Showing results by narrator "Deanna Anthony" in All Categories

In the past, being a “difficult bitch” was bad. Girls weren’t supposed to call people out for their BS, stand up for themselves, or do their own thing. This book embraces the insult with irreverent humor, encouraging listeners to be themselves no matter what, including an exploration of the ways this phrase can be interpreted differently among people of different backgrounds.

In this updated and revised edition of Take a Lesson: Today's Black Achievers on How They Made It and What They Learned Along the Way, award-winning journalist and author Caroline Clarke once again compels a dynamic list of Black business heroes and role models to openly share their own goals, hits, and misses, exploring what they overcame and what they’re still working to overcome, not just for themselves, but for their peers and would be peers, who the equity odds are still against.

In Our Brave Foremothers, discover an intergenerational, intercultural bouquet of Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous women lifted into the significance that they deserve. From Etel Adnan to Mary Jones, Thelma Garcia Buchholdt to Pura Belpré to Zitkála-Šá, here are 100 women of color who left a lasting mark on United States history. Including both famous and little-known names, the thoughtful profiles and detailed portraits of these women herald their achievements and passions.

With more crowns to her name than hairs on her head, Sierra Quintanilla knows the rulebook inside out. And with Closed Circuit, the reality-TV-meets-rodeo-tour competition, back for a second season, she’s ready to play her part to perfection. But no one is actually perfect. And nothing is more dangerous to a rodeo queen than desire…

Carter Harper may have created an award-winning app and have a 3.93 grade point average, but her successes are overshadowed by brutal bullying, depression, and loneliness. Tired of being treated as the popular girls’ plaything, Carter thinks her only choice is to die by suicide. Abby Wallace is one of the most popular girls in school, subordinate only to Kelsey, her best friend with benefits. The ambitious poet destroys reputations without care to prove how cool, cruel, and strong she is, all while pushing down her past trauma and secret guilt.

How often do you wake up and ask yourself: “How can I be better today than I was yesterday?" Black Excellence: 20 Stories About Rising from Ordinary to Extraordinary will inspire you to expand and broaden the range of phenomenal goals you want to achieve in life. Author L. Jeff Shafer II celebrates Black culture through interviews, research, and his personal journey to show there are endless examples of Black excellence today in many different industries.

One could argue the story begins the night Allegra Douglass is awarded Distinguished Chair in Philosophy at her top-tier university in New York—the same night her grandmother dies—or before that: the day Allie left Birmingham and never looked back. Or even before that: the day her mother disappeared. But for our purposes Allie’s story begins at the end, when she is finally ready to tell her version of what happened with a white supremacist named Matthew Strong.

Roberto Fratelli is the meanest man in Marthasville, Virginia. So when he puts his antiques store up for sale, the other merchants in town are overjoyed. And now the business has a prospective buyer: local resident and the newly elected mayor's mother, Camille Benson. During a celebration in honor of Camille’s new venture, her best friend, Opal, tells her about finding a letter, purportedly from Sally Fairfax to George Washington, dated 1756, hidden under a chair in the shop. When they return to retrieve the cache, they find Roberto’s lifeless body on the floor—and no letter.

Kasi Blythewood has spent most of her life in the shadow of her famous film producer father, who’s deliberately kept her under his thumb with tough love. Ready to make a name for herself, she secretly heads to Austin for a film conference to rustle up some financing for her dream project - an indie series that showcases cuisine from around the world. When Kasi meets chef Declan Everheart, it’s instant lust spiced with an intriguing business opportunity. Declan’s father, a Michelin-starred chef, is interested in funding her film, but there is a sexy string attached....

Buxom motorcycle cop Chastity “Cha-Cha” Rinaldi has a tough reputation to live up to. On her first day as a rookie for the Mobile, Alabama, police department, Cha-Cha pulled over a pickup hauling a trailer with a busted taillight and unwittingly stumbled upon an international human-smuggling ring. But now, the three creeps she put behind bars have busted out of prison. Have they fled the country, or could they be coming for her as they’d vowed upon receiving their life sentences?

MediMiracle Corporation manufactures Sophrosyne, a miracle cure for opiate addiction. Ellison Ricard, a research-analyst for the company, claims to have uncovered data that proves Black users of Sophrosyne experience fatal side effects far more often than people of other races. When Ricard confronts MediMiracle’s charismatic founder and CEO, Peyton Burke, a violent confrontation ensues. The wheelchair bound Ricard—a Black man himself, severely injured years earlier—is fired that very day.

After years of secrecy and silence, Rowan McCandless leaves an abusive relationship and rediscovers her voice and identity through writing. She was never to lie to him. She was never to leave him; and she was never supposed to tell.

Titan Valentino has been offered a job they can’t refuse. Tai, a gender-neutral courtesan, receives a scandalous proposition: seduce an actor’s virgin fiancée. The money is enough to pay off Tai’s crushing medical debt, a tantalizing prospect. Too bad Aisha Malik isn’t the easy target they expect. A standoffish historian who hates to be touched, she’s laser-focused on her career, and completely unaware that her marriage has been arranged behind her back. This could be the one instance where Tai’s charm and charisma fail them. Then an accidental heist throws them together as partners in crime.

After losing her parents in high school, Ryan Landry grew up fast, solely focusing on supporting her younger twin sisters. With the twins now preparing for college, the financial stakes are raised so Ryan enters a restaurant-manager-of-the-year contest. Her chances for the grand prize are strong—after all, she’s the executive manager of Everheart Bar and Fine Dining, which is as famous for its exemplary service as it is for its mouth-watering food. The only thing standing in her way? The restaurant’s Michelin star patriarch chef.

Jodi M. Savage was raised in Brooklyn, New York, by her maternal grandmother. Her whip-smart, charismatic mother struggled with addiction and was unable to care for her. Granny was Jodi’s rock, until Alzheimer’s disease turned the tables, and a 28-year-old Jodi stepped into the role of caretaker. It was up to Jodi to get them both through the devastations of a deteriorating mind. After Granny passed away, Jodi spent years trying to reckon with her grief. In this searing, candid collection of essays, Jodi illuminates the roles that identity and memory play in preserving those we love.

Women are resilient leaders driven to achieve but can often feel stressed out. They are being adversely impacted by the Covid-19 “she-cession” with less and less women returning to the workforce due to the multi-faceted responsibilities they face inside and outside of their homes. And in a world where heart disease is the leading cause of death for women, they can’t afford to wait to relax. Author Angela D. Coleman’s prescription in The Art of Chilling Out for Women teaches women the value of chilling out.

To be a bookseller or librarian...you have to play detective. Be a treasure hunter. A matchmaker. A brilliant listener. A person who creates a kind of magic by pulling a book from a shelf, handing it to someone and saying, 'You've got to read this. You're going to love it'. In this love letter to the heroes of literacy, James Patterson uncovers true stories from booksellers and librarians.

The Silencing of Ruby McCollum refutes the carefully constructed public memory of one of the most famous—and under-examined—biracial murders in American history. On August 3, 1952, African American housewife Ruby McCollum drove to the office of Dr. C. LeRoy Adams, beloved white physician in the segregated small town of Live Oak, Florida. With her two young children in tow, McCollum calmly gunned down the doctor during "an argument over a medical bill." Soon, a very different motive emerged, with McCollum alleging horrific mental and physical abuse at Adams's hand.

Reluctant Race Men traces a history of the disparate challenges Black American reformers lodged against race across the long nineteenth century. It factors their opposition into the nation's history of race and reconstructs a reform tradition largely ignored in accounts of Black activism. Black-controlled newspapers, societies, churches, and conventions provided the principal loci and resources for questioning race. In these contexts, people of African descent generated a lexicon for refuting race, debated its logic, and, ultimately, reinterpreted it.

A diverse range of community helpers introduce the vehicles that help them keep their communities safe while teaching children about what each vehicle was built to do. In volume one of Finn's Fun Trucks, learn about vehicles used by rapid responders, the airlines, the military, the post service, and even those who work in space!