Award Winner: 2018 Best Book Awards Fiction: Multicultural
Trouble always came for "Champagne" Sánchez…this time, the law was on trouble’s side. Whether it is his attempts to make a living selling fireworks, vacuum cleaners or burritos, things can, and do, go terribly wrong. "The Fall and Rise of ‘Champagne’ Sánchez," is a fast-paced modern narrative, set in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is a “rags to riches to rejection to redemption” story. The witness to Champagne’s Fall is his cousin, the street-smart newspaper reporter, Adelita Chávez. The chronicler not only of the struggles of her cousin, but the scribe of her own observations of life around her (in the form of ‘Journal Entries’); she writes of the pain of watching her mother deal with breast cancer and describes characters in the barrio from Doña Mariluz to Magdalena Moya.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Fiction: Multicultural
The year is 1964 and Carl Gordon is an ill-prepared New York Assistant U.S. Attorney who has lied his way into a transfer to Stockville, Alabama, where he is supposed to monitor and enforce the Civil Rights Act. In a matter of days, the Ku Klux Klan takes aim at him, the outside agitator. Carl has agreed to represent Oleatha Geary, a black family matriarch who has inherited a mansion in an all-white, race-restricted neighborhood. Carl and Oleatha are engulfed in litigation that turns deadly. Meanwhile, Carl and Oleatha's daughter, Lenore, find themselves in a blossoming romance opposed by everyone, white and Black. Heroism for hatred, controversy in death, friendship and forbidden love fill the pages of this remarkable tale of societal ills, culture clashes and political change.
"As I read Black Hearts White Minds, I was reminded by turns of Harper Lee, Willie Morris, and John Grisham. Like Grisham, Mitch Margo is an attorney; like Morris, he's a former journalist, and like Lee, his writing is evocative with a moral center straight and true. With our new president publicly insulting Civil Rights icon John Lewis and the new administration looking to reverse 50 years of progress, this Civil Rights era page-turner is a must read." - Richard H. Weiss, Former Daily Features Editor, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"At once magical and poignant and terrifying ...You will be enchanted by this powerful story." - Michael A. Kahn, Award-winning Author, Rachel Gold Mysteries Series
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Fiction: Multicultural
Weaving together the real and the fantastic, the linked stories in this collection introduce a diverse group of characters living in an urban neighborhood surrounding Martin Luther King, Junior Boulevard. A once middle-class, predominantly African American area, the neighborhood became riddled with poverty but is now in the midst of gentrification.
In the 15 stories in this collection, faith plays a key role, either through traditional religion, spirituality linked to nature or belief in the promise of a better life. The stories also present a microcosm of many neighborhoods in cities throughout the country, in which people of different races, ethnicities, class and sexual orientation are living in close proximity to one another, with neighbors being both strangers and friends.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Fiction: Multicultural
Raman reveals the struggle involved in changing nations and keeping heart; she shows us that no culture is isolated from the universal truths of love and loss.—Sylvia E. Halloran, editor, poet, and winner of Barnes and Noble’s Independent Thinking Essay Contest
In this heartfelt collection of twenty-two stories, a mother and daughter slowly begin to understand their different perspectives on life, love, and happiness.
Maya has sacrificed much happiness for her daughter, Jeena. She left India to immigrate to America with her diplomat husband and tried to embrace her new country with open arms. And when tragedy strikes, she strives to make a stable life for her daughter.
Jeena, who straddles the divide of cultural displacement, struggles to reconcile the more common American displays of affection with her traditional mother’s seemingly strict and cold nature. Maybe, Jeena stubbornly thinks, if her mother had kissed her father more, he wouldn’t have left for dangerous places. But Jeena eventually begins to recognize the small, subtle ways her mother made her affection known.
Journey forward and back through the years as Maya and Jeena navigate love, loss, and resolution. It will take two open hearts for these women to close the gap wrought by heritage.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Fiction: Multicultural
Stockton Clay, an ambitious young automotive journalist, receives a mysterious invitation to the world premiere of a secret prototype supercar. The half-Asian, half-Caucasian Clay, who was adopted as an infant and is desperate to find his own place in the world, sees this invitation as the break he had long been waiting for. At the gala event in Southern France, one of his colleagues is killed in a bizarre accident, and Clay is secretly led to CIA agents who tell him that he was the real target in the murder. Clay then discovers he suffers from a rare disease that can only be cured by the blood cells from a direct relative. Clay's search for his biological father leads him to Japan, where he is caught in the crossfire between the CIA and a mad Russian scientist trying to sway the balance of world power.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Fiction: Multicultural
FBI Special Agent Samantha Wright inherits the case of her life when her mentor at the Bureau dies, leaving her compelled to finish the case in his memory. The case forces her to cross paths with Will Little Bear, a Cheyenne Indian guide who stumbled upon the latest victim, a young Native American boy, on his Reservation.
As an expert FBI Profiler, Special Agent Wright pursues the serial killer, forcing her to leave the comfort of her Washington DC office and travel to the wilderness of Montana during one of its most extreme winters. Her mission is to prevent more innocent boys from falling victim to the killer, but in order to do that, she needs the help of Will Little Bear and his knowledge of the vast landscape.
The journey for Sam and Will ensues with a blending of cultures, while enduring all the harsh Montana terrain can throw at them. Can Sam and Will track down the killer and bring justice to the Native American tribes? The determination to bring the case to fruition brings Sam and Will to the realization that anything worth having is worth waiting for.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Fiction: Multicultural
In the heart of the California wine country, secrets seem to grow on the vines that Uriel Macon's family have tended for generations.
Uriel, the winery's young widower, steers clear of complicated relationships. He prefers the lonely comfort of his vineyard and his horses, until he is reminded of his love affair with Amanda Scanlon; a relationship that ended when she abruptly left the country years ago under a cloud of mystery.
When Amanda returns to Sonoma because of a family crisis, she tries to mend the broken relationships she left behind. In addition, she seeks the truth about her parents' complicated history and her own parentage.
But Amanda's unveiling of the past has devastating consequences. In the midst of California's beautiful Sonoma Valley, the Scanlon family struggles to overcome harsh realities with dignity and grace.
Both Amanda and Uriel stretch to take care of their families, which are facing immigration issues, marital crises, and loss. While navigating these challenges, the couple must decide if they trust themselves to love again, or to finally let each other go.
A Sonoma local, author Joanell Serra's debut novel is captivating, poignant, and uplifting, demonstrating how seeds planted long ago continue to grow. Sometimes into a strangling weed, sometimes offering a bountiful harvest.
As Keaka’s visions bring back painful memories of their crazy mother and broken-hearted father, she risks losing herself to the chaos within. When their grandmother is put into a coma brought on by an ancient Hawai’ian curse, Keaka and her brother, Alika, must go on a perilous journey seeking help from the gods to save what is left of their family. With strength from Alika and an unlikely stranger, the trio must find a way to destroy a sacred artifact that will bring Mama back from her never-ending sleep or face being alone forever.
This is an inspirational and contemporary story of a young, African-American girl who goes to visit her grandma for a family reunion. While there, she tries to become the family hoops star. She wonders if she has the skill and the will. The story presents subtle, everyday events that teach life lessons.
Two city kids from California move out to the country, to the Great State of Texas! With doubts as to whether they will fit in, they run into barbed wire attitudes and a lot of hard work. Can they last long enough to experience the warmth, good manners, and compassion that the good people of Texas have to offer?
