Showing results by narrator "Tovah Ott" in All Categories

Magic doesn't exist in the broken city of Lkossa anymore, especially for girls like 16-year-old Koffi. Indentured to the notorious Night Zoo, she cares for its fearsome and mythical creatures to pay off her family's debts and secure their freedom. But when her loved ones' safety is threatened by the zoo's cruel master, Koffi unleashes a power she doesn't fully understand.

A car submerged in a remote pond. The bodies of two girls strapped into their seats. The mystery of their mother, vanished without a trace, leads Gwen Proctor and Kezia Claremont into dangerous territory. On the surface, Gwen’s life is good - two children approaching adulthood, a committed partner, and a harrowing past dead and gone. That past is attracting the attention of someone invisible and unstoppable. Trouble’s just beginning. So is the body count in this backwoods Tennessee town. As threats mount and Gwen’s hunted by an enemy who pulls all the strings, Kezia has her back.

In New York City, Joanna Marshall is an aspiring singer obsessed with success, determined to overcome the racism and sexism that stand in her way. Her childhood friends Maggie Ellersley and Peter Bye confront similar barriers but with different goals in mind: Maggie is focused on finding love; Peter, on becoming a surgeon. But as their interests overlap and their ambitions collide, the course of Joanna and Maggie’s lives seems destined to change forever. Written in response to the dominant stereotypes of the time, There Is Confusion paints a revelatory portrait....

When Wayétu Moore turns five years old, her father and grandmother throw her a big birthday party at their home in Monrovia, Liberia, but all she can think about is how much she misses her mother, who is working and studying in faraway New York. Before she gets the reunion her father promised her, war breaks out in Liberia. The family is forced to flee their home on foot, walking and hiding for three weeks until they arrive in the village of Lai.

Rain soaks Tessa Scott as she runs from her car to the old vine-covered property she has been called to survey. She’s too busy to accept a new job, but doing this favor for the grandmother of her childhood sweetheart delays a painful decision she must make about her controlling boyfriend. When Tessa finds a tattered journal carefully hidden inside the house’s ancient fireplace, the tragic story of how Ona was ripped from her mother’s arms to live and work in the palatial Mount Vernon, and the heart-shattering betrayal that led her to risk her life and run, has Tessa spellbound.

City girl Claudia Cade's carefree life is plunged into chaos when a camping trip with her brother in the national forests of Northern California turns into a deadly dash for her survival.

Do you have a “ride or die chick” in your life? A “ride or die chick” is a Black woman who holds down her family and community. She’s that friend or family member that you can call up in the middle of the night to bail you out of jail, if ever needed, and you know she’ll show up and won’t ask any questions. She does anything for her family, friends, and significant other, even at the cost of her own well-being. “No” is not in her vocabulary. She’s beloved by you and many others, but her ride or die trope becomes a problem when she does it indiscriminately.

Still grieving the loss of her mother, Eden visits Safina Island, her ancestral home, as a healing balm. But when she discovers an old sketchbook that belonged to her mother, she’s haunted by the images she sees drawn there. A creepy mansion covered with roots and leaves. A monstrous dog with dagger-sharp teeth. And a tall woman with wind-blown hair and long, sharp nails who is as beautiful as she is terrifying. Days later, exploring the island alone, Eden follows a black cat through a rift in the bright day.

In this moving memoir, Shirley Smith, wife of NBA Champion and All-Star J. R. Smith, tells the story of giving birth to one of the youngest premature babies to survive - using her experience to heighten awareness of the crisis of Black maternal and infant health and pay tribute to Black women’s resilience.

At 18 years of age, I pledged my "I do" and believed that from that moment on I would live happily ever after. Coming from a broken family, I now was the bride of a successful and noted Israeli journalist, a man who had his finger tips on the pulse of the world. The following days of my life were an eye opener.... With the authentic vulnerability of a young girl, I take you with me on my journey from ashes to triumph, from broken heart to celebrating life.

The women’s suffrage movement was decades in the making and came with many harsh setbacks. But it resulted in a permanent victory: women’s right to vote. How did the suffragists do it? One hundred years later, an eye-opening look at their playbook shows that some of their strategies seem oddly familiar. Women’s marches at inauguration time? Check. Publicity stunts, optics, and influencers? They practically invented them. Petitions, lobbying, speeches, raising money, and writing articles? All of that, too.

Just when Cherokee thought she was going to be done with her first love for good, she's hit with some news that throws a monkey wrench in her plans to rid herself of Dillinger Rivera. Dillinger is willing to do anything in his power to show Cherokee that she still holds his heart in her hands, even if that means getting rid of his wife, Carmilla. Only thing is, Carmilla is not going to just let go of the man she has dedicated the past five years of her life to that easily.

Eight years after moving away from her hometown of Miami, Cherokee is back home to take care of her sickly grandmother. While trying to stay low and off the scene, she puts all her focus into her job and her family. That is, until the man who broke her heart many years ago unexpectedly walks into her life once again.

Colleen is a short story from Halle Hill’s Good Women, which delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South. Darkly funny and deeply human, Good Women observes how place, blood ties, generational trauma, obsession, and boundaries―or lack thereof―influence how we navigate our small worlds, and how those worlds so often collide in ways we don’t expect.

A sister struggles with guilt as she helps her brother plan to run away with a man he’s seeing in secret. When the police pull them over one night, everything changes. Bitch Baby is a short story from Halle Hill’s Good Women, which delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South.

A newlywed Christian couple is “trying” to have a baby when the wife books a solo vacation. In a cabin far from home, she contemplates if she wants a baby with her husband, considering the way his white family and friends treat her. When she encounters an attractive stranger, she lets him take her out for a drink.

A woman boards a Greyhound bus to Florida with her ailing sugar daddy on a long journey to meet his mother. In the middle of the night, in the middle of rural Georgia, another passenger disrupts her plan. Seeking Arrangements is a short story from Halle Hill’s Good Women, which delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South.

The Best Years of Your Life is a short story from Halle Hill’s Good Women, which delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South. Darkly funny and deeply human, Good Women observes how place, blood ties, generational trauma, obsession, and boundaries―or lack thereof―influence how we navigate our small worlds, and how those worlds so often collide in ways we don’t expect.

A seventh-grade girl travels to south Alabama where her grandmother is being cared for by incapable extended family members. The mother is overwhelmed with grief. But the girl, busy with her own relationship troubles, witnesses something else disturbing. Her Last Time in Dothan is a short story from Halle Hill’s Good Women, which delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South.

Maudette works at the state fair. She hates her job, she hates what her mother does for a living, she hates the people in her town, especially one of her mother’s clients, a local deacon. Working the tilt-a-whirl one day, she begins to consider revenge. Honest Work is a short story from Halle Hill’s Good Women, which delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South.