The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church's double standards and their own needs and passions.

Confident that her best days are still ahead, a successful businesswoman relies on close friends and her resourcefulness when an unexpected loss turns her world upside down.

In 1950s Philadelphia and Washington, DC, the lives of 15-year-old Ruby Pearsall, whose taboo affair threatens her dreams of being the first in her family to attend college, and Eleanor Quarles, who hopes having a baby will gain her husband’s wealthy family’s acceptance, collide in the most unexpected of ways.

A young black artist falls into an affair with a man in an open marriage before gradually befriending his wife and adopted daughter against a backdrop of dynamic racial politics.

Running into reclusive author Shane Hall at a literary event, bestselling erotica writer Eva Mercy, over the next seven days, reconnects with this man who broke her heart 20 years earlier until he disappears again, leaving more questions than answers.

Ivy Donovan is a successful stylist, entrepreneur, and single mom who has been loyal to her sons' father, Michael, who's serving a lengthy prison sentence. But life has gotten lonely over the years, and Ivy wants more for herself. Michael, however, isn't about to lose his family. Coco Norris is successful, single, childless, and struggling with her unreciprocated allegiance to emotionally unavailable men. When she finds a man who seems like he can...

Needing to reconnect with the baby she gave up for adoption years earlier, an Ivy League-educated Black engineer uncovers devastating family secrets before her bond with a young white misfit scandalizes her racially torn community.

Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn't one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she's the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her. When regal nonagenarian, Ms. Della, invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning. She leaves behind her family, wealth,...

An ambitious college student gives birth to a baby girl destined to be raised by an important Harlem family, who believe the infant will restore their prosperity.

Coming of age as a free-born Black woman in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, Libertie Sampson struggles against her mother's medical aspirations for her when she finds herself more drawn to a musical career that could compromise her autonomy.