Shari Peele

"The daughter of a prostitute mother and an alcoholic father, Maggie Franklin knew her only way out was to marry someone upstanding and church-going. Someone like Hubert Wiggins, the most eligible man in Lexington, Alabama--and the son of its most revered preacher. Proper and prosperous, Hubert is glad to finally have a wife, even one with Maggie's background. For Hubert has a secret he desperately needs to stay hidden. And Maggie's unexpected charm,...

"It's been almost a year since Leah Berkley Kent left her lavish Richmond home to spend two months on Coates Island, North Carolina. There she found friendship with two extraordinary women, Kayana and Cherie. Together they formed a summer book club, meeting weekly at the Seaside Café. Leah also found the courage to finally stand up to Alan, her domineering husband of twenty-eight years. With her twin sons now grown, Leah decides to return to Coates...

"Free-spirited, living on the fly, Vanessa Hayes is still always down for traditional family holiday fun--until now. She's making her oft-delayed wish finally come true: Christmas in Paris, the glittering City of Lights when her passport gets delayed, it's too late for Vanessa to rebook. Now it looks like the Yuletide she longs for won't happen. Until a stranger suddenly enters her life, and changes it forever ... Overwhelmed by responsibility, Judith...

The lives of Leticia, Dominique, and Trina are irrevocably intertwined through the course of one day in an urban high school after Leticia overhears Dominique's plans to beat up Trina and must decide whether or not to get involved.

When sixteen-year-old Tariq Johnson is shot to death, his community is thrown into an uproar because Tariq was black and the shooter, Jack Franklin, is white, and in the aftermath everyone has something to say, but no two accounts of the events agree.