Books like 'Perfect Peace'
Readers who enjoyed Perfect Peace by Daniel Black & Ron Butler also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical historical-fiction lgbtq family literary-fiction poc-mc drama realistic humor poverty
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The Essay by Robin Yocum
Rated: 4.56 of 5 stars · 16 ratings“Yocum writes like the reporter he used to be. He’s observant and still has his eye for detail and nuance.”—Richmond Times-DispatchJimmy Lee Hickam grew up along Red Dog Road, a dead-end strip of gravel and mud buried deep in the bowels of Appalachian Ohio. It is the poorest road, in the poorest county, in the poorest region of the state...Categorized as:
black-mc historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc poverty realistic book coming-of-age -
Let the Children March by Monica Clark-Robinson
Rated: 4.57 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsI couldn't play on the same playground as the white kids.I couldn't go to their schools.I couldn't drink from their water fountains.There were so many things I couldn't do. In 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, thousands of African American children volunteered to march for their civil rights after hearing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak...Categorized as:
historical-fiction poc-mc family realistic black-mc children-books social-commentary historical -
In Search of Satisfaction by J. California Cooper
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe folk flavor of her storytelling has earned her constant comparison to Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, but through four collections of short stories and two novels, J. California Cooper has proven that hers is a wholly original talent --one that embraces readers in an ever-widening circle from one book to the next... -
The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson
Rated: 4.37 of 5 stars · 19 ratingsFrom the award-winning author of Yellow Wife, a daring and redemptive novel set in 1950s Philadelphia and Washington, DC, that explores what it means to be a woman and a mother, and how much one is willing to sacrifice to achieve her greatest goal... -
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Don't Cry for Me by Daniel Black
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsA Black father makes amends with his gay son through letters written on his deathbed in this wise and penetrating novel of empathy and forgiveness, for fans of Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robert Jones Jr. and Alice Walker As Jacob lies dying, he begins to write a letter to his only son, Isaac. They have not met or spoken in many years, and there are things that Isaac must know... -
Born a Colored Girl by Michael Edwin Q.
Rated: 4.63 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFrom the author of Pappy Moses' Peanut Plantation and A Slave's Song - Two slaves, a mother and daughter, separated during the Civil War never to see each other again. From her mother's diary, Etta Jean will learn to love the mother she never knew. And from the same diary, a mother will finally give of herself... -
The Rent Collector by Camron Wright
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsSurvival for Ki Lim and Sang Ly is a daily battle at Stung Meanchey, the largest municipal waste dump in all of Cambodia. They make their living scavenging recyclables from the trash. Life would be hard enough without the worry for their chronically ill child, Nisay, and the added expense of medicines that are not working...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction literary-fiction poc-mc poverty realistic action-adventure -
The Letter by Michelle Vernal
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWORDS HAVE THE POWER TO HEAL, REUNITE AND TO HURT... Isabel opened her bag and pulled the letter out, glancing at the address one last time before she slid it through the slot, hearing it land with a plunk. It was gone. She’d done it, and now she’d have to wait to see what happened next... -
This Bitter Earth by Bernice L. McFadden
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIn This Bitter Earth, Sugar Lacey is on her way out of Bigelow, Arkansas, where she’d come to break with the past. With her worn leopard-print suitcase and her head held high, she walks past the prying eyes of its small-minded, cruel-hearted townsfolk, praying for the strength to keep going. She doesn’t stop until she arrives at her childhood home in Short Junction... -
If You Want to Make God Laugh by Bianca Marais
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA rich, unforgettable story of three unique women in post-Apartheid South Africa who are brought together in their darkest time and discover the ways that love can transcend the strictest of boundaries.In a squatter camp on the outskirts of Johannesburg, seventeen-year-old Zodwa lives in desperate poverty, under the shadowy threat of a civil war and a growing AIDS epidemic... -
Whistledown Woman by Josephine Cox
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn 1898, Kathleen Wyman lies in labor at Bessington Hall, her husband Edward sure that she has been unfaithful to him. In his blind, jealous rage, he gives away the baby to gypsy Rona Parrish, summoned to help with the delivery. Kathleen, frenzied with grief, is soon locked away in an asylum... -
Things Past Telling: A Novel by Sheila Williams
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratings“This is a truly character-driven novel that explores how people define themselves, the creation of family and home, and the importance of memory and language. . . . Fans of historical epics won’t be able to put this book down.”—Historical Novel Society“Emotionally satisfying. . . . A remarkable character portrait... -
God Ain't Through Yet by Mary Monroe
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsEven though her life has its ups and downs, Annette Goode Davis feels lucky. Most of all, she's grateful that her husband, Pee Wee, took her back after he discovered she was having an affair. The trouble is, Annette isn't sure his heart is really in it. Her best friend Rhoda is quick to point out that Annette got herself into this mess, so she has to be patient with Pee Wee... -
'Til Morning Light by Ann Moore
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsShe crossed an ocean to escape the suffering of famine-torn Ireland. Haunted by loss, but determined to build a life in the New World, Gracelin O'Malley then crosses the country with her young children to accept a San Francisco sea captain's practical proposal of marriage. But when she arrives, he is not there, and the City of Gold is no place for widows and children... -
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The Granny by Brendan O'Carroll
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe New York Times Book Review praised Brendan O'Carroll's first novel, The Mammy, as "Cheerful...as unpretentious and satisfying as a home-cooked meal...with a delicious dessert of an ending... -
Gabrielle by Marie Laberge
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsQuébec, 1930. Gabrielle est mariée avec Edward depuis bientôt dix ans. Entre la maison de l’île d’Orléans et celle de la Grande-Allée, elle mène une vie bien remplie, entourée de ses cinq enfants. De toute évidence, il s’agit d’un mariage heureux. Mais cette chose qui devrait être si simple fait pourtant froncer bien des sourcils dans l’entourage de Gabrielle... -
Tumbling by Diane McKinney-Whetstone
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsDiane McKinney-Whetstone's lyrical first novel, Tumbling, vividly captures a tightly knit African-American neighborhood in South Philadelphia during the forties and fifties. Its central characters, Herbie and Noon, are a loving but unconventional couple whose marriage remains unconsummated for many years as Noon struggles to repossess her sexuality after a brutal attack in her past... -
The Upper Room by Mary Monroe
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsMama Ruby's known for taking things that aren't rightfully hers, like her best friend's stillborn infant, who she brought back to life and christened Maureen. She's also rumored to have done away with her husband. Some fear her, others try their best to avoid her. But Mama Ruby doesn't pay them any mind. Not when she's got the one gift God gave her--her precious baby girl... -
Your Blues Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNow, in her first novel, repercussions are felt for decades in a dozen lives after a racist beating turns to cold-blooded murder in a small 1950s Mississippi town.Chicago-born Armstrong Tood is fifteen, black, and unused to the ways of the segregated Deep South, when his mother sends him to spend the summer with relatives in rural Mississippi... -
Homecoming by Beverly Jenkins
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA historical holiday story of homecoming and second-chance romance by NAACP Image Award Nominee, Beverly Jenkins. In 1883, Lydia Cooper is happily traveling back home to celebrate the simple joys of the holidays when an unexpected complication appears in the all-too-distracting form of Gray Dane, the man she loved as a girl; the man she left behind... -
Tame the Savage Heart by Michael Edwin Q.
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the best selling author of BUT HAVE NOT LOVE and BORN A COLORED GIRL comes a love story like no other. She was a young slave girl. He was an African warrior purchased at a slave auction with the intent he would father a new breed of stronger slave. Despite all odds, a language barrier and the disapproval of her family and friends, the two fight for a life together... -
Sweet Honesty by Joan Vassar
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAtlanta, Georgia, 1950–Michael can’t believe his eyes as he watches the man he loves marry a woman from the back row of Mount Zion Baptist Church. When the beautiful couple is pronounced man and wife, he leaves his home in Georgia for the chance of a better life in New York City.Alexander is just trying to exist in Queens, New York... -
The Wake of the Wind by J. California Cooper
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA dramatic and thought-provoking novel of one family's triumph in the face of the hardships and challenges of the post-Civil War South.The Wake of the Wind , J. California Cooper's third novel, is her most penetrating look yet at the challenges that generations of African Americans have had to overcome in order to carve out a home for themselves and their families... -
The Butterfly Room by Lucinda Riley
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsPosy Montague is approaching her seventieth birthday. Still living in her beautiful family home, Admiral House, set in the glorious Suffolk countryside where she spent her own idyllic childhood catching butterflies with her beloved father, and raised her own children, Posy knows she must make an agonising decision... -
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Overground Railroad by Lesa Cline-Ransome
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA window into a child's experience of the Great Migration from the award-winning creators of Before She Was Harriet and Finding Langston . Climbing aboard the New York bound Silver Meteor train, Ruth Ellen embarks upon a journey toward a new life up North-- one she can't begin to imagine...Categorized as:
historical-fiction family poc-mc realistic black-mc children-books historical fiction -
Gordo by Jaime Cortez
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe first ever collection of short stories by Jaime Cortez, Gordo is set in a migrant workers camp near Watsonville, California in the 1970s. A young, probably gay, boy named Gordo puts on a wrestler's mask and throws fists with a boy in the neighborhood, fighting his own tears as he tries to grow into the idea of manhood so imposed on him by his father... -
Fifth Born by Zelda Lockhart
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWhen Odessa Blackburn is three years old her beloved grandmother dies, and so begins her story, set in St. Louis, Missouri, and rural Mississippi. As the fifth born of eight children, Odessa loses her innocence at first when her drunken father sexually abuses her, and then again when she alone witnesses her father taking the life of his own brother... -
Fortune's Daughters by Consuelo Saah Baehr, Nicol Zanzarella
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFaith Simpson is born at the dawn of the twentieth century into a dynasty that gives her everything she will ever need—except her parents’ love and attention. Often misunderstood, she trusts few as she grows up on the family’s manicured Long Island estate. Just twenty-nine miles away, on lower Manhattan’s dirty, crowded streets, Hope Lee’s world is one of poverty and desperation...Categorized as:
drama family historical-fiction literary-fiction poverty 20th-century adult audiobook -
An Irish Country Wedding by Patrick Taylor, John Keating
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsAn Irish Country Wedding is another heart-warming addition to New York Times bestselling author Patrick Taylor's Irish Country series.Love is in the air in the colourful Ulster village of Ballybucklebo, where Dr. Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly has finally proposed to the darling of his youth, Kitty O'Hallorhan... -
Bata, Bata...Pa'No Ka Ginawa? by Lualhati Bautista
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratings...Hanggang sa ang bata ay hindi na bata kundi ama, o ina. Ano ang ituuro niya ngayon sa kanyang mga anak? Lahat ng dapat niyang matutuhan ngayon pa lang, hindi pagkamasunurin at pagkakimi, kundi pagkibo pag may sasabihin at paglaban pag kailangan. Lahat ng panahon ay hindi panahon ng mga takot at pagtitmpi; lahat ng panahon ay panahon ng pagpapasiya... -
A Dublin Student Doctor by Patrick Taylor
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsPatrick Taylor's devoted readers know Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly as a pugnacious general practitioner in the quaint Irish village of Ballybucklebo. Now Taylor turns back the clock to give us a portrait of the young Fingal--and show us the pivotal events that shaped the man he would become... -
All the Children Are Home by Patry Francis
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsA sweeping saga in the vein of Ask Again, Yes following a foster family through almost a decade of dazzling triumph and wrenching heartbreak—from the author of The Orphans at Race Point... -
Rhythms by Donna Hill
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIt all began in 1927, in the small town of Rudell, Mississippi, after the sudden and tragic death of Cora Harvey's parents. She has nothing left except her burning desire to become a singer. But her dream will never come true in Rudell, especially if she marries the man she adores, Dr. David Mackey... -
Outbound Train by Renea Winchester
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn 1976, memories from a night near the railroad tracks sixteen years earlier haunt Barbara Parker. She wrestles with past demons every night, then wakes to the train’s five-thirty whistle. Exhausted and dreading the day, she keeps her hands busy working in Bryson City’s textile plant, known as the “blue jean plant,” all the while worrying about her teenage daughter, Carole Anne... -
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Daughters of the Dust A Novel by Julie Dash
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsInspired by her Sundance Festival award-winning film "Daughters of the Dust," Julie Dash has put her cinematic vision on the page, penning a rich, magical new novel which extends her story of a family of complex, independent African-American women... -
The Secret Years: An emotional drama of love and survival by Judith Lennox
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA moving story about life in the East Anglian Fens after the First World War, evoking the emotions of the men who came through their ordeals and the women who survived the trauma of separation.During the golden summer of 1914, four young people played in the gardens of Drakesden Abbey... -
Drinking from a Bitter Cup by Angela Jackson-Brown
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratings“1978. The year I turned ten and the year my mama killed herself. She was thirty-five, and dying is the last thing that should have been on her mind.” After the death of her mother, Sylvia Butler’s father, a man she knows only from an old photo, takes her from Louisville, Kentucky to Ozark, Alabama to live with his family... -
Blues Dancing by Diane McKinney-Whetstone
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsVerdi and Rowe have been living a comfortable existence for the past twenty years... -
Matilda's Last Waltz by Tamara McKinley
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAfter the tragic death of her husband, Jenny travels to Churinga, a remote sheep-station in the Australian Outback that he intended to give to her for reasons she doesn't understand.Churinga is harsh and unforgiving, but also has its beauty...and its secrets... -
The Lilac People by Milo Todd
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFor readers of All the Light We Cannot See and In Memoriam, a moving and deeply humane story about a trans man who must relinquish the freedoms of prewar Berlin to survive first the Nazis then the Allies while protecting the ones he loves. In 1932 Berlin, Bertie, a trans man, and his friends spend carefree nights at the Eldorado Club, the epicenter of Berlin's thriving queer community... -
Entrok by Okky Madasari
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratings'Entrok' merupakan kisah perempuan daripada dua generasi yang berdepan dengan segala penindasan dan ketidakadilan daripada masyarakat, negara dan bahkan orang agama. Namun 'Entrok' bukan tentang kepasrahan dan ketidakupayaan perempuan, melainkan rakaman kesungguhan si ibu dan anak untuk memahami persekitarannya dan bangkit menguasai serta menentukan hidup mereka... -
A Tangled Mercy by Joy Jordan-Lake
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsTold in alternating tales at once haunting and redemptive, A Tangled Mercy is a quintessentially American epic rooted in heartbreaking true events examining the harrowing depths of human brutality and betrayal, and our enduring hope for freedom and forgiveness... -
The Pecan Man by Cassie Dandridge Selleck
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe Pecan Man is a work of Southern fiction whose first chapter was the First Place winner of the 2006 CNW/FFWA Florida State Writing Competition in the Unpublished Novel category.In the summer of 1976, recently widowed and childless, Ora Lee Beckworth hires a homeless old black man to mow her lawn... -
Where The Winds Dwell by Böðvar Guðmundsson, Bovar Gumundsson
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWritten as a letter from a father to a daughter, Where the Winds Dwell is compassionate and real. Guðmundsson brings together past and present in this tragic story of the historic journey to Nýja Ísland, the world's largest Icelandic community outside of Iceland... -
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El prisionero enmascarado by Juliette Benzoni, Francisco Rodriguez de Lecea
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWearing a dress that is splattered with blood and clasping a doll to her chest, Sylvie de Valaines, a four-year-old girl, wanders the streets of the small village of Anet. The year is 1626 and her entire family has just been murdered, likely on the orders of Cardinal Richelieu. When a young boy of 10--Francois de Borbon-Vendome, the prince of Martigues--finds her, he brings her to his castle... -
The Consequences: Stories by Manuel Muñoz
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsShimmering stories set in California’s Central Valley, the first book in a decade from a virtuoso story writer.“Her immediate concern was money.” So begins the first story in Manuel Muñoz’s dazzling new collection...Categorized as:
lgbtq historical-fiction literary-fiction family poc-mc fiction historical latinx-mc -
Counternarratives by John Keene
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsConjuring slavery and witchcraft, and with bewitching powers all its own, Counternarratives continually spins history—and storytelling—on its headRanging from the 17th century to the present and crossing multiple continents, Counternarrative’s novellas and stories draw upon memoirs, newspaper accounts, detective stories, interrogation transcripts, and speculative fiction to create new and...Categorized as:
black-mc historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction poc-mc 21st-century adult anthologies -
In Revere, In Those Days by Roland Merullo
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn this richly evocative novel--the moving story of one boy's coming of age--acclaimed author Roland Merullo will make you nostalgic for a small Massachusetts city called Revere even if you've never been there. Providing a window into an unspoiled America of forty years ago, In Revere welcomes you to the fiercely loyal and devoted Italian-American family of the Benedettos...Categorized as:
historical-fiction humor literary-fiction realistic adult boarding-school book coming-of-age -
Blackberries, Blackberries by Crystal Wilkinson, Nikky Finney
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAs the title implies, this beautifully written collection bursts with stories reminiscent of blackberries-–-small, succulent morsels that are inviting and sweet, yet sometimes bitter...Categorized as:
literary-fiction poc-mc realistic family black-mc fiction poc-author social-commentary -
I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots by Susan Straight
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsBeginning in the late 1950s, this novel tells the story of Marietta Cook, a tall girl growing up in Pine Gardens, a Gullah-speaking village in South Carolina. When Marietta's mother dies, she heads to Charleston in search of her uncle - only to find a lover and return pregnant with twins two years later...
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