Following her performance in the 2012 London Olympics, U.S. gymnast Gabrielle Douglas made history as the first African-American to win the all-around competition, in addition to winning gold as a crucial member of the women's gymnastics teams. But if it wasn't for several key moments -- and people in Gabrielle's life, none of this would have ever been possible. In this autobiography, Gabrielle tells her story of faith, perseverance, and determination....

"I used to be a lesbian." In Gay Girl, Good God, author Jackie Hill Perry shares her own story, offering practical tools that helped her in the process of finding wholeness. Jackie grew up fatherless and experienced gender confusion. She embraced masculinity and homosexuality with every fiber of her being. She knew that Christians had a lot to say about all of the above. But was she supposed to change herself? How was she supposed to stop loving women,...

"When Ruby King's mother is found murdered in their home in Chicago's South Side, the police dismiss it as another act of violence in a black neighborhood. But for Ruby, it's a devastating loss that leaves her on her own with her violent father. While she receives many condolences, her best friend, Layla, is the only one who understands how this puts Ruby in jeopardy. Their closeness is tested when Layla's father, the pastor of their church, demands...

"The true story of Effa Manley, the first and only woman in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and her ownership role in the Negro Leagues leading up to the integration of Major League Baseball"-- Before Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947, Black athletes plated in the Negro Leagues, on teams coached by Black managers, cheered on by Black fans. Those leagues owed their existence and success to savvy businesspeople like Effa...

"Winter 1838--Kentucky. Determined to save her toddler son from being sold as a slave, the woman who became known as Eliza Harris trekked through the forest, in the dark of night with wild animals on her heels. Her goal: cross the Ohio River, the boundary between the North and the South, between slavery and freedom. Although the journey would be perilous, Eliza looked out at the treacherous frozen waters and quickly decided she couldn't let fear stop...

In a poignant meditation on love and loss, Sadie, the abandoned wife of the slave Jim from Mark Twain's the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn details her romance with Jim, an ambitious young slave. His decision to run away with a young white boy named Huck Finn, and the bleak repercussions of that decision for her and their children. A deeply moving recasting of one of the most controversial characters in American literature, Huckleberry Finn's Jim,...

"When three women find their lives inextricably linked after one terrible mistake, they must work together to make the most of their futures and the challenges before them." "When three women find their lives inextricably linked after a terrible mistake, they must work together to make the most of their futures. Alexis Marshall never meant to cause the accident that left Jon-Jon Robinson paralyzed-but though guilt plagues her, her husband hopes to...

"The stunning and provocative coming-of-age memoir about Sarah Valentine's childhood as a white girl in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, and her discovery that her father was a black man. At the age of 27, Sarah Valentine discovered that she was not, in fact, the white girl she had always believed herself to be. She learned the truth of her paternity: that her father was a black man. And she learned the truth about her own identity: mixed race. And so Sarah...

When her college best friend, Garrett, admits he's in love with her, Maggie, a lawyer searching for Mr. Right, finds her world turned upside down and must choose between the perfect guy and a friendship that's the foundation for everything she's ever wanted.

"Passing Strange" is a uniquely American biography of Clarence King, who hid a secret from his Gilded Age cohorts and prominent family: for 13 years he lived a double life--as the celebrated white explorer, geologist, and writer King and as a black Pullman porter and steelworker named James Todd.