Showing results by narrator "Shayna Small" in All Categories

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, Southern black community and running away at age 16, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same Southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white and her white husband knows nothing of her past.

Following an unforgettable cast of characters and a jaded female P.I. enmeshed in a criminal conspiracy in 1980s Mississippi, The Queen City Detective Agency is a riveting, razor-sharp Southern noir that unravels the greed, corruption, and racism at the heart of the American Dream.

In his first work for the theater, James Baldwin brought all the fervor and majestic rhetoric of the storefront churches of his childhood along with an unwavering awareness of the price those churches exacted from their worshipers. For years Sister Margaret Alexander has moved her Harlem congregation with a mixture of personal charisma and ferocious piety. But when Margaret's estranged husband, a scapegrace jazz musician, comes home to die, she is in danger of losing both her standing in the church and the son she has tried to keep on the godly path.

Welcome to Chain-Gang All-Stars - the highly popular, highly controversial profit-raising program inside America's private prison system. Harkening back to the time of gladiators, but watched by millions of live-stream subscribers, prisoners compete for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

Following in the footsteps of her überfamous grandma, 18-year-old Evie Jones is poised to be Hollywood’s next big star. That is until a close friend’s betrayal leads to her being blacklisted.... Fortunately, Evie knows just the thing to save her floundering career: a public appearance with America’s most beloved actress - her grandma Gigi, aka the Evelyn Conaway. The only problem? Gigi is a recluse who’s been out of the limelight for almost 20 years. Days before Evie plans to present her grandma with an honorary award in front of Hollywood’s elite, Gigi does the unthinkable.

Ruth, an only child of recent immigrants to New England, lives in an emotionally cold home and attends the local Catholic girl’s school on a scholarship. Maria, a beautiful orphan whose Panamanian mother dies by suicide and is taken care of by an ill, unloving aunt, is one of the only other students attending the school on a scholarship. Ruth is drawn forcefully into Maria’s orbit, and they fall into an easy, yet intense, friendship. Her devotion to her charming and bright new friend opens up her previously sheltered world.

Sixteen-year-old Leena has always wished for a big family… but when she discovers she has a Muslim grandfather and aunt she never knew, she learns that family comes with tangled histories she may not be able to heal. “Lonely Leena” is close with her young single mother. Still, she’s always secretly dreamed of more (and, when she was a kid, asked Santa for it). A huge family to cheer her on at graduation. A gaggle of smiling faces at the holidays. But one call from the hospital, and her mother’s hidden past comes to light: Her grandfather is in the ER, and her aunt is with him in recovery.

On a snowy Christmas Eve in an unnamed American city, the archangel Michael wanders the streets. He is alone and hungry, his clothes tattered, and when he sees his face reflected in a store window, it is that of a young African American boy. Who will offer him food and shelter and who will turn him away? And when he becomes a blonde, freckle-faced child, is his fate different?

The cost was steep, but Reed is officially an Aristene. And not just any Aristene, but a Glorious Death, guiding only those heroes whose glory costs them their lives. It is a heavy burden, but to forget the prince she left behind, Reed throws herself into it, harvesting heroes at what some say is a reckless pace. So when Lyonene is summoned to guide a princess to a glorious marriage, Reed sees an opportunity—a hero who isn’t fated to die—and they secretly arrange for Reed to go in her place.

"No Taxation without Representation!" The Boston Tea Party stands as an iconic event of the American Revolution - outraged by the tax on tea, American colonists chose to destroy the tea by dumping it into the water! Learn all about the famed colonialists who fought against the British Monarchy, and listen to this audiobook about this act of rebellion from our history! The Boston Tea party is brought to life!

Seventeen-year-old Hylee Williams didn’t ask to disappear. She didn’t ask to move from Kansas City, Kansas out to the suburbs in Missouri. But she did disappear, and not only that, but when she vanished from our world, she materialized in a dark, twisted version of the night that changed her life forever: the night her older brother went missing. Just as Hylee realizes this moment could be the key to unraveling the truth about her brother, she’s yanked away from the dark place back to our world.

Harlem, 1927. Twenty-seven-year-old Louise Lloyd has found the perfect job! She is the new manager of the Dove, a club owned by her close friend Rafael Moreno. There Louise meets Nora Davies, one of the girls she was kidnapped with a decade ago. The two women—along with Rafael and his sister, Louise’s girlfriend, Rosa Maria—spend the night at the Dove, drinking and talking. The next morning, Rosa Maria wakes up covered in blood, with no memory of the previous night. Nora is lying dead in the middle of the dance floor.

Louise Lloyd is finally living the quiet life she’d longed for, working in a parfumerie by day and spending time with her new friends every night at the Aquarius club in Paris. When a desperate mother asks for help locating her artist daughter, Louise initially refuses to keep her hard-won but fragile peace intact. But the woman comes with a letter of introduction from an old friend in Harlem, and Louise realizes she has no choice but to do what she can to find the missing young woman.

The cattle town of Chugwater may not look like much to outsiders. But for Duff MacCallister and the determined settlers who’ve staked their futures here, it’s a land of opportunity. That’s why the whole town is fired up by the latest news. Young railroad developer Jacob Poindexter wants to run a rail line through Chugwater, making it easier to transport cattle. Everyone is on board with the plan — at first. Duff begins to suspect that Poindexter is only after the most valuable land, and he’s using strongarm tactics to force reluctant ranchers to sell.

Loud and rowdy girls, quiet and nerdy girls, girls who rock naturals, girls who wear weave, outspoken and opinionated girls, girls still finding their voice, queer girls, trans girls, and gender nonbinary young people who want to make the world better: Feminist AF uses the insights of feminism to address issues relevant to today’s young womxn.

On February 27, 1763, thousands of slaves in the Dutch colony of Berbice - in present-day Guyana - launched a massive rebellion that came amazingly close to succeeding. Surrounded by jungle and savannah, the revolutionaries (many of them African-born) and Europeans struck and parried for an entire year. In the end, the Dutch prevailed because of one unique advantage - their ability to get soldiers and supplies from neighboring colonies and from Europe. Blood on the River is the explosive story of this little-known revolution, one that almost changed the face of the Americas.

Believing fiction to be an invaluable tool for social change, Pauline E. Hopkins used her first novel to challenge the racist and sexist assumptions of her time. Contending Forces operates on an epic scale - with settings ranging from antebellum North Carolina to post-Civil War Boston - and Hopkins surveys this panorama with an eye in particular on the intersections of race, class, and gender relations.

When actress and activist Brittany Snow was a teenager, she read an article about another woman’s hardship that made her feel seen and less alone. She carried that story in her back pocket for a long time. This experience was a gift that Brittany then paid forward when she revealed her own experience in a published article. Brittany’s story resonated with a young reader, who kept that story in her back pocket, where it was when the two crossed paths serendipitously.

From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist comes a fresh new audiobook that empowers parents and children to uproot racism in our society and in ourselves. Antiracist Baby introduces the youngest listeners and the grown-ups in their lives to the concept and power of antiracism. Providing the language necessary to begin critical conversations at the earliest age, Antiracist Baby is the perfect gift for listeners of all ages dedicated to forming a just society.

Flowers in the Gutter author Kristina R. Gaddy tells the story of America’s tumultuous years leading up to the Civil War and of the war itself from the viewpoints of four children of famous abolitionists, including those of Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison.