“Give. It. To me,” Adella demanded now. As she leaned forward, sticking out her palm to receive it, she smelled liquor on Desmond.“No.” Ignoring her request, Desmond held the silk scarf over the stair banister. Adella’s eyes flapped in horror as it left his fingers, and sailed away from them, to the first floor below. Her nappy hair, unkempt and wild, was exposed. And now she felt naked, even as her fist clinched her robe across her throat. Desmond sucked his lips, and the pupils of his eyes became airplane engines flying toward her. “Aside from lying about how you meet men, and concealing your natural hair, what else do you hide from the rest of the world?”“None of your business. You had no right to do that."“In three days, you’re going to be my wife. You don’t think I have a right to know what's really under there?"Her fist still clutched her silk robe, and she glared at him. "No."Return to the hotbed of riches, rivalries and romance in the Black Hamptons.Boston heart surgeon Adella English has finally built a life outside her family's money. She has even found good love, and is headed toward a life of peace. Until Del receives a staggering phone call that changes everything. Her beloved grandfather is on his death bed. And he wants to leave Adella everything. But he has one specific condition. Bad boy ex-football player Desmond McLain could care less about his family's construction empire. On top of that, he is an outsider to the Sag Harbor elites. He didn't attend an Ivy League university, and didn't grow up dancing at cotillions and galas. When his family demands that he marry a bourgeoisie woman he's never met, he does something despicable that doesn't win him any fans in Sag Harbor.Now, to protect the future of their families, these two strangers must not only share a boardroom and a house, but a bed. A disastrous prison sentence? Or will Desmond tap Adella's secret garden this spring?Follow childhood friends Maddy, Chrissy & Adella as they realize their strength while finding love on their rise to the top. This marriage of convenience, curvy girl, medium-heat romance is Book 3 in the Sag Harbor Black Romances. If you love hit television series Queen Sugar, these are your stories. These books can be read in any order, but are most delicious in sequence.*Strong language & sex are included that may be triggers for some.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The book that galvanized the nation, gave voice to the emerging civil rights movementin the 1960s—and still lights the way to understanding race in America today. • "The finest essay I’ve ever read.” —Ta-Nehisi CoatesAt once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document from the iconic author of If Beale Street Could Talk and Go Tell It on the Mountain. It consists of two "letters," written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as "sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle … all presented in searing, brilliant prose," The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of literature.

Review "Basically the finest essay I’ve ever read. . . . Baldwin refused to hold anyone’s hand. He was both direct and beautiful all at once. He did not seem to write to convince you. He wrote beyond you." —Ta-Nehisi Coates"So eloquent in its passion and so scorching in its candor that it is bound to unsettle any reader." —The Atlantic From the Publisher "So eloquent in its passion and so scorching in its candor that it is bound to unsettle any reader."--The Atlantic --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From the Back Cover "Baldwin uses words as the sea uses waves, to flow and beat, advance and retreat, rise and take a bow in disappearing....The thought becomes poetry and the poetry illuminates the thought." --Langston Hughes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Amazon.com Review It's shocking how little has changed between the races in this country since 1963, when James Baldwin published this coolly impassioned plea to "end the racial nightmare." The Fire Next Time--even the title is beautiful, resonant, and incendiary. "Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?" Baldwin demands, flicking aside the central race issue of his day and calling instead for full and shared acceptance of the fact that America is and always has been a multiracial society. Without this acceptance, he argues, the nation dooms itself to "sterility and decay" and to eventual destruction at the hands of the oppressed: "The Negroes of this country may never be able to rise to power, but they are very well placed indeed to precipitate chaos and ring down the curtain on the American dream." Baldwin's seething insights and directives, so disturbing to the white liberals and black moderates of his day, have become the starting point for discussions of American race relations: that debasement and oppression of one people by another is "a recipe for murder"; that "color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality"; that whites can only truly liberate themselves when they liberate blacks, indeed when they "become black" symbolically and spiritually; that blacks and whites "deeply need each other here" in order for America to realize its identity as a nation. Yet despite its edgy tone and the strong undercurrent of violence, The Fire Next Time is ultimately a hopeful and healing essay. Baldwin ranges far in these hundred pages--from a memoir of his abortive teenage religious awakening in Harlem (an interesting commentary on his first novel Go Tell It on the Mountain) to a disturbing encounter with Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad. But what binds it all together is the eloquence, intimacy, and controlled urgency of the voice. Baldwin clearly paid in sweat and shame for every word in this text. What's incredible is that he managed to keep his cool. --David Laskin --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From the Inside Flap A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two "letters," written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as "sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle...all presented in searing, brilliant prose," The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of our literature. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. About the Author JAMES BALDWIN (1924-1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, appeared in 1953 to excellent reviews, and his essay collections Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time were bestsellers that made him an influential figure in the growing civil rights movement. Baldwin spent much of his life in France, where he moved to escape the racism and homophobia of the United States. He died in France in 1987, a year after being made a Commander of the French Legion of Honor. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Publishers Weekly Speakers or headsets will have to be turned up to listen to Jesse L. Martin's low, slow reading of Baldwin's classic long essay on racism and African-American identity. Martin seeks to be respectful of Baldwin, but he ends up rendering the meaning and the force of his work relatively inert. Pausing in poorly selected places, placing emphasis where little should be placed, Martin does not convey the precision and anger of Baldwin's prose. Instead, Baldwin's book becomes Great Literature, to be intoned and honored, but not truly grasped. Readers with an interest in Baldwin's work will be far better served by reading his prose to themselves than having Martin read it to them. A Vintage paperback.(Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From AudioFile There are few books that evoke the dreams and motivations of the "Age of Aquarius" as clearly as Baldwin's polemic on race and the future. Actor Jesse L. Martin effectively re-creates the tone and tenor of the author's view of America at the beginning of the 1960s. Martin chooses to eschew accents and flowery modulations and sticks to the story of Baldwin's fascinating encounter with Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad and his own search for spiritual meaning in an America filled with racial strife. Most striking is Baldwin's reference to Robert Kennedy's prediction that a black man would become the nation's president sometime in the next forty years. THE FIRE NEXT TIME was published in 1963. R.O. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Illuminates how the preservation of slavery was a motivating factor for the Revolutionary WarThe successful 1776 revolt against British rule in North America has been hailed almost universally as a great step forward for humanity. But the Africans then living in the colonies overwhelmingly sided with the British. In this trailblazing book, Gerald Horne shows that in the prelude to 1776, the abolition of slavery seemed all but inevitable in London, delighting Africans as much as it outraged slaveholders, and sparking the colonial revolt. Prior to 1776, anti-slavery sentiments were deepening throughout Britain and in the Caribbean, rebellious Africans were in revolt. For European colonists in America, the major threat to their security was a foreign invasion combined with an insurrection of the enslaved. It was a real and threatening possibility that London would impose abolition throughout the colonies—a possibility the founding fathers feared would bring slave rebellions to their shores. To forestall it, they went to war. The so-called Revolutionary War, Horne writes, was in part a counter-revolution, a conservative movement that the founding fathers fought in order to preserve their right to enslave others. The Counter-Revolution of 1776 brings us to a radical new understanding of the traditional heroic creation myth of the United States.

Review "The Counter-Revolution of 1776 shows the centrality of slavery in colonial American life, north as well as south. It demonstrates how enslaved peoples struggles merged with international and imperial politics as the British empire frayed. Gerald Horne finds among white American revolutionaries people who wanted to defend slavery against real threats. He addresses how in the United States, alone among the new western hemisphere republics, slavery thrived rather than waned, until its cataclysmic destruction during the Civil War." ? Edward Countryman, Southern Methodist University"Nearly everything about Gerald Homes lively The Counter-Revolution of 1776, from the questions asked to the comparisons drawn, is provocative. And if Professor Home is right, nearly everything American historians thought we knew about the birth of the nation is wrong." ? Woody Holton, author of Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in"This utterly original book argues that story of the American Revolution has been told without a major piece of the puzzle in place. The rise of slavery and the British empire created a pattern of imperial war, slave resistance, and arming of slaves that led to instability and, ultimately, an embrace of independence. Horne integrates the British West Indies, Florida, and the entire colonial period with recent work on the Carolinas and Virginia; the result is a larger synthesis that puts slave-based profits and slave restiveness front and center. The Americans re-emerge not just as anti-colonial free traders but as particularly devoted to an emerging color line and to their control over the future of a slavery based economy. A remarkable and important contribution to our understanding of the creation of the United States." ? David Waldstreicher, Temple University"The Counter-Revolution of 1776 asks us to rethink the fundamental narrative of American history and to interrogate nationalist myths. Horne demands that historians consider slavery not as the exception to the republican promise of the American Revolution but rather as the norm insofar as protecting slavery was a fundamental cause of colonial revolt." ? The New England Quarterly"History books have painted a narrative of the U.S. founding that any student can recite: Colonists, straining against the tyranny of the British crown, revolted in the name of freedom, liberty and justice for all. But in recent years, historians have revisited that conventional story, examining the important role slaves played for Britain in its quest to quell colonists. Now, in a new book, historian Gerald Horne argues it was the desire to maintain slavery that was the prime motivator of the uprising . . . . Horne revisit[s] the period leading up to 1776 to find out how slavery in North America and the British colonies influenced the revolution." ? The Kojo Nnamdi Show, DC Public Radio"In a refreshing take on the independence movement, Horne places slavery and its expansion in North American during the early eighteenth century at the center if the conflict between London and its increasingly nervous and truculent colonies across the Atlantic . . . . This is an important book for both its novelty in a crowded field and its implications . . . . Eminently readable, this is a book that should be on any undergraduate reading list and deserves to be taken very seriously in the ongoing discussion as to the American republic's origins." ? The American Historical Review"Horne, Moores Professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Houston, confidently and convincingly reconstructs the origin myth of the United States grounded in the context of slavery . . . . Horne's study is rich, not dry; his research is meticulous, thorough, fascinating, and thought-provoking. Horne emphasizes the importance of considering this alternate telling of our American origin myth and how such a founding still affects our nation today." ? STARRED Publishers Weekly"In The Counter Revolution of 1776, Horne marshals considerable research to paint a picture of a U.S. that wasn't founded on liberty, with slavery as an uncomfortable and aberrant remnant of a pre-Enlightenment past, but rather was founded on slavery as a defense of slavery with the language of liberty and equality used as window dressing. If hes right, in other words, then the traditional narrative of the creation of the U.S. is almost completely wrong." ? Salon.com"[I]t is Horne's book that has the most to teach about the complex intersections of race, class, religion, and ethnicity." ? Cambridge Humanities Review"With The Counter-Revolution of 1776, Gerald Horne refigures the origins of the American & revolution to offer a challenging and potentially explosive critique of foundational myths of liberty and rebellion." ? American Historical Review"Gerald Horne's Counter Revolution of 1776 is a critical contribution in the struggle for clarity around one of the most misconceived periods of history. Horne's work provides the vast historical narrative that proves how this premise is false. He centers his analysis on the inherently counter-revolutionary nature of what led to the colonists desire for succession." ? Black Agenda Report"Horne returns with insights about the American Revolution that fracture even more some comforting myths about the Founding Fathers.The author does not tiptoe through history's grassy fields; he swings a scythe . . . . Clear and sometimes-passionate prose shows us the persistent nastiness underlying our founding narrative." ? Kirkus Reviews"The Counter Revolution of 1776 drives us to a radical new understanding of the traditional heroic creation myth of the United States." ? Philadelphia Tribune"The underlying truth of the 'so-called' American Revolution is finally now out of the bag, and told in its fullest glory for the first time here. And what Professor Horne has discovered through meticulous research is nothing short of revolutionary in itself." ? OpEdNews"Every personcommitted to the struggle for racial justice, liberation, and equality, and who struggles every day with the difficulties of forging unity between Black and white, needs to read this book." ? Portside.org --This text refers to the hardcover edition. About the Author Gerald Horne is Moores Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, and has published three dozen books including, The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the USA and Race War! White Supremacy and the Japanese Attack on the British Empire. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Finalist • PEN / Jean Stein Book AwardLonglisted • Aspen Words Literary PrizeBest Books of the Year: Washington Post, NPR, Buzzfeed and EntropyBest Short Story Collections of the Year: Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, the New York Public Library, and Electric LiteratureWelcome to Cross River, Maryland, where Rion Amilcar Scott creates a mythical universe peopled by some of the most memorable characters in contemporary American fiction.Set in the mythical Cross River, Maryland, The World Doesn’t Require You heralds “a major unique literary talent” (Entertainment Weekly). Established by the leaders of America’s only successful slave revolt in the mid-nineteenth century, the town still evokes the rhythms of its founding. With lyrical prose and singular dialect, Rion Amilcar Scott pens a saga that echoes the fables carried down for generations—like the screecher birds who swoop down for their periodic sacrifice, and the water women who lure men to wet death.Among its residents—wildly spanning decades, perspectives, and species—are David Sherman, a struggling musician who just happens to be God’s last son; Tyrone, a ruthless, yet charismatic Ph.D. candidate, whose dissertation about a childhood game ignites mayhem in the neighboring, once-segregated town of Port Yooga; and Jim, an all-too-obedient robot who obeys his Master. Culminating with an explosive novella, The World Doesn’t Require You is a “leap into a blazing new level of brilliance” (Lauren Groff) that affirms Rion Amilcar Scott as a writer whose storytelling gifts the world very much requires.