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Escape from
Slavery: The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity - and My Journey to Freedom
in America
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Francis Bok, Edward Tivnan
ISBN: 0312306237
Format: Hardcover, 288pp
Pub. Date: September 2003
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
In this groundbreaking modern slave narrative, Francis Bok shares his remarkable story with grace, honesty, and a wisdom gained from surviving ten years in captivity.
May, 1986: Selling his mother's eggs and peanuts near his village in southern Sudan, seven year old Francis Bok's life was shattered when Arab raiders on horseback, armed with rifles and long knives, burst into the quiet marketplace, murdering men and women and gathering the young children into a group. Strapped to horses and donkeys, Francis and others were taken north, into lives of slavery under wealthy Muslim farmers.
For ten years, Francis lived alone in a shed near the goats and cattle that were his responsibility. Fed with scraps from the table, slowly learning bits of an unfamiliar language and religion, the boy had almost no human contact other than his captor's family. After two failed attempts to escape-each bringing severe beatings and death threats-Francis finally escaped at age seventeen, a dramatic breakaway on foot that was his final chance. Yet his slavery did not end there, for even as he made his way toward the capital city of Khartoum, others sought to deprive him of his freedom. Determined to avoid that fate and discover what had happened to his family on that terrible day in 1986, the teenager persevered through prison and refugee camps for three more years, winning the attention of United Nations officials and being granted passage to America.
Now a student and an anti-slavery activist, Francis Bok has made it his life
mission to combat world slavery. His is the first voice to speak for an
estimated twenty seven million people held against their will in nearly every
nation, including our own. Escape from Slavery is at once a riveting adventure,
a story of desperation and triumph, and a window revealing a world that few have
survived to tell.
Use
Me or Lose Me: A Novel of Love, Sex, and Drama
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by Maryann Reid
ISBN: 031231437X
Format: Hardcover, 320pp
Pub. Date: August 2003
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
The fabulously fine, Farah Washington first appeared in Sex and the Single Sister. A junior correspondent to NBC News, she has always taken the fast track to love and success. Now she's determined to climb to the top of the media ladder, and she's willing to use every weapon in her considerable arsenal to do so. Then Farah meets Lenox Whitworth, a powerful, oh-so-fine lawyer who steps in to negotiate the station's contracts. But what he sees in her is the kind of sophisticated woman he needs and wants on his arm, in his life and in his bed. And Farah, sensing a prime opportunity, allows this powerful, handsome brother, to truly introduce her to the wicked indulgences of the rich and glamorous as he influences her career behind the scenes. They both believe that they've got a handle on a good thing, but they're both about to realize that they've met their match in each other.
Filled with love, sex, drama and glamour, Farah and Lenox take you on a wild ride.
One
Day I Saw a Black King
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by J. D. Mason
ISBN: 0312301545
Format: Hardcover, 320pp
Pub. Date: August 2003
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Read an AALBC.com review by Thumper
"He stared at himself in the mirror, wondering how he'd managed to lose track of time. Complacency had managed to set in again. . . A decent job, warm home, food on the table, and a body to curl up next to at night; he'd made the mistake of getting comfortable. Comfort fooled him into thinking it was all good when it wasn't. Damn nightmares had a way of reminding him of that."
Ever since he was fifteen, John King has been on the run from the ghosts of his past, always drifting, never settling down in one place or with one woman, though more than one has certainly made the offer of forever-after. But every time his memories of life back in Texas start to haunt him too deeply into the night, John realizes that it's time to move on. That is, until he rolls into Denver, Colorado, grooving to Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It on," and meets Connie Rodgers, a woman who grew up on the mean streets and has the pain and the battle scars to prove it. And yet, she inspires him to think "If indeed there were a home for the perfect kiss, it would be on her lips." John is reluctant to admit that here is a woman who just may understand his very soul, even if she does have some baggage of her own. But both must face their pasts if they ever hope to be free to live and love.
Filled with completely unforgettable characters, One Day I Saw a Black King is a stunningly powerful story that explores the power of the past over the present, the search for love and belonging and the healing gift of an extraordinary love.
The
Black Dancing Body: A Geography from Coon to Cool
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ISBN: 0312240473
Format: Hardcover, 352pp
Pub. Date: October 2003
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Watching contemporary American dance is a unique and electrifying experience. Swept along with the dancers, one wonders how the unorthodox movement and unexpected tempo came about. To provide at least one answer to this question, Brenda Dixon Gottschild charts a "geography" that maps a unique, yet startlingly ubiquitous, region of influence in the history of American dance: the black dancing body. The author invites the reader on a journey of sorts and says, "The black dancing body (a fiction based on reality, a fact based upon illusion) has infiltrated and informed the shapes and changes of the American dancing body." Using interviews with black, white, and brown dance practitioners as well as performance analysis and personal recollections of her own life in the world of dance, Brenda Dixon Gottschild charts the endeavors, ordeals, and triumphs of "black" dance and dancers by exposing perceptions, images, and assumptions, past and present. In her journey to discover the contours and importance of the black dancing body, the author has spoken to some of the greatest dancers and choreographers of our time - Fernando Bujones, Trisha Brown, Garth Fagan, Bill T. Jones, Ralph Lemon, Meredith Monk, Merian Soto, Doug Elkins, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and a cadre of their esteemed colleagues. The "embattled territories" of the black dancing body are probed chapter by chapter: feet, buttocks, hair, skin color. The whole of the black dancing body is "re-membered" in the final chapters on soul and spirit. The Black Dancing Body is a key to the ineffable rhythms and movement of dance in America.
What's
a Woman to Do?
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ISBN: 0312286872
Format: Hardcover, 295pp
Pub. Date: September 2003
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
When a corporate diva Janeen Hampton-Gilliam meets the kind of dream man that'll
make most women want to trade theirs in, her struggling marriage with a
philandering husband gets even harder to maintain. Throw in trouble at work and
a novel that tells the deepest secrets of her youth, and Janeen has more on her
plate than she can handle.
Her younger sister, Sissy, is having the time of her life working dirty real
estate deals and enjoying her friendship with the young women who are paid
mistresses to Dallas's powerful men. But when the only man she's ever loved
suddenly reappears, he causes more drama than she could imagine.
And then there's Joyce-the eldest of the three, who spends most of her time
praying for the sins of the other two, while at the same time dealing with
hidden secrets of her own. When she sees a woman who looks suspiciously like
Sissy in a compromising position with Janeen's wayward husband, she has to
decide which sister deserves her allegiance.
The combination of new and old secrets is explosive, and it sets off a whole
powder keg of emotions. With so many scandalous issues hanging in the balance,
Janeen, Sissy and Joyce are left wondering, What's A Woman To Do?
Windy
City Dying (Marti MacAlister Mystery Series)
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ISBN: 0312320485
Format: Paperback, 324pp
Pub. Date: November 2003
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
"Marti MacAlister, Eleanor Taylor Bland's popular African American heroine, is forced to confront some extremely personal demons from long ago - her husband, Johnny MacAlister, is long buried, but now someone from Johnny's past is back, looking for him, and Marti fears she knows who it might be." "In the meantime, her work as a suburban Chicago homicide detective has taken her back in time in another way, to a group of children she once counseled, each now four years older and with four more years' worth of problems. There's LaShawna, now seventeen and with her own four-year-old daughter; Padgett, all grown up at twelve but still living with his alcoholic mother; and then Jose, fifteen, who's in the most trouble of them all. He's been accused of murder, but the Jose whom Marti remembers could not have committed such a terrible crime. Her first step is to find out what could have happened in the past four years to lead Jose to such a desperate act, and she hopes her second step will be to prove his innocence." It won't be easy, though; just what's going on with this tight group of kids, and how does it relate to the increasingly foreboding sense of doom Marti gets about the mystery man who's nosing around the remnants of her distant past? She's not sure, but she knows she must figure it all out, and soon, before another of the children, or even Marti herself, falls into grave danger.
Rockin' Around That Christmas Tree: A Holiday Novel
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by Donna Hill and Francis Ray
ISBN: 0312321953
Format: Hardcover, 160pp
Pub. Date: October 2003
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Tis the season to be merry and the Morrison family are about to have their lives turned upside down.
Denise has always been the faithful wife and dutiful mother. As a matter of fact, it seems that is all she has been in the twenty-plus years she and her husband, Edward have been married. But the kids are grown and out of the house and now she's ready to live a few dreams of her own. Edward, however, would like to keep things just the way they are and Denise realizes that if she doesn't do something drastic, then all she will ever be is a mother and a wife. So when she drops the bomb at Thanksgiving dinner that she is leaving their father and selling the house, everyone is stunned to say the least. And her announcement opens the door to Morrison Family Dysfunction 101. Edward is now living with his crazy aunt Etta and uncle Eddie, who's sex life is more active than his own; their daughter, Christine has moved back home because she suspects her husband is cheating on her; and their son, Anthony is simply dazed and confused. And in the midst of it all, Edward hatches a plan to get his wife back--no matter what. Not only does he plan to be back in their home and back in their bed, but come Christmas he and Denise will be Rockin' Around that Christmas Tree.
Fatal Remains
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ISBN: 0312300972
Format: Hardcover, 288pp
Pub. Date: December 2003
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
When Marti MacAlister and her partner Matthew "Vik" Jessenovik respond to a report of skeletal remains found on a wooded piece of land, the pair has no idea it's just the first indication of a convoluted case of murder and conspiracy dating back hundreds of years. The skeleton turns out to be quite a mystery in itself, leading Native American groups and historians specializing in the Underground Railroad to flock to the site.
Unfortunately for all involved, the violence associated with the area is not confined to the distant past, and soon reports of mysterious accidents and suspicious deaths are coming in faster than Marti would like. A small contingent of locals even swears the land is haunted by a ghost intent on exacting a vicious revenge for some unknown grievance. Marti knows there must be a more traditional explanation, and it's her job to find out what it is. Eleanor Taylor Bland is at the top of her form in this taut, well-researched, suspenseful entry in her award-winning Marti MacAlister series.
In My Bedroom
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by Donna Hill
ISBN: 0312281935
Format: Hardcover, 272pp
Pub. Date: January 2004
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Rayne Holland is a woman who appears to have it all: a handsome, successful husband, a beautiful five-year-old daughter, and a rapidly rising film career. What everyone doesn't realize is that behind closed doors, the picture is not so perfect. And in the recesses of Rayne's mind she harbors a dark past that even she is unaware of. Then tragedy strikes and Rayne slowly discovers that the story of her life is just beginning and nothing and no one are as they seem...
Gayle has been Rayne's best friend for years and always secretly wished that her life was more like Rayne's, from Rayne's wonderful husband to her burgeoning success. Gayle had been the one to introduce Paul to Rayne and a small part of her still regretted the day. Although Gayle married a good man and has a good life, she can't help feeling that the grass may be greener on the other side. Out of a deep sense of guilt, Gayle tries to help Rayne along the road to recovery, even at the expense of her own marriage . . .
Pauline, Rayne's psychologist, found herself drawn to the lovely woman from the moment they met. For in Rayne, she sees parts of herself, disturbing similarities and secret pains. Faced with the most daunting case of her career, Pauline must walk the thin line of medical ethics knowing that if she saves Rayne, she may lose everything but if she takes the risk she may save herself as well and unlock the secrets that would free them all.
Told with Donna Hill's grace, wit and uncompromising honesty, this novel explores the strength, passion, hope and healing of three extraordinary women.
And on
the Eighth Day She Rested
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by J.D. Mason
Format: paperback, 288 pages
ISBN: 0-312-30989-9
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: March 1, 2003
An emotionally powerful story about the friendship of four different women, the lessons they learn about each other and about themselves.
Ruth Johnson has finally left her abusive husband of fourteen years and jumped feet first into "What the hell do I do now?" oblivion. Into her life comes the feisty, outspoken Bernice a.k.a. "Bernie," sweet Southern belle, May and the older, wiser, and gentler Clara. Four very different women, with four different stories to tell, come together under the sometimes tenuous, but always unbreakable bond of friendship. Life is just getting interesting, but if they hold onto each other, they just might make it.
"The first thing I have to say is, 'Buy this book!' It's an absolute necessity."�The Nubian Chronicles
"Mason's book weaves an incredible tale of a Black woman's. . .journey to empowerment, freedom and the hope of love once again."�The Urban Spectrum
Leaving
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by Richard Dry
Format: paperback, 464 pages
ISBN: 0-312-30287-8
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: April 9, 2003
"Fans of Richard Wright or Alice Walker will find that Leaving is woven from familiar thread...Remarkable."--San Diego Union Tribune
Leaving is one of the most powerful and assured debut novels of the year: an epic story of three generations of an African-American family, as it struggles to find a home in the embattled streets of urban America. In the words of National Book Award finalist Madison Smartt Bell, author Richard Dry "has captured the African-American story from slavery time to the present, both in its panoramic scope and in its immediate and human detail."
"Starkly poetic, raw and intensely moving."�The Baltimore Sun
"Brilliantly and beautifully written."�Booklist (starred review)
"A well-crafted, haunting debut novel."�The Washington Post
"An affecting story.��The Boston Globe
Somebody's
Knocking at My Door
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by Francis Ray
Format: paperback, 368 pages
ISBN: 0-312-30734-9
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: May 1, 2003
From Essence and Blackboard best-selling author Francis Ray comes a novel about a man's struggle to come to grips with his violent past in order to find love in the present.
Rafe still carries the physical and emotional scars of the abuse he suffered at his father's hands growing up. He has cut himself off from everyone who loves him and friends are a luxury he doesn't think he can afford. After all he is his father's son and it is only a matter of time before the violence he fears lurks beneath the surface, spills over. Then Kirsten Wakefield steps into his life and for the first time he finds himself longing to open his heart to someone. That is until he gets word that his father is dying and wants him to come back home. Old wounds are reopened and Rafe doesn't know if love is enough to make him whole again. Somebody's Knocking at My Door is a poignant and unforgettable sequel to The Turning Point that will speak to every reader's heart.
The
Bridge
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by Solomon Jones
Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
ISBN: 0-312-30615-6
Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur
Publication Date: June 3, 2003
From the author of Pipe Dreams comes a new novel about Detective Kevin Lynch who returns to his childhood home�The Bridge�to investigate the disappearance of a ten-year-old girl
When Detective Kevin Lynch gets an early morning call from one of his childhood friends to tell him that her daughter has gone missing, he realizes that he must return to his old stomping grounds, an infamous housing project called The Bridge. There he begins to unravel secrets of the family and friends in young Kenya's life and uncovers hidden truths far more sinister than he ever imagined...and he, too, is forced to face some dark secrets from his past as well.
Minion:
A Vampire Huntress Legend
(A Vampire
Huntress Legend Series #1)
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by L.A. Banks
Format: paperback, 288 pages
ISBN: 0-312-31680-1
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: April 30, 2003
One woman is all that stands between humankind and the eternal night in the first book in an exciting new series.
All Damali Richards ever dreamed about was creating music and bringing it to the people. She has fulfilled this dream�at least during the day. Come nightfall, Damali hunts vampires and other night demons that most people dismiss as myth or fantasy. Now a group of rogue vampires are on the rampage with the most powerful vampire Damali has ever encountered running the show�and it is Damali that he is after. Along with other dark forces, he pulls Damali deeper into the vast and horrifying vampire underworld.
The Awakening (A
Vampire Huntress Legend Series #2)
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L. A. Banks
ISBN: 0312316836
Format: Paperback, 304pp
Pub. Date: December 2003
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
There is a vampire war brewing in the underworld and at the center of it all is Damali Richards, spoken word artist and Vampire Huntress. But she is not just any Vampire Huntress, she is the millenium Neteru. A woman so potentially powerful that the vampire world is about to invoke a bloody battle that threatens to spill over onto her streets in order to posses her. It's just a matter of who will get to her first. Fallon Nuit, a rogue vampire, is one of the most powerful Damali has ever encountered and he has allied himself with the deadly Amanrath demons in order to claim her. But the Vampire Council has plans for her as well. And now an unlikely variable has entered into the equation, an ex-lover now turned vampire with an agenda of his own. And she must risk trusting him once more if they are to survive.
Rising
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by Darnella Ford
Format: paperback, 224 pages
ISBN: 0-312-30306-8
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: January 2003
Set in wealthy community in Northern Michigan, Rising reveals the story of nine-year-old Symone who is mysteriously adopted by the Hustons--"a shameless family with a house at the top of the hill"--after her mother dies of a drug overdose. And though Symone is all too happy to leave the Dorchester projects behind, she can't help but wonder why this rich white couple has come to the ghetto to adopt "a black girl who looked white"? Soon Symone discovers that the Hustons aren't her saviors, but instead have delivered her into another kind of hell. Years later, she escapes only to return again, realizing that she must face the demons of her past if she has any hope of surviving the future.
An evocative new voice in women's fiction, Ford has created characters that are tough, sassy, wounded, deeply disturbed and utterly compelling. Here is a story that is both undeniably potent and completely unforgettable.
Autumn Leaves
ISBN: 031231969X
Format: Paperback, 352pp
Pub. Date: August 2003
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Marshall Coates and Rorey Garland are on top of the world--best friends and superstar athletes with millions in professional contracts just around the corner. But their lives are far from perfect. Despite loving the best thing that ever happened to him-his girlfriend, Jasmine Reynolds-Marshall is constantly faced with the shapely sirens who always seem to accompany the limelight. And Rorey has a dark secret that could destroy their friendship and his life.
In Dallas, Kennedy James is a beautiful art curator who's romantically involved with the wealthy but self-centered society climber Simpson Stone. When confronted with the dilemma of what's more important, getting what she wants or having the man she needs, she finds herself caught up in a tumultuous war of the heart. When she's offered a chance at true love with a less glamorous man will she be able to take it?
As their lives converge, which of them will manage to capture happiness? And which will fall, beautiful but doomed, like autumn leaves?
A Lawyer's Life
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Johnnie Cochran, With David Fisher
ISBN: 0312319673
Format: Paperback, 311pp
Pub. Date: November 2003
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Johnnie Cochran gained international recognition for leading the "Dream Team" defense of O.J. Simpson. But long before and since then Johnnie Cochran has been a leader in the fight for justice for all Americans. While often vilified for his defense of Simpson, Cochran emerged from the trial as a leading African
American spokes person. But he has done most of his talking through the courtroom in such high profile cases as:
Abner Louima
Amadou Diallo
The Racially
profiled New Jersey Turnpike Four
Sean "Puffy" Combs
Patrick Dorismond
Cynthia Wiggins
Cochran explains how he has used the law to force fundamental changes in America, it was Cochran, critics still claim, who dealt the first "race card." Here is his answer to that and other accusations.
Savvy Sistahs
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by Brenda Jackson
ISBN: 0312315120
Format: Paperback, 337pp
Pub. Date: November 2003
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Amber, Carla and Brandy--known as the "ABCs"--are intelligent businesswomen who met in their business support group "The Savvy Sistahs Who Mean Business" and became the best of friends. They've bonded over lost loves, past hurts, and too many lonely nights. . .
Amber Stuart escaped an abusive marriage and now finds peace running her small bookstore. But when a man passes out in her establishment, after eating one of her homemade cookies, she'll do anything to avoid a lawsuit, even if it means going into his home and nursing this fine brother back to health. What she doesn't know is that this brother is about to turn her life upside down; Raising a two-year-old son on her own and running the computer business she inherited from her father, Carla Osborne doesn't have time for anything else. Then she finds herself the object of a hostile takeover. And it turns out that she's fighting to save her company from the man she had a one-night stand with all those years ago--the man who happens to be her son's father; After a divorce settlement leaves her the sole owner of the St. Laurent Hotel, Brandy Bennett decides to manage her new business full-time. When she finds herself the object of a deranged stalker her family convinces her to bring in a security expert to help. Enter ex-FBI agent, Grey Masters--and with him a whole lot of drama.
Life is dishing it out hard, but these ladies are determined to hold on to each other.
Rendezvous Eighteenth
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by Jake Lamar
ISBN: 0312289200
Format: Hardcover, 320pp
Pub. Date: November 2003
Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur
Rendezvous Eighteenth marks the emergence of an exciting voice in crime
fiction. Ricky Jenks gave up life in the U.S. years ago and is content, if not
happy, with his life as a piano player in a small caf� in the Montmartre
neighborhood of Paris. He has many friends among the other African-Americans
living in Paris and is happily, if casually, involved with a French Muslim
woman.
But then everything changes. His American life comes crashing down on him when
his estranged cousin wants help finding his runaway wife, whom he thinks might
have come to Paris, even though he's vague about why. That same night Ricky
finds a prostitute dead in his apartment building in Paris's Eighteenth
Arrondissment, one of the most multicultural sections of Paris. That these two
events could be connected is something he never imagines.
This intricate, absorbing thriller is ultimately much more than a suspense
novel. Lamar's detailed and vibrant portrait of life in Paris is as much the
story of a black man's alienation and redemption-indeed, the story of an entire
community searching for a home-as it is a taut thriller about revenge,
obsession, and murder.
Trouble Don't Last Always
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by Francis Ray
ISBN: 0312321635
Format: Paperback, 320pp
Pub. Date: January 2004
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Lilly Crawford files for divorce from her abusive husband and hopes to start life anew in Louisiana with another man, but no such luck; her husband reappears and creates chaos.
"Trouble Don't Last Always is a story of hope and triumph, of self-discovery and second chances. I am very proud of this book which touches on a tough topic... domestic violence. However, rather than focusing on the abuse, Trouble Don't Last Always tells the a story of hope and triumph." �Francis Ray
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St. Martin's Press - Partial List of Books Published
before 2003
http://writers.aalbc.com/SMP_backlist.htm