Best African American Christian Fiction

Stephanie London thought she’d heard from God when she moved to Hope Springs, N.C. Bereft of hope, she travels home to St. Louis as a women’s ministry conference kicks off. As the state of her marriage hangs in the balance, Jillian is suddenly anxious about returning home. But at the end of her college sophomore year, she finds herself in circumstances she never imagined—with a heart that has strayed from God. “The author has a gift for bringing God’s love and light into even the darkest situation.” — Romantic Times (The Color of Hope). The situations might produce some anger, then some tears, but ultimately Tate shows the reader the power of friendship and how God's guidance is the only thing that can shine true light into the world.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Unlike the hugely successful "reality sitcoms" that have taken over TV land, but are no where near real life, the arguments and pursuing fights are plotted and staged for viewership ratings. Kim Cash Tate on the other hand has managed to develop a series of fictional characters with real life scenarios that we can relate to and believe because one or more of the characters are bound to resonate with your own personal life experience(s)."
"He intricately takes those mistakes and use them as a powerful testimony to bless many."
"Kim has the distinct honor of being the first author our book club's read... reading a 'KCT' book is like a family reunion (of sorts)."
"I really enjoyed this authors other books and this one was similar."
"It surely caused me to evaluate the level of my pursuit.....and I realized no matter how long I'm still in hot pursuit of Christ!!!!"
"Everyone in the club love this book and we actually talked about it."
"I was looking for a book to enjoy for me-time."
"As a married woman just returning from a marriage retreat it resonated with so many of the discussions from the retreat."

On the heels of his first Academy Award nomination, people are already buzzing about his next film. His quest for answers—about who he is and what he’s called to do—leads him to the pastor of Living Hope Church . A widow turned newlywed, she’s enjoying new love in a new city, in her new role as pastor’s wife. And though she’d thought she and the baby’s father would rekindle a relationship, she now wonders if she’s even on his mind—or on God’s mind. “Tate has an amazing gift for getting to the heart and soul of what readers need to hear.” — Romantic Times (Though I Stumble). KIM CASH TATE is the author of several books, including Cling (2017) and Though I Stumble (2016).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"So I will say this when things are challenging in your life or the life of a loved one just think about the mountains you can move, the clarity you could have and the peace of mind which surpasses all understanding if you believe."
"I believe that Kim Cash Tate is an amazing author."
"I read the previous ones and all the characters continue in the next book and then she adds new characters with new stories. In this book, she introduced Alonzo and Cinda and weaved together a beautiful love story out of real life circumstances and tragedy."
"I try to extend out the time when reading her books, they are such EXCELLENT READS, but because they are such page turners, I normally finish within a few days!!! I am never disappointed when reading a book by Kim Cash Tate!!"
"I wasn’t crazy about what happened to Randall but it worked."
"I didn't want the book to end, feeling as if I was immersed in the book, with each character."
"So I've read all of Kim Cash Tate's books and this is one of my favorites. I am already chanting "Book 3, Book 3, Book 3...we want more!!!""
"I haven't even read half of this book yet, but what I've read so far is AMAZING!"

One of the most beloved characters in Christian fiction is back, and Mama B's having a time keeping her attitude in check at a beachfront wedding.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I read the book in two days. I just love reading Mama B."
"I just finished reading Michelle Stimpson book Mama B: A Time for Peace and like all her other work this one didn't disappoint me at all."
"I thoroughly enjoy reading about the life of this anointed woman as she faces each day with knowing so much, but can back off with saying what she wants to say when she listens to the Lord."
"Mama B is a strong christian that acknowledges she's not perfect."
"I fell in love with Mama B reading the first book of the series."
"Thank you Mrs. Stimpson for the always delightful company of Mama B and the great stories that come with her."
"I noticed that the enemy started bothering her after she was weak but also after she brought Whitney to the Lord, he attacked her Son!"
"Standing firm in the faith that there is nothing too big or too small for our God to handle."
Best Christian Chorale Music

* Last Christmas * Let It Snow! Founded in 1947, Hal Leonard Corporation has become the worlds largest print music publisher, representing some of the greatest songwriters and artists of all time.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Now I'm ready for Christmas!"
"We went through the book and picked out the tunes we liked, rehearsed a couple of times (with him on flute, sax and trombone and me on guitar and harmonicas) and did the gigs."
"All tunes use modern chords so I feel they are easy to follow and improvise over."
"I had to download a Kindle ap to use on my iPad, but its a decent fake book."
"Works great on the Kindle App with my iPad Pro X."
"A must have for the holidays."
"Like other reviewers, I found that some of the arrangements seem a bit lazy (just adding a maj7 over the classic chords, for example), but overall the quality is good."
"I always iike the easy to use format of these real books and I can count on good chord choices."
Best African American Urban Fiction

With her beautiful face, full hips and round backside, nothing stands in the way of her confidence. He often wonders if Pita is good enough to settle down with or should he forgive the woman who caused him heartache and pain. Tyshae Owens, is a beautiful and smart nail technician at Luxury Tea. The saying is true, “what glitters isn’t gold.” Will she stay or will she move on to someone who can offer her the love she deserves?
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Natavia did an exceptional job of developing the characters."
"Natavia, this book was awesome!"
"I absolutely love Natavia’s books."
"First I love this was a stand-alone and secondly the issues you touched on."
"This book was very good!!"
"I read this book in one day."
"This is another most read book..women a gross the globe could identify with either one of these character..the issues of today was depicted gracefully and Out was amazing."
"I loved seeing true love prevail and the truth that people stay in relationships for an image or fearful of the opinions of others."
Best African American Historical Fiction

Moments after Lisbeth is born, she’s taken from her mother and handed over to an enslaved wet nurse, Mattie, a young mother separated from her own infant son in order to care for her tiny charge. It's a must-read for anyone whoenjoys Antebellum historical fiction or is looking for a compellingstory to add to their book club reading list." Then the image of Lisbeth, a white baby, breastfeeding in the loving arms of Mattie, an enslaved wetnurse came to me in a flash. Then I imagined what the experience would be like for Miss Anne, the birth mother, to have her own child twist away from her to get into Mattie's arms.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Angry at others- as when Mattie was torn from her family, including her 3 month old baby and was supposed to be pacified by being able to visit them for a few hours on a Sunday, witnessing through the young heroine's eyes the brutal rape of a young slave girl (not graphically depicted) and reading the general attitudes of people on the black/white person/non-person issues common to this time. I believe these scenes that felt more YA were to give us a flavor of what it was like to grow up during this time and don't know of any other way it could have been done if some of the young girl's activities and thoughts (life on a daily basis) weren't represented."
"Lisbeth befriends Mattie's family until her coming out when she must come to terms with the reality of plantation life and the treatment of slaves."
"I enjoyed this book."
"Very enjoyable read."
"Nor is this a book just about the courageous young white woman who broke from her southern roots as a wealthy slave owners daughter...claiming she had become an abolitionist and rejecting the notion that black men, women and children could be rightful 'owned'. The author skillfully, without every directly saying so, illustrated the overarching belief of that time (and certainly for many decades following) that gender as well as skin color dictated ones 'rights of ownership'. Yet even with this limitation, we get a strong heart and soul grasp of what it was like for Mattie, her family and others living as minimized human beings, bought, sold and worked like cattle, brutally separated from their children, mothers and fathers."
"This broke open the closed view of relationships between the two categories of plantation life."
Best African American Women's Fiction

With her beautiful face, full hips and round backside, nothing stands in the way of her confidence. He often wonders if Pita is good enough to settle down with or should he forgive the woman who caused him heartache and pain. Tyshae Owens, is a beautiful and smart nail technician at Luxury Tea. The saying is true, “what glitters isn’t gold.” Will she stay or will she move on to someone who can offer her the love she deserves?
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I loved Yudai and Cream but with Silah you have to understand hurt people hurt people."
"Natavia did an exceptional job of developing the characters."
"Natavia, this book was awesome!"
"I absolutely love Natavia’s books."
"This book was very good!!"
"I read this book in less than 24 hours... 👏👏👏👏🔥🔥🔥🔥."
"This is another most read book..women a gross the globe could identify with either one of these character..the issues of today was depicted gracefully and Out was amazing."
"I loved seeing true love prevail and the truth that people stay in relationships for an image or fearful of the opinions of others."
Best African American Romance

Edge thought that life was perfect having his cake and eating it too, but he potentially learns that sometimes what you think is having it all is really losing what or who is most important. The Harris Men and those connected to them have weaved a tangled web of complicated love, and its getting more intense with every lingering emotion.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book is so real like many others I c the characters and it all just seem so real once I started the first book it didn't take long to love Bronx and Brim they went from dogs to puppies and Edge was atomic dog but it's true a good woman can tame the wildest beast an torren was by far the realist to support an entire family so yes I loved the series!!!!"
"I enjoyed every page of this book."
"I loved the end Bronx is my book bae for life great ending to the series I'm happy everybody got it together in the end I loved it another great series from one of my favorites."
"I swear this series just kept getting better."
"First let me say I love your books boo and this series is no different."
"This was a great book i love the whole series couldnt put book down i love Brook!!"
"Good series but really could have used an epilogue in the end...it felt unfinished...loved Bronx and Reason relationship; he was arrogant and unfiltered but honest and truthful; she was sweet and needed someone to love her like she deserved to be loved; wish they(Bronx and Reason) would have gotten engaged, married, or something; loved Brim and Teague relationship as well and happy that he proposed but wish we knew if they got married, got pregnant, or something...loved Torren and Ayah relationship and wish I knew more about them...Tia was shady but seem like she even got a happy ending with Mel Harris because for once he was trying in this relationship...loved mama OG Harris; I see where Bronx and Brim got their personality from which is good thing...happy and loved Edward and Reese relationship when they finally commented to one another...but still overall in the end we don't know what actually happened to each couple and seem like it was rushed to meat a deadline....O yea happy that Harper got what she deserved too...editing is a problem and the only reason for the 4 stars...Ms. KC you usually leave me with a complete storyline and we don't really have to worried about the future of the characters because there were always a finished story or a epilogue to finish the story up...I hate multi books but this book can really use a extra part."
"Her aunt was delusional about that man who made sexual advances toward her niece. Her aunt heard all the cases that Hank had against him for sexual assault; and still did not believe her niece. I feel we as women should not be that Naive to know that when things like that happen don't be so quick to take the male point of view. Reese was able to move past all the infidelity that Edge did to her."
Best African American Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Fiction

When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders--a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman--have stirred up a hornet's nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes--and save himself in the process--before Lark's long-simmering racial fault lines erupt. Best book of the year from Vulture, The Strand Magazine, Southern Living, Bolo Books, Publisher's Weekly, Book Riot, The Guardian , Lit Hub , The Boston Globe , Dallas News , Milwaukee Journal Sentinel , Minnesota Public Radio, Texas Monthly, The Daily Beast , and the South Florida Sun Sentinel. "Locke writes in a blues-infused idiom that lends a strain of melancholy and a sense of loss to her lyrical style. "― Marilyn Stasio , New York Times Book Review. A rich sense of place and relentless feeling of dread permeate Attica Locke's heartbreakingly resonant new novel about race and justice in America. It rises above "left and right" and "black and white" and follows the threads that inevitably bind us together, even as we rip them apart. This is a layered portrait of a black man confronting his own racial ambivalence and ambition told with a pointed and poignant bluesy lyricism. a story told with Locke's crystal-clear vision and pleasurably elemental prose. Ranger Darren Mathews is tough, honor-bound, and profoundly alive in corrupt world. "Few contemporary writers have portrayed black Southern life with as much wit and heart-pounding drama as Attica Locke. A dazzling work of rural noir that throws into question whether justice can be equally served on both sides of the race line. "Locke pens a poignant love letter to the lazy red-dirt roads and Piney Woods that serve as a backdrop to a noir thriller as murky as the bayous and bloodlines that thread through the region. She is adept at crafting characters who don't easily fit the archetypes of good and evil, but exist in the thick grayness of humanness, the knotty demands of loyalties and the baseness of survival. Locke holds up the mirror of the racial debate in America and shows us how the light bends and fractures what is right, wrong and what simply is the way it is--but perhaps not as it should be. Attica Locke is the author of Pleasantville , which won the 2016 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was long-listed for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction; Black Water Rising , which was nominated for an Edgar Award; and The Cutting Season , a national bestseller and winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. A native of Houston, Texas, Attica lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The protagonist is Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger under suspension for his possible role in the murder of a white drug dealer with ties to the Aryan Brotherhood. But when two bodies – a black lawyer from Chicago and a white local girl – turn up in the little town of Lark, Darren is asked to look into things – at first unofficially, and then with his Texas Ranger’s badge. He is proud of his position as a Texas Ranger, and prouder still of his efforts to protect disenfranchised black Texans and fight the Aryan Brotherhood. It quickly becomes clear that “justice was messier than [he] realized when he’d first pinned a badge to his chest.”. Another fascinating character is Geneva Sweet, who owns the only café in town where black people can feel comfortable eating. I could feel what it must be like to be in this little town, eating barbecue and fried pies at Geneva Sweet’s café, drinking whiskey at the all-white icehouse down the road, and always watching my words for political implications."
"Darren, a black Texas Ranger gets involved in solving two murders in a small town in Texas."
"Keeping track of the names was tedious and I just didn’t care about the characters enough."
"First book that I have read by this author, and it was great."
"Race and all of its complexities are captured in this modern day story of a Texas Ranger navigating the difficult and complicated web of a gruesome crime in East Texas."
"The conflict(s) in this story boiled my blood to the point I felt compelled to keep reading in search of resolution."
"Beautiful language and captures the feel of the land and culture."