Washoe County Library System

"In the summer of 1995, ten-year-old Joan, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father's violence to the only place they have left: her mother's ancestral home in Memphis. Half a century ago, Joan's grandfather built this majestic house for her grandmother--only to be lynched, days after becoming the first Black detective in Memphis, by his all-white police squad. This wasn't the first time violence altered the course of Joan's family's trajectory,...

"With the opening line of Silver Sparrow, My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist, author Tayari Jones unveils a ...story about a man s deception, a family's complicity, and two teenage girls caught in the middle. Set in a middle-class neighborhood in Atlanta in the 1980s, the novel revolves around James Witherspoon's two families the public one and the secret one. When the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, only one of them...

When an African American family decides to spend the summer in a small beach town, they discover that they are being stalked by evil doppelgängers of themselves.

"The Hurston-Wright Award Finalist makes her long-awaited return with this electrifying saga—as moving and indelible as The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, The Turner House, and The Love Songs of W. E. B. DuBois—that explores three generations of a family trying to overcome trials and trauma and free themselves from the darkness of the past. Lottie Rebecca Lee is spoken into the world in Fayetteville, North Carolina by a Black nurse who declares, “Lord...

In this loving ode to the color brown, a boy describes the many beautiful hues of his family.

A tale inspired by The Great Gatsby is set in the contemporary South and follows the difficulties endured by an extended black family with colliding visions of the American dream. A first novel by the author of We Are Taking Only What We Need.

When Madea and her family travel to Georgia for a reunion, things take a sudden unexpected turn when they end up planning a funeral which leads to the discovery of family secrets.

An homage to the author's mother relates how she cleverly played Detroit's illegal lottery in the 1970s to support the family while creating a loving, joyful home and mothering her children to the highest standards.

Drought has gripped the quiet Kentucky town of Hollyhill, and the Brooke and Hearndon families are undergoing many changes.

A Black father makes amends with his gay son through letters written on his deathbed in this wise and penetrating novel of empathy and forgiveness, for fans of Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robert Jones Jr. and Alice Walker As Jacob lies dying, he begins to write a letter to his only son, Isaac. They have not met or spoken in many years, and there are things that Isaac must know. Stories about his ancestral legacy in rural Arkansas that extend back to slavery....