"A dazzling debut novel from an exciting new voice, The Mothers is a surprising story about young love, a big secret in a small community--and the things that ultimately haunt us most. Set within a contemporary black community in Southern California, Brit Bennett's mesmerizing first novel is an emotionally perceptive story about community, love, and ambition. It begins with a secret. "All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd...

Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Now, facing pressures from all sides of the community, Starr tries to find her voice in order to stand up for what's right.

Erykah was looking forward to junior year at East Prep High-- until she gets pregnant. Having a baby at sixteen was definitely not part of the plan. Kelly's plan was to dominate junior year grade-wise and on the basketball court, so she can get an athletic scholarship. She intends to be a good auntie, and help Erykah through the pregnancy. Along the way they'll learn some harsh realities about the world, be forced to make some huge decisions-- and...

"Opal Pruitt is just about to turn 18 in the oppressively hot summer of 1936. She works hard at her job, takes care of her beloved Granny, and dreams about boys with her cousin Lucille. The young black teenager's journey to adulthood will be forged in fire, though, as the Ku Klux Klan attacks her Colored Town neighborhood and she endures a vicious beating at the hands of an unknown white attacker. Although slavery is over, Parsons, Georgia is still...

While on a post-graduation Mediterranean cruise with her family, Lenore Bennett meets a hopeless romantic with a ten-year plan who helps her find something she's been looking for--love. A star artist and style icon at her high school, Lenore Bennett is a master in the subtle art of not giving a... well, you know what. But now that graduation is here, she's a little less sure. Heading to NYU in the fall with a scarlet U (for "undeclared") written...

Summer Uzoma's parents went on the run after they were accused of committing a crime, leaving her behind. She has been alternating stays with her friends' families, and secretly visits her old home. But she's fine: she has her skateboard and her bus pass. She just has to turn eighteen in a few weeks and then she'll truly be free. Then a nosy social worker arranges for Summer to be living with her cousin Olu-- someone she hasn't seen in years: a famous...

As a preacher's daughter, Monique is expected to be an example at church although she hates its restrictive rules. When she discovers she physically cannot have sex, and after her boyfriend breaks up with her for that reason, two unexpected teens from church become her main supports as she desperately tries to break the rules against all the odds.

As high school junior Michie plans for her future and explores a new relationship, she tries to reconcile with some uncomfortable truths about her life which becomes more complicated when she is contacted by her estranged mother. Michie has been estranged from her mother since she was seven, and her concept of family has long felt murky. Now a high school junior, she is struggling with her scholarship essays, trying at making it into Brown as a first-generation...

Sixteen-year-old Rasheed is smart, tough and a survivor. In his neighborhood, he has to be. The streets are run by a gang called the E Street Locals, and they've been trying to jump him in since he was a child. So far, he's managed to escape their clutches. But the gang is not his only problem. Rasheed's sister, Daneeka, was paralyzed in a drive-by shooting, and now she's confined to a wheelchair, mentally frozen at the age of nine. His mother is...

"It is 1937, and Laura Ann Langston lives in an America divided--between those who work the mystical arts and those who do not. Ever since the Great Rust, a catastrophic event that blighted the arcane force called the Dynamism and threw America into disarray, the country has been rebuilding for a better future. And everyone knows the future is industry and technology--otherwise known as Mechomancy--not the traditional mystical arts. Laura disagrees....