Quiet, awkward Josey Cirrini's peaceful life caring for her elderly mother is turned upside down when Della Lee Baker, a sassy, confident, and bold waitress fleeing an abusive boyfriend, decides to hide out in Josey's home.

The inspiration for the acclaimed OWN TV series produced by Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay "Queen Sugar is a page-turning, heart-breaking novel of the new south, where the past is never truly past, but the future is a hot, bright promise. This is a story of family and the healing power of our connections—to each other, and to the rich land beneath our feet." —Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage Readers, booksellers, and critics alike are embracing Queen Sugar and cheering for its heroine, Charley Bordelon, an African American woman and single mother struggling to build a new life amid the complexities of the contemporary South. When Charley unexpectedly inherits eight hundred acres of sugarcane land, she and her eleven-year-old daughter say goodbye to smoggy Los Angeles and head to Louisiana. She soon learns, however, that cane farming is always going to be a white man’s business. As the sweltering summer unfolds, Charley struggles to balance the overwhelming challenges of a farm in decline with the demands of family and the startling desires of her own heart.

"Garden Spells" is a wonderful, enchanting, crafty novel of sisters--two very different women, each rooted in some way to her past--who discover that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree when family ties cast their spell.

The New York Times–bestselling author delivers “a riveting saga about Big Sugar flexing its imperialist muscle in Hawaii . . . A real gem of a book” (Douglas Brinkley, author of American Moonshot). Deftly weaving together a memorable cast of characters, Lost Kingdom brings to life the clash between a vulnerable Polynesian people and relentlessly expanding capitalist powers. Portraits of royalty and rogues, sugar barons, and missionaries combine into a sweeping tale of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s rise and fall. At the center of the story is Lili‘uokalani, the last queen of Hawai‘i. Born in 1838, she lived through the nearly complete economic transformation of the islands. Lucrative sugar plantations gradually subsumed the majority of the land, owned almost exclusively by white planters, dubbed the “Sugar Kings.” Hawai‘i became a prize in the contest between America, Britain, and France, each seeking to expand their military and commercial influence in the Pacific. The monarchy had become a figurehead, victim to manipulation from the wealthy sugar plantation owners. Lili‘u was determined to enact a constitution to reinstate the monarchy’s power but was outmaneuvered by the United States. The annexation of Hawai‘i had begun, ushering in a new century of American imperialism. “An important chapter in our national history, one that most Americans don’t know but should.” —The New York Times Book Review “Siler gives us a riveting and intimate look at the rise and tragic fall of Hawaii’s royal family . . . A reminder that Hawaii remains one of the most breathtaking places in the world. Even if the kingdom is lost.” —Fortune “[A] well-researched, nicely contextualized history . . . [Indeed] ‘one of the most audacious land grabs of the Gilded Age.’” —Los Angeles Times

True love requires commitment, and many times unending sacrifice...At the tender age of eighteen, Brandi Vargas watched the love of her life drive out of Emerson Pass, presumably for good. Though she and Trapper Barnes dreamed of attending college and starting their lives together, she was sure she would only get in the way of Trapper's future as a hockey star. Breaking his heart, and her own in the process, was the only way to ensure he pursued his destiny. Her fate was the small town life she'd always known, her own bakery, and an endless stream of regret.After a decade of playing hockey, a single injury ended Trapper Barnes' career. And while the past he left behind always haunted him, he still returns to Emerson Pass to start the next chapter of his life in the place his ancestors built more than a century before. But when he discovers that the woman who owns the local bakery is the girl who once shattered his dreams, the painful secret she's been harboring all these years threatens to turn Trapper's idyllic small town future into a disaster. Will it take a forest fire threatening the mountain village to force Trapper and Brandi to confront their history? And in the wake of such a significant loss, will the process of rebuilding their beloved town help them find each other, and true happiness, once again? Fast forward to the present day and enjoy this contemporary second chance romance set in the small town of Emerson Pass, featuring the descendants of the characters you loved from USA Today bestselling author Tess Thompson's The School Mistress.

The Best Little From-Scratch Bakery in Texas The pastry case in Rebecca Rather's bakery in Fredericksburg is packed with ultra-buttery scones, luscious cakes, cookies the size of saucers, brownies as big as bricks, and fruit pies that look as though they came straight out of Grandma's oven. Since the day Rebecca and her Rather Sweet Bakery and Café came to town, life in this Hill Country hamlet has been even sweeter and the townsfolk now know why she is the Pastry Queen. Everything she makes is a lot like her: down-home yet grand, and familiar yet one-of-a-kind. A native Texan, Rather makes the most of her Lone Star state's varied traditions, whether looking to the kitchens of Texas's Mexican and German immigrants or to the cowboy culture of her own forebears. Best of all, her recipes aren't fussy—one of her best-selling cakes stirs together in a single saucepan. Add in a cupful of Texas attitude and her made-from-scratch-with-love philosophy, and you've got an irresistible taste of American baking. What's best at Rather Sweet? Rebecca's customers all have their favorites (and she is happy to cater to their cravings), but here's just a taste of the perennial best sellers: • Apple-Smoked Bacon and Cheddar Scones • Texas Big Hairs Lemon-Lime Tarts (the only big hair Rebecca has ever had!) • Fourth of July Fried Pies • Peach Queen Cake with Dulce de Leche Frosting • Turbo-Charged Brownies with Praline Topping • All-Sold-Out Chicken Pot Pies • Kolaches (pillowy yeasted buns with sweet or savory fillings) • PB&J Cookies With over 125 surefire tested recipes and 100 photographs that richly capture small-town life in the Hill Country, The Pastry Queen offers a Texas-size serving of the royal splendor of Rebecca's baked goods—courtesy of the rather sweet gal behind the case.

A haunting, epic Caribbean love story, reminiscent of García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. WINNER of the 2020 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Fiction! "A Tall History of Sugar is a gift for grown-up fans of fairy tales and those who love fiction that metes out hard and surprising truths. Forbes's writing combines the gale-force imagination of Margaret Atwood with the lyrical pointillism of Toni Morrison." --New York Times Book Review, Editors' Choice "A mesmerizing love story that takes place over 50 years in Jamaica." --Tayari Jones in O, the Oprah Magazine A Tall History of Sugar has been longlisted for the 2020 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature (Fiction shortlist)! "Curdella Forbes's A Tall History of Sugar is the most recent in an impressive new wave of novels by Jamaican writers--from Marlon James's Booker Prize–winning A Brief History of Seven Killings to Kei Miller's Augustown, Marcia Douglas's The Marvelous Equations of the Dread, and Nicole Dennis-Benn's Patsy, among others. Forbes provides an eclectic, feverish vision of Jamaican 'history' from the 1950s to the present glimpsed through the experiences of an abandoned mystic-child named Moshe, whose translucent skin and mismatched eyes defy racial category. Who he is and who he becomes--like the country itself--is a riddle that unfolds in episodic bursts and linguistic flourishes." --Vanity Fair, one of the Best Books of 2019 "An epic tale of two soulmates: Moshe Fisher, born with mismatched eyes and pale skin that bruises easily, and Arrienne Christie, 'her skin even at birth the color of the wettest molasses, with a purple tinge under the surface.' Arrienne is his protector at school--and later his lover--but how they eventually wind up together is part of this unconventionally crafted story that spans decades, from the years before Jamaica's independence to the 2010s. Forbes' sentences are the stars here; it's a book that rewards slow, careful reading." --BuzzFeed, included in BuzzFeed's Fall 2019 Preview A Tall History of Sugar tells the story of Moshe Fisher, a man who was "born without skin," so that no one is able to tell what race he belongs to; and Arrienne Christie, his quixotic soul mate who makes it her duty in life to protect Moshe from the social and emotional consequences of his strange appearance. The narrative begins with Moshe's birth in the late 1950s, four years before Jamaica's independence from colonial rule, and ends in the era of what Forbes calls "the fall of empire," the era of Brexit and Donald Trump. The historical trajectory layers but never overwhelms the scintillating love story as the pair fight to establish their own view of loving, against the moral force of the colonial "plantation" and its legacies that continue to affect their lives and the lives of those around them. Written in lyrical, luminous prose that spans the range of Jamaican Englishes, this remarkable story follows the couple's mysterious love affair from childhood to adulthood, from the haunted environs of rural Jamaica to the city of Kingston, and then to England--another haunted locale in Forbes's rendition. Following on the footsteps of Marlon James's debut novel, John Crow's Devil, which Akashic Books published in 2005, we are delighted to introduce another lion of Jamaican literature with the publication of A Tall History of Sugar.