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The House Behind the Cedars (1900) is African-American writer Charles Chesnutt's debut novel. Inspired by his own experience as a Black man capable of passing for white-which Chesnutt consciously chose not to do-as well as by Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, The House Behind the Cedars explores themes of identity, race, and class in the post-Civil War South.
Controversial for its portrayal of interracial romance, Chesnutt's novel was critically acclaimed...
Author
Language
English
Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • From the bestselling author of The Sense of an Ending comes an “extraordinary … first rate” novel (The New York Times Book Review) that follows the lives of two very different British men and explores the grand tapestry of late-Victorian Britain.
As boys, George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, living in shabby genteel Edinburgh, find themselves...
As boys, George, the son of a Midlands vicar, and Arthur, living in shabby genteel Edinburgh, find themselves...
Author
Series
The Scarlet Alchemist volume Book 1
Language
English
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Description
In an alternate Tang Dynasty China, aspiring royal alchemist Zilan, who has the ability to resurrect the dead, arrives in the capital to compete against the best alchemists in the country and becomes drawn into the dangerous political games of the royal family.
Author
Language
English
Description
"A woman wondering who she really is goes in search of a father she never knew--only to find something far more complicated than she ever expected--in this "stirring narrative about family, our capacity to change and the need to belong" (Time). Anna is at a stage of her life when she's beginning to wonder who she really is. In her 40s, she has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up, and her mother--the only parent who raised her--is...
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Language
English
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After her mother's suicide, grief-stricken Leigh Sanders travels to Taiwan to stay with grandparents she never met, determined to find her mother who she believes turned into a bird.
Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: when her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird. When she travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time, Leigh is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds...
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English
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"A landmark in the history of African-American fiction, this gripping 1901 novel was among the first literary challenges to racial stereotypes. Its tragic history of two families unfolds against the backdrop of the post-Reconstruction South and climaxes with a race riot based on an actual 1898 incident. One of America's first great African-American novelists, Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932) exposed the harsh dimensions of Southern prejudice before...
7) Half a heart
Author
Language
English
Description
An unforgettable novel about race and motherhood from the bestselling author of Before and After
Once a Civil Rights activist, Miriam Vener feels trapped in the comfortable upper-middle-class life she leads with her family in Houston in the 1980s. That life suddenly shatters with the appearance, after almost eighteen years, of Veronica (Ronnee), Miriam's biracial daughter born of her passionate affair a generation ago with Eljay, a brilliant black...
8) Passing
Author
Language
English
Description
"Nella Larsen's second novel, Passing, first published in 1929, is a fascinating exploration of race and identity set amidst the blossoming Harlem Renaissance. Irene Redfield is a Black woman living an affluent, comfortable life with her husband and children in the thriving neighborhood of Harlem in the 1920s. When she reconnects with her childhood friend Clare Kendry, who is similarly light-skinned, Irene discovers that Clare has been passing for...
Author
Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
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"Let Us Descend is a reimagining of American slavery, as beautifully rendered as it is heart-wrenching. Searching, harrowing, replete with transcendent love, the novel is a journey from the rice fields of the Carolinas to the slave markets of New Orleans and into the fearsome heart of a Louisiana sugar plantation. Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, is the reader's guide through this hellscape. As she struggles through the miles-long...
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English
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Nella Larsen was an important writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance. While she was not prolific, her work was powerful and critically acclaimed. Collected here are both, of her novels, 'Passing' and 'Quicksand'. 'Quicksand', was autobiographical in nature and examined a woman's need for sexual fulfilment balanced against respectability and acceptance amid a deeply religious society. The novel is deeply pessimistic and ends as the protagonist...
11) Jubilee
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A novel based on the life of the author's great-grandmother follows the story of Vyry, the child of a white plantation owner and one of his slaves, through the years of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
12) Ramona
Author
Language
English
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Description
Ramona (1884) is a novel by Helen Hunt Jackson. Inspired by her activism for the rights of Native Americans, Ramona is a story of racial discrimination, survival, and history set in California in the aftermath of the Mexican American War. Immensely popular upon publication, Ramona earned favorable comparisons to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and remains an influential sentimental novel to this day. Orphaned after the death of her foster...
13) Pretty fierce
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
After being jumped by a hit man, Kaia's secret life as the child of professional assassins is revealed to her clueless boyfriend Oliver as the two go on the run looking for Kaia's missing parents.
14) Quicksand
Author
Publisher
Penguin Books
Pub. Date
2002
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
From the acclaimed Harlem Renaissance author of Passing, a novel of one mixed-race woman's far-reaching quest to discover identity and happiness.
At twenty-three, Helga Crane teaches in 1920s Georgia at one of the country's finest colleges for African Americans, and she's engaged to a fellow teacher. Yet happiness eludes her. And when she can't take the snobbish, conformist atmosphere one second more, she breaks off her relationship with her...
Author
Language
English
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Description
"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Tinkers, a novel inspired by the true story of Malaga Island, an isolated island off the coast of Maine that became one of the first racially integrated towns in the Northeast. In 1792, formerly enslaved Benjamin Honey and his Irish wife, Patience, discover an island where they can make a life together. Over a century later, the Honeys' descendants and a diverse group of neighbors are desperately poor, isolated,...
16) Light in August
Author
Language
English
Description
A novel about hopeful perseverance in the face of mortality, features some of Faulkner's most memorable characters: guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower, who is plagued by visions of Confederate horesemen; and Joe Christmas, a desperate, enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancentry.
17) Shallow graves
Author
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Formats
Description
After waking in a shallow grave, Breezy, a high school senior, crosses the country seeking answers about her death and resurrection, discovering along the way a host of supernatural creatures, as well as a human cult determined to "free" them at any cost.
18) Court of Fives
Author
Series
Court of Fives trilogy volume 1
Language
English
Description
When a scheming lord tears Jess's family apart, she must rely on her unlikely friendship with Kal, a high-ranking Patron boy, and her skill at Fives, an intricate, multi-level athletic competition that offers a chance for glory, to protect her Commoner mother and mixed-race sisters and save her father's reputation.
Author
Series
All these monsters volume 2
Language
English
Formats
Description
While trying to expose a private security firm hired by the government to weaponize scrabs, Clara and Team Seven face their biggest threat yet--their own demons.
When the world was crumbling, Clara escaped her abusive home and joined Team Seven, a monster-fighting squad of runaways and misfits. They discovered the sinister truth behind the scrab invasion: they're being trained and weaponized by MDG, a private security firm hired by the government....
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