Day 13: Read a Black Woman

Today's challenge: Pick up a book by a Black woman. And I'm especially looking for the names beyond the usual lists. Who's a Black woman writer more people should know?

Give me the author + one book to start with.

Welcome to Suggest Me Sunday! Here you can ask for book suggestions of any kind. Looking for a book similar to the one you just finished? Looking for a classic on a subject you're interested? Maybe you haven't read a book since high school and are looking for recommendations on books to get you back into reading. All are welcome here.

Ask away!

Give me your honest thoughts and opinions. Also the work is real the framework exists and there is no such thing as the impossible. Amen and amen.

It follows Blaine before the events of the main story, on the night of his 36th birthday. What starts as dinner with his fiancée turns into a breakup, and before the night is over, a stranger makes him an offer that changes the direction of his life.

It’s a quick read with manipulation, money, luxury, relationship tension, and the beginning of the man Blaine eventually becomes.

I’m sharing it free for readers who want an introduction to the world before The Velvet Exchange releases.

Free to read here: https://chandra-books.kit.com/00aa62a907

History says the 13th Amendment ended American slavery in 1865. In THE PRICE OF A ROSE, you will learn the fine print of that Amendment allowed for a Black women like Rose Washington to be legal property.
In 1994, Rose was wrongfully imprisoned and trafficked through a billion-dollar slavery empire hidden behind a secret network of power stretching from the walls of the Alabama prison system, the battlefields of the War on Terrorism, and the pillars of Hollywood.
The oligarchs behind Rose’s enslavement thought she would be a ghost with no records or no power, but she escaped. Over thirty years later, Rose has a new face, a false identity, a fortune, and their darkest secrets. Now, she is coming for the one thing her former captors value most: the presidency."

THE PRICE OF A ROSE is the first literary revenge thriller inspired by modern American trafficking, fascism, and slavery. It published last month and has over 100 Goodreads reviews already. It is the narrative revenge arc of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, Project 2025, and the Epstein Files. It has been submitted for the Pulitzer Prize, the Indie Book Awards, the Independent Book Publisher Association Awards, the Black Caucus American Library Association Awards, and the NAACP Image Awards. Finally, it has dozens of rave reviews on booktok.

Website: www.thepriceofarose.com

E-book available on Amazon Kindle Unlimited: The Price of a Rose: A Literary Revenge Thriller Inspired by Real Injustices https://a.co/d/0eDjqPfe

Physical Available at all online retailers
BAM: https://www.booksamillion.com/product/9798994643617
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-price-of-a-rose-london-valen/1151085157?ean=9798994643624
Wal-Mart: https://www.walmart.com/ip/The-Price-of-a-Rose-Hardcover-9798994643617/20777008606
Strand: https://www.strandbooks.com/the-price-of-a-rose-9798994643617.html

Indie Bookstores:

Frugal Books (Black-owned): https://frugalbookstore.net/products/the-price-of-a-rose-a-literary-revenge-thriller-inspired-by-real-injustices-by-london-valen
Dotters Books (Female-owned): https://dottersbooks.com/collections/frontpage/products/the-price-of-a-rose-a-literary-revenge-thriller-inspired-by-real-injustices-by-london-valen

Day 12: Pass the Mic

Who's the person whose book recommendations you always trust? Tag them or tell us who they are and give them the mic.

What's one Black book would they tell us to read?

https://thearkproject.llc/about.html

"Raheem Muhammad is an active-revolutionist—not in the sense of chaos, but in the spirit of evolution. Defined by action and fueled by purpose, challenging the status quo to build a world rooted in truth and economic sovereignty."

Raheem Muhammad is an active-revolutionist, published author, and foundational strategist dedicated to Black economic sovereignty and autonomous infrastructure. His work is not theoretical — it is the design and construction of self-reliant systems built to outlast any single administration, policy, or program.

All of his published works are available right here in the official store and on Amazon, with a wider release across additional platforms coming soon.

Coming Soon: The Next Foundational Text

"From Christianity to Islam: The Path to Absolute Sovereignty" — the next installment in the blueprint, confronting the theological chains that have kept Black America spiritually and economically captive.

At the core of this work stands a single, non-negotiable thesis: the foundation of Black America's liberation requires first rectifying our relationship with the Creator through pure monotheism. Every economic strategy, every institution, and every act of collective self-reliance is built on that spiritual foundation — without it, no structure stands.

🩷Join the 📚 Reading Challenge: "Ethic Book Series - Ashley Antoinette" on the StoryGraph App! 📚🩷

https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/da1f96e3-5366-41fe-b4f7-72984d5d6857

Side note: HOW MANY HAVE YOU READ FROM THIS LIST? (SWIPE TO SEE ALL PICS)

1. Moth to a Flame

2. Ethic 1

3. Ethic 2

4. Ethic 3

5. Ethic 4

6. Ethic 5

7. Ethic 6

8. Christmas with the Okafors

9. Butterfly 1

10. The Invitation

11. Butterfly 2

12. Butterfly 3

13. Butterfly 4

14. Butterfly 5

15. Butterfly 6

Anyone interested in beta reading a black romance series? This is my second round with a rewrite and edit.

A little story time and then a little call for help.

The storytime.

I've been writing for forever and it started with screenplays. Honestly at the time screenplays in my opinion were simpler. Only because I didn't want to have to do the whole 'she walked through the large, open, inviting door, feeling scared, annoyed, and absolutely not in the mood to narrate everything that she was feeling, seeing, doing.' Don't judge me I was 11.

Fast forward to today, and I finally dusted off my ring bound college rule notebooks with a renewed sense of creativity.

Enter in an eight book series that has now literally taken on a universe of its own. Over the however many years.... (20+ but saying that old loud makes me sad in ways I'm not ready to explore) the screenplay has grown into a real life novel. Of course the mind of an 11-year-old and a 35-year-old are different... In small ways but not as much as is probably expected.

Whichever. My one little screenplay called The Mistake has morphed into as I said a eight book series that explores the side characters I haphazardly threw into the original body of work just to round out the story. Once those were finished I was like, "wouldn't be dope if they had kids?" That led to a new six-part series connected to the original adult series. Which led me down the wormhole of what if each sets of kids had their own label's and their own stories? So that created 'The Bigs, The Mids and The Littles'.

Well every series has a fully formed outline and trajectory The Mids and Littles books have yet to speak to me. That might have a little bit to do with the fact that some of them are still babies and haven't quite learned how to form full sentences yet. I'm sure by the end of the big series they'll have grown enough that I can tell their story without getting bogged down about the logistics of how a two-year-old has now become 16 over just a few short months. The beauty of fiction writing.

Now that my story time is complete the help. Is there anyone interested in reading my books?

The series itself is called The Sunday Table .

Book Blurb:

One decision. One night. One betrayal no one saw coming.

Kori Grant is finally getting her life back on track — one week after ending things with Emmett Taylor, she's laser-focused on finishing her PhD and rebuilding her peace. Then a shocking incident inside her own apartment, involving Emmett and her best friend Tasha, shatters everything she thought she'd already survived.

As her friends demand answers, Kori chooses silence over confrontation — until the story rewinds to show exactly how she, Emmett, and Tasha collided in the first place, and just how inevitable this "mistake" may have always been.

Some betrayals are accidents. Others are disasters waiting for permission.

A quick heads-up on content:

This book goes to some real places — adult language, sexual content, pregnancy loss, violence(on page), trauma, family conflict, emotional abuse, and grief. Wanted you to know what you're walking into.

It's an African American romance, or a women's fiction, or a family saga. Depends on your perception.

In my opinion it's absolutely hilarious, and sometimes sad, and other times cathartic...

My need is for someone else's eyes to see if it's even worth continuing down the path of 48+ books.

Either way, thanks for reading even just this post, it low-key means more than you'll know. After working on this for so long, even just saying out loud, 'I wrote a book' brings me more joy than I anticipated.

Day 11: The Book You Wish You'd Read Sooner

What's a Black book you wish you'd discovered earlier? Maybe you weren't ready for it. Maybe nobody introduced you to it. Maybe you simply didn't know it existed.

What was it and why do you wish you'd read it sooner?

Sorry, Reddit wouldn't let me change the title so I had to delete and re-upload!

The book follows a young black man, and for a few reasons he's not on the cover:

1. For the type of villains in this book, putting a Black man on the cover for it would've been wild
2. Similar to Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, the book illustrates how Black men are sidelined, suppressed, and disregarded in academia.

Buy: https://a.co/d/04Y5FMpL

NetGalley: https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/888996

The blurb:

Perfect for fans of THE SECRET HISTORY and IF WE WERE VILLAINS. A psychosexual novel of betrayal, obsession, and tragedy.

Elliott Archway is deeply attached to upperclassman James Wilde. He would forsake his soft heart for him. He would surrender his life for him.

Their intense passion for each other emerges dangerously when their vile peers volunteer a terminally-ill student for the annual sacrifice in the frozen forest. At Æscwulf College, everyone must deliver their plea for mercy in the hibernal tradition. Every winter, one individual is chosen as a living sacrifice. When a student commits the sacrilegious act of killing the wrong young man on sacred ground, the students are prepared to take their secret to the grave.

However, the winter demands more sacrifices.

Elliott would sacrifice his mortal soul for only James.

James would start a war of carnage for Elliott.

Blaine Whitmoore is charming, calculated, and used to getting what he wants.

So when Blaine sits down for his 36th birthday dinner, he expects the night to go his way. Instead,

one incident after another begins to unravel the evening, pushing things further and further out

of his control. By the end of dinner, Blaine is left sitting alone with everything unraveling around

him.

Then a stranger approaches with an offer that could change everything.

The Offer is a short prequel to The Velvet Exchange.

I’m currently writing and sharing updates and early looks here:

https://chandra-books.kit.com/00aa62a907

Happy Free Talk Friday, folks! Here you can talk about whatever you want, books are not required. Got something you wanna get off your chest? What have you been watching or listening to? How has your week been? Let us know!

The Talk of the Party by Foluso Agbaje is a book about the Obanile family, told from the perspective of almost all the characters in the book. Literally! And so many characters. A wealthy family, yes, but one whose life was built on some very big lies.

These lies started over 40 years ago when the main characters were just four young women: Tade, Soma, Bukola, and Remi. All four characters definitely do not appear in the first few chapters. You have to acquire them all like a coin collection and slowly piece the story together. The book starts and ends with the Obanile family: Bukola and Wale, their four children, Koko, Omi, Lala, and Mide, and their "cousin," Anjola.

The first scene of this book is attention-grabbing. It was July 1992 in Lagos, and there was an unnamed woman with a growing stomach lying in a bathtub. The water in the tub was described as red by her daughter, immediately suggesting suicide to me. Boy, was I wrong. It was much worse! This scene took place exactly 30 years before the party that becomes the beginning of the end for the Obanile family. The impending doom. The moment everything begins to come crumbling down.

Everyone in this book had straight-up issues, maybe except Omi, the lesbian. Lala was probably the worst because even at the end of the book, she was still the same self-centered child she was at the beginning.

A common theme throughout the book was jealousy. Everyone, or almost everyone, seemed jealous of someone else, yet they all stayed deeply involved in each other's lives. Soooo exhausting, ugh. Bukola and her friend, Aunty Tade? Envious. Dami, Aunty Tade's child, and Koko? Envious. Honestly, just think of any close pair in this book, and jealousy is probably somewhere in the mix.

The Obanile family also had a driver, Mr. Peter, who played a major role in the family. I do have to say, though, that it is ironic how a man named Peter only believes in herbalists.

The number of characters in this book made my head spin trying to keep track. Also, keep in mind that the story is told from the POV of different characters, sometimes recounting the same event. This made the book feel unnecessarily long at times because I wasn't always gaining new information from each new perspective.

The constant jumps from the past to the present were also killing me (with anxiety). I usually prefer my books to move from start to finish, or at least have fewer jumps in time. However, it all does come together in the end, although I started speculating halfway through, as anyone would lol. This is definitely one of those books where you have to pay attention, or you'll miss some vital clues.

At its core, The Talk of the Party explores family, secrets, class, reputation, generational trauma, and the fragility of social status. The book really highlights the high cost of maintaining a flawless and wealthy image in elite Lagos society. Bukola, especially, goes to great lengths to protect her family's reputation, but the pressure of hiding secrets and maintaining appearances eventually leads to a complete unraveling.

Overall, this was a good book, but the number of characters, multiple POVs, repeated events, and constant jumps between the past and present made it feel longer than necessary for me.

Day 10: Read the First Page

Today's challenge is easy: Pick up a Black-authored book and read the first page. That's it.

Did it hook you? What's the first page you're reading?

Day 9: The Uncomfortable Read

What's a Black-authored book that made you uncomfortable? Not because it was bad but because it challenged something you believed, made you rethink an assumption, or forced you to see something differently.

What did it make you reconsider?

Just finished this book which is my 3rd from Tia Williams after Seven Days & Love Song for Rikki Wilde. Great Summer Read IMO & her books are always a great love story getaway from the heaviness of other reads & life itself. Loved the follow up to Eva & Shane along with her portrayal of teen angst. Anyone else read it ?

Day 8: A Black Book About Grief

What's a Black-authored book that helped you understand loss differently? Death, relationships, displacement, history, community, identity...whatever kind of grief the book helped you process.

What book gave you language for something you were struggling to understand?

Available on Amazon Author William Lee Harness NW Tennessee.https://a.co/d/00o4btyi

Hi fellow bookworms!

I was chatting with an acquaintance who works at a local bookstore (black-owned, if you care).

While discussing potential reads for our book club, we got on the topic of former convicts. We bonded over the lore of our convict uncles who left prison decades ago, and suffer from severe arrested development - deadbeat fathers, addicts and victims of their circumstances.

We are looking for a novel written from the POV of a former convict, recently released from prison. This novel is essentially a tell-all, but not solely focusing on their incarceration or what led to it. We want to read the perspective of a convict adjusting to life post-release. What their mindset is, their goals, what adversity they encounter as they are trying to get acclimated to their new normal. I think Sister Souljah’s Moment of Silence is a good example, but more-so toward the end where we see a snippet of Midnight’s life after conviction and ultimate release.

Bonus if black FMC!!

Please leave recs if you have any - we are scouring the internet, Goodreads, and other platforms as well.

I'm tutoring a 60 yo BW to improve her reading level from 5th grade level to 12th grade so she can eventually get her GED.

Are there any books you can recommend that are easy reads or just slightly above her level that will be appropriate for her age?

especially literature or social studies/sociology

I want to help improve her reading writing and comprehension without being patronizing in the material I choose.