous criminals. Shepard has spent years away from crime scenes and courtrooms, but one of those criminals still holds a grudge. Alonso Hafeez is out of prison after eleven years, and he’s determined to prove that Shepard tried him for a crime he didn’t commit. And he’s got something special planned: kidnapping Shepard and forcing him to revisit Hafeez’s case in an elaborately staged retrial.

One Missing Person. Two Rival Detectives. Infinite Chemistry. This rollicking thrill ride told in alternating “he said/she said” perspectives is an irresistible blend of mystery, sexual tension, and humor.

Since its founding as a discipline, Black Studies has been under relentless attack by social and political forces seeking to discredit and neutralize it. Our History Has Always Been Contraband was born out of an urgent need to respond to the latest threat: efforts to remove content from an AP African American Studies course being piloted in high schools across the United States.

August Hodges was supposed to be the silent partner in Sugar Blitz Cupcakes. Emphasis on silent. That is until his impromptu feminist rant about how women bakers are the backbone of the industry and baking cupcakes isn’t a threat to masculinity goes viral, making him the hottest bachelor in town. With a new location in the works, August and his partners decide to capitalize on this perfect opportunity to help cement their place in the community.

Contemporary commentaries humorously interpret stories in the Old and New Testaments.

Audrey Pilar is a master in the art of breaking up. Her friends have dubbed her ritual of leaving men as “The Expiration Date.” Hurt from her past has caused Audrey to protect her heart at all costs, even if it means self sabotage. She’s developed the habit of looking for red flags, and it seems to work for her—until she meets Sullivan Santiago. The confident, thirty-three-year-old owner of Sullivan’s Coffee Tavern is unlike anyone she’s ever met, and for Audrey, if it’s too good to be true, it usually is.

As the world around them starts to crumble, Kael is consumed by the darkness of his PTSD, and Karina struggles to overcome her anxiety, which is at an all-time high. Then someone from their past returns to invade their lives and wreak havoc on the fragile peace they’ve created. If they’re going to have the future they dream of, they’ll have to commit to fighting this battle together.

After Baz Luhrmann’s movie, Elvis, hit theaters, audiences and critics alike couldn't help but question the Black origins of Elvis Presley’s music and style, reigniting a debate that has been circling for decades. In Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King​, author Preston Lauterbach answers these questions definitively, based on new research and extensive, previously unpublished interviews with the artists who blazed the way and the people who knew them.

Jackson Jones and Mackenzie “Mac” Cunningham can’t agree on anything. After coming close to death on their last case, the two have decided to team up but they can’t even decide on how to furnish their new office. Jackson wants to make a big splash. Mackenzie just wants a desk and some filing cabinets to clean up the mess. Before they can reach a truce on the decor, the two PIs get an offer they have no choice but to accept: infamous gangster Big Ced and two of his mafia dons want them to track down a package. Or else.

Marcus Aurelius ruled the Roman Empire at its height, yet he remained untainted by the immense wealth and absolute power that had corrupted many of his predecessors. He knew the secret of how to live the good life amid trying and often catastrophic circumstances, of how to find happiness and peace when surrounded by misery and turmoil, and how to make the right choices—even if they are more difficult—without regard for self-interest. Meditations brings Marcus’s inspiring words to life and shows his wisdom to be as relevant today as it was in the second century.

The Black Guy Dies First explores the Black journey in modern horror cinema, from the fodder epitomized by Spider Baby to the Oscar-​winning cinematic heights of Get Out and beyond. This eye-opening book delves into the themes, tropes, and traits that have come to characterize Black roles in horror since 1968, a year in which race made national headlines in iconic moments from the enactment of the 1968 Civil Rights Act and Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in April. This timely book is a must-listen for cinema and horror fans alike.

This stirring coming-of-age tale unfolds in 1930s rural Kansas. A poignant portrait of African-American family life in the early twentieth century, it follows the story of young Sandy Rogers as he grows from a boy to a man. We meet Sandy's mother, Annjee, who works as a housekeeper for a wealthy white family; his strong-willed grandmother, Hager; Jimboy, Sandy's father, who travels the country looking for work; Aunt Tempy, the social climber; and Aunt Harriet, the blues singer who has turned away from her faith.