In the lively neighborhood of Fort Greene in downtown Brooklyn, Native Americans and early Dutch and British settlers were largely agrarian. Over time, the neighborhood sprouted into an energetic enclave in which multiple ethnicities thrive today. From the East River's Wallabout Bay, a navy yard grew into a mass of floating arsenals, including the USS Missouri, aboard which the Japanese surrendered in World War II. Mole holes were dug out beneath Fort Greene to serve as transit ways to greater New York. The 20th century brought a variety of arts, such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, featuring the likes of Enrico Caruso, Isadora Duncan, Paul Robeson, and Rudolph Nureyev. Popular arts equally flourished as vaudeville merged into cinema and jazz and rock ricocheted out of the Fox and Paramount.

Don't trust anyone...Nick takes the warning to heart - after all, it was left by a dead man. After Joshua King's investigation's into the manipulated batch of birth control led to his murder, Nick's worried he could be next. His unexpected pregnancy is proof enough of the faulty medicine. Nick has resorted to hiding away, both in shame and fear for himself and his unborn child. But When Harper King shows up asking about his brother's final hours, Nick realizes there might be someone he can trust with his story ... and his heart. He can protect the frightened omega...Harper King has questions and the answers aren't adding up. The police aren't focusing on his brother's murder, and no one wants to talk about the defective medication wreaking havoc on omegas across the country. Nick was the last person to see his brother alive and could be the key to solving the case. But it will take gentle coaxing to get the omega to talk. The more time Harper spends with Nick and his unborn child, the more he finds a kindred spirit, and the idea of letting Nick put himself at risk is enough to make all of Harper's alpha instincts roar to the surface.Harper is a born protector, but digging into Joshua's death while falling in love with Nick isn't safe or easy. Love or justice, truth or lies, Harper and Nick will need to wade through the manipulations, even as their hearts and lives hang in the balance.

A pioneering, dazzling satire about a biracial black girl from Philadelphia searching for her Jewish father in New York City Oreo is raised by her maternal grandparents in Philadelphia. Her black mother tours with a theatrical troupe, and her Jewish deadbeat dad disappeared when she was an infant, leaving behind a mysterious note that triggers her quest to find him. What ensues is a playful, modernized parody of the classical odyssey of Theseus with a feminist twist, immersed in seventies pop culture, and mixing standard English, black vernacular, and Yiddish with wisecracking aplomb. Oreo, our young hero, navigates the labyrinth of sound studios and brothels and subway tunnels in Manhattan, seeking to claim her birthright while unwittingly experiencing and triggering a mythic journey of self-discovery like no other.

Lady Gaga's old friend and former DJ Brendan Jay Sullivan paints a vivid picture of the downtown scene from which she emerged. Brendan Jay Sullivan was an up-and-coming DJ in New York City when he met Stefani Germanotta, then a struggling artist, in 2006. She was a go-go dancer who sewed her own outfits but had bigger ambitions—she wanted nothing less than to take over the music world. In this intimate portrait of the budding star who would soon catapult to fame and fortune, the author describes afternoons sitting with Gaga on the floor of her bare Lower East Side apartment, drinking wine from pint glasses and plotting out the pop stardom that awaited her. Filled with stories of love and heartbreak among Gaga and Sullivan and their circle of aspiring musicians and performers, and set against the vibrant backdrop of the downtown bars and parties of the mid-aughts, Rivington Was Ours is both a love letter to New York and a glimpse behind the veil of one of the biggest musical icons of her generation.