Showing results by narrator "Mela Lee" in All Categories

New York Times-bestselling author Elijah Wald, one of the most wide-ranging and respected writers on blues and popular music, traces the beginnings of the music that became our national soundtrack. Using Morton’s life and songs as a connecting thread, Jelly Roll Blues suggests an alternate history of blues and jazz, surveying a world of Black and working class culture that at times seems startlingly modern.

Vincent, having grown up as the privileged daughter of artists, has a lovely life in many ways. At forty-four, she enjoys strolling the streets of Paris and teaching at the modern art museum; she has a vibrant group of friends; and she's even caught the eye of a charismatic young man named Loup. But Vincent is also in Paris to escape a painful betrayal: her husband, Cillian, has published a bestselling book divulging secrets about their marriage and his own past, hinting that when he was a teenager, he may have had a child with a young woman back in Dublin.

Determined to uncover who killed the Western Queen, fae warrior Briata Catullus sets out on a mission to defeat the witch hunters and safeguard her princess. But when she arrives at the Western Court, things are even worse than she feared. The icy reception from the fae is the least of her problems—they’ve heard the prophecy that Bri will seize the crown from its sovereign, and the last thing they want is for her to usurp the throne. No, the witch hunters are out for royal blood, and it will take everything Bri has to keep them at bay.

All chef Nina Lyon wants is to make a name for herself in the culinary world and inspire young women everywhere to do the same. For too long, she’s been held back and underestimated by the male-dominated sphere of professional kitchens, and she's had enough. Now, as co-host of the competitive reality TV series The Next Cooking Champ!, she finally has a real shot at being top tier in the foodie scene.

Women including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Sanger, and Sheryl Sandberg are commonly celebrated as leaders of feminism. Yet they have fought for the few, not the many. As award-winning scholar Kyla Schuller argues, their White feminist politics dispossess the most marginalized to liberate themselves. In The Trouble with White Women, Schuller brings to life the 200-year counter-history of Black, Indigenous, Latina, poor, queer, and trans women pushing back against White feminists and uniting to dismantle systemic injustice.

If allowed, Neelo Emberspear would never leave the library. Reluctant to take the throne despite their mother’s faltering health, the neurodivergent bookworm craves escape from their arranged marriage to charming fae warrior Talhan Catullus. They know their duty can be put off no longer when their mother, the drug-addled queen, disastrously lights the castle on fire.

A sharp-witted and deeply insightful look into the storied world of elite prep schools from the first African American legacy student to graduate from the Taft School. In Admissions, Kendra looks back at the three years she spent at Taft, chronicling clashes with her lily-White roommate, how she had to unlearn the respectability politics she'd been raised with, and the fallout from a horrifying article in the student newspaper that accused Black and Latinx students of being responsible for segregation of campus.

In the fifth and final novel in the Five Crowns of Okrith romantasy series from bestselling author A.K. Mulford, a young fae warrior is hellbent on winning the Eastern Court crown. But when her fated lover—and hated nemesis—Ersan enters the trials, she struggles to balance the competition and the chance at love. The crown is calling her name, but can her head bear the weight when passion sets her heart racing?

For Renee “Nay” Favreau, food is life. She’s the owner of a Los Angeles taco truck who dreams of becoming a respected chef and expanding her fleet, and whose greatest enemy is an unhappy food critic. Always hunting for her next great dish, the search eventually leads her to a near-fatal encounter with an interdimensional spider. Awaking in a strange world where words appear before her eyes, a talking tentacle befriends her, and people are trying to kill her, Nay learns she has the ability to become an Epicurist.

Prince Leander of Alinor boarded a ship to make his family’s traditional pilgrimage to the Isles of the Gods, to strengthen the goddess Barrica. The Mellaceans had other ideas. Only Selly, the prince and I survived from that ship. We fled from Laskia and her crew, were chased across the Crescent Sea, and arrived at the Isles with only moments to spare. There, at the Isle of the Mother, we believed we witnessed Laskia’s death. We were wrong.

In this glittering triptych novel, Suzette, Maple and Agnes, three Black women with albinism, call Shreveport, Louisiana home. At the bustling crossroads of the American South and Southwest, these three women find themselves at the crossroads of their own lives. A searing meditation on grief, female strength, and self‑discovery, Nobody's Magic is a testament to the power of family—the ones you're born into and the ones you choose. And in these three narratives, among the yearning and loss, each of these women may find a seed of hope for the future.

Death was everywhere. They all stared at me, bumping into one another and slowly coming forward. Sixteen-year-old Zharie Young is absolutely certain her mother morphed into a zombie before her untimely death, but she can't seem to figure out why. Why her mother died, why her aunt doesn't want her around, why all her dreams seem suddenly, hopelessly out of reach. And why, ever since that day, she's been seeing zombies everywhere.

It began with a comet. They called it Cain, a wandering star that passed by Earth, illuminating the night with a swampy green light and twinning the sky by day with two suns. A year later, Earth spun through the debris field the comet left behind.

The epic history of African American women's pursuit of political power - and how it transformed America.

Serena, Michelle, Kenya, and Lynette have been best friends since they were small children. And as sister friends forever, they have always been there for one another, through good times and bad, no matter what. This year is a crucial turning point for each woman. Serena, still single, is questioning why love hasn’t found her yet. Michelle is engaged and ready to walk down the aisle—until an old flame strolls back into her life. Kenya is happily married, but at the same time, her husband’s ex-wife won’t allow them or their family to live in peace.

In the 1970s, gay men and lesbians were openly despised and drag queens scared the public. Yet that was the era when Doris Fish (born Philip Mills in 1952) painted and padded his way to stardom. He was a leader of the generation that prepared the world not just for drag queens on TV but for a society that welcomes and even celebrates queer people. How did we get from there to here? In Who Does That Bitch Think She Is? Craig Seligman looks at Doris’s short but overstuffed life as a way to provide some answers.

Shania never thinks much about being White. But after her beloved grandmother passes, she moves to the gentrifying town of Blue Rock and is thrust into Bard, the city's wealthiest private school. At Bard, race is both invisible and hypervisible, and Shania's new friends are split on what they see. There's Catherine, the school's queen bee, who unexpectedly takes Shania under her wing. Then there's Prescott, the golden boy who seems perfect...except for the disturbing rumors about an altercation he had with a Black student who left the school.

Teacher Stella Marshall’s summer break has just began, but the gossip is already sizzling: Luke Keegan’s back in town! Stella’s high school crush is all grown up and smolderingly sexy. She might even consider a fling with the former Navy SEAL, if she hadn’t already sworn off all romantic entanglements. But there isn’t a single thing she can do to stop the rumor mill whispering about her and Luke being together—unless . . . A showmance!

Maggie hasn't told this story in years. More than two decades ago, she fell in love. She was 16 and far from home, waiting to give her baby up for adoption. Bryce showed Maggie how to take photographs, and he didn't judge her for the way her belly swelled under her jumper. They had the perfect first kiss. Theirs was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. Now, as Maggie sits by the Christmas tree in her gallery telling her story, surrounded by the photographs that made her famous - the photographs Bryce never saw - her new gallery assistant asks her a question.

Who was at the forefront of women's right to vote? We know a few famous names, like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but what about so many others from diverse backgrounds—Black, Asian, Latinx, Native American, and more—who helped lead the fight for suffrage? On the 100th anniversary of the historic win for women's rights, it's time to celebrate the names and stories of the women whose stories have yet to be told.