HARLEM HEAT by 50 Cent and Mark Anthony

Roxy Reynolds learned all the rules of the street nearly two decades ago as a low-level member of what was once New York City’s most powerful drug organization. She was also a mom at fourteen years old, and did what she had to do to raise her daughter, Chyna. Now Chyna’s all grown up, a stunningly beautiful exotic dancer with a baby girl of her own, while super-sexy Roxy is at the height of her power running Harlem Heat, a gun trafficking ring. It’s a lucrative lifestyle some would do anything to have. And when former drug kingpin Panama Pete returns to the hood after serving fifteen years in prison, a spiral of violence traps Roxy and Chyna and has them running from the law - and for their lives.

Like this book? Here’s more books by Mark Anthony.

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CANDY LICKER by Noire

Have you ever laid down with a man and wasn’t sure if you’d ever get back up? Tossed the sheets with a bone-knocking fear that only a hard-core hustler could produce? Sexed him like your life depended on it, because it really did? You still with me? Than let’s roll over to my house. Harlem 145th Street. Grab a seat and brace yourself as I show you the kind of pain that street life and so called success can bring…

Nineteen-year-old Candy Raye Montana, an ex-drug runner for the Gabriano crime family and a former foster child, dreams of becoming a hip-hop superstar, if only someone will discover her talents.

Someone does. Mega music producer and king thug of Harlem, Junius “Hurricane” Jackson, CEO of the House of Homicide recording studio, cuts a deal and puts Candy on the stage. Sudden;y she is a hot new artist on the notorious Homicide Hitz record label. Her career takes off and she blazes the charts, but it’s not long before Candy realizes that the man she thought was her knight is nothing more than a cold-blooded nightmare.

Caught between the music and the madness, between the dollars and the deals, Candy belongs to Hurricane - body and soul - and must endure his sadistic bedroom desires while keeping his sexual secrets hidden from the world. But Candy has some strong desires of her own that simply cannot be denied, especially when she finds herself turned on by a brilliant investment baller who just happens to be Hurricane’s right-hand man. Candy longs for her reedom, but if Hurricane gets wind of her betrayal the blowback will be lethal - and not only will she risk losing her recording contract, she just might lose her life.

If you enjoy Noire, check out Zane

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THUG-A-LICIOUS by Noire

“Have you ever wanted something so bad you was willing to crawl over bodies to get it? I mean, fiened for it so hard it didn’t matter who got hurt, how low you had to scrape, it was gonna be yours? That’s what music and balling did for me. They were the fundamentals behind my rise… and the perpetrators of my fall. They called me Harlem’s black prince - a rising star who carried the street dreams on his back. But the streets, ya know. They got a way of coming for theirs. A method of sneaking up on you when you ain’t looking…”

Andre”Thug-a-licious” Williams came up on Harlem’s meanest streets. But thanks to his nearly ankle-breaking hoop moves and explosive mic skills, he makes it out - and dominates the rap scene with chart-topping urban hits.

Thug has sexed all the hottest freaks and has a slew of baby mamas to show for it. But no matter how many women he takes to his bed, only one can clain his heart: successful beauty salon owner Carmiesha “Lil Muddah” Vernoy, his ride-or-die queen, who has stuck by his side and guarded his back through thick and thin.

But Thug has a nightmarish history with someone else. Pimp Williams, his older cousin and ex-partner in crime, is a cold-blooded killer who spreads havoc all over Harlem and will stop at nothing to get what he wants - even if it means betraying his own family, crushing Carmeisha, and forcing Harlem’s black prince down to his knees.

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G-SPOT by Noire

Her man demanded loyalty, but her body wouldn’t obey.

Have you every rolled over in the middle of the night and realized you were doing things you swore you’d never do? Sexing brothers you vowed you’s never tough? Bending backward and stooping lower than you ever thought you’d stoop? Well, if you can feel me even a little bit, then let me hit you with a story that might just blow your mind…

Nineteen-year-old Juicy Stanfield is the sexy young girlfriend of Granite “G” McKay, owner of Harlem’s notorious G-Spot Social Club. A drug dealer with a lethal streak, he runs Harlem with an iron fist. But even the cash and the bling can’t keep Juicy from getting restless, and while G fulfills her every material desire, she’s burning up with unrequited sexual energy. to cheat on him would mean a death sentence, so Juicy finds pleasure in secret ways: fantasizing on crowded subways, or allowing her eyes to hungrily take in male dancers on the club’s ladies’ night.

But as Juicy’s sexual cravings grow stronger, one thing becomes frighteningly clear: She’s virtual prisoner in G’s dangerous world. As G begins to suspect her of playin’ him, he pulls the reins even tighter. If she’s ever to escape and get a life of her own, she must find a way to start stashing away some of G’s cash. But doing that under G’s watchful eye is a challenge she might not be up to - especially when her appetite tempts her with the deadliest desire of all: G’s very own son…

Check out other books by Strivers Row

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Report from the Harlem Book Fair

Here’s an excerpt from the WNYC report of the Harlem Book Fair with some positive and negative comments about street fiction:

REPORTER: Today the Harlem street scene is a little less radical. But Max Rodriguez, who founded the Harlem Book Fair nine years ago and runs it from the back of Thometz’s bookstore, says that books are playing a big part in Harlem’s commercial revival.

RODRIGUEZ: …You can walk on 125th Street and every other outdoor vendor will be a book vendor.

VENDOR AND CUSTOMER: How much is this? Ten dollars. Ten? I’ll be back. OK baby, thank you…

REPORTER: This is the world of urban books – also known as street lit. Hundreds of Black pulp fiction books appear each month with names like “True to the Game,” “Every Thug Needs A Lady,” or “G-Spot: An urban erotic tale by.” Henry Ndombo is one of the many book vendors on 125th Street.

NDOMBO: “And God Created Woman”, that’s fiction about four ladies from different backgrounds, I can say that’s the number one right now.

NDOMBO AND CUSTOMER: You get “Dutch 3”? It’s not out yet. What about the last Nikki Turner? No, I sold out. “Still Wifey”?…

REPORTER: Street lit may be low-brow, but it’s had a huge impact on the Black book business.

GRAY: I got so many favorite authors, it’s ridiculous. I want to meet Teri Woods, Zane… I own like 600 books.

REPORTER: And book buyers like Sharon Gray are getting the attention of the big Midtown publishing companies.

JOHNSON: The guys and girls selling that literature is actually driving what major publishing houses are selling.

REPORTER: From his home on 119th Street, Troy Johnson runs the African American Literary Book Club, a national website for Black bibliophiles.

JOHNSON: Virtually any one of them that’s sold a few thousand copies seems to be able to pick up a deal from a major house.

REPORTER: One of these writers is Relentless Aaron. You can’t miss his promotional van parked on 125th Street. He often sells his books out in front of Starbucks.

AARON: Push, and To Live & Die in Harlem. Those are like my 20th and 21st novels out of the 32 that I’ve written.

AARON: [Reads] “Word got around about the shooting and the events at the Lenox Lounge. 20 of its customers had been locked up for one reason or another…”

REPORTER: Aaron wrote many of his novels while serving time in federal prison. He’s only been out three years, but he has a multi-book deal with St. Martin’s Press and another with the hip-hop star 50 Cent. His stories are frequently set in Harlem.

AARON: “‘Gurrrl… did you hear about that dude, Raphael? Yeah, the one with the ponytail… right, the red-boned one…’”

REPORTER: Not all street lit is suitable for broadcast. Erotica and pornography are popular among the largely female readership. But some readers, like Eleanor Blake, object.

BLAKE: I don’t like those books, what I call bootycall books. It gives a bad image of Black women, it’s really negative, I think a lot of those books should be banned.

The ninth edition of the Harlem Book Fair takes place today. Up to 70,000 visitors are expected on 135th Street between Fifth and Seventh Avenues, along with 300 exhibitors from the spectrum of African-American publishing. WNYC’s Siddhartha Mitter checked in on the uptown book scene.

REPORTER: But book professionals aren’t so harsh in their judgment. Janifer Wilson runs a bookstore called Sisters Uptown at 156th and Amsterdam.

WILSON: I don’t have a problem with what people are reading because basically to me as long as folk are reading, that’s key. … A lot of these young girls will say, I read that book in a day. They will stay up all night and finish that book.

REPORTER: Marie Brown, a longtime Harlem literary agent, has a different concern. She sees the publishing industry rushing into street lit and she fears it stereotypes Black readers and closes the door to more literary authors.

BROWN: I don’t see those writers being celebrated to the extent that they were previously. When you look at the books that are being published I don’t think that they are going to be considered for Nobels or Pulitzers.

REPORTER: But these distinctions are set aside today. Max Rodriguez says the Book Fair presents the full spectrum of Black literature, and that Harlem is the perfect place to do that.

RODRIGUEZ: There’s a real romanticism about Harlem… Harlem is the concrete jungle, it’s the street, it’s where drugs and love and lust and passion and gunplay and failure and success all live.

REPORTER: And that’s why Harlem is more than a setting – it’s a character in its own right in the African American story.

Source: http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/82592

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