Books to Read When You Want to Feel Like a Queen Bey (Beyoncé): Dangerously in Love (2003)

Annika Rose is an English major at the University of Illinois. Anxious in social situations where she finds most people's behavior confusing, she'd rather be surrounded by the order and discipline of books or the quiet solitude of playing chess. Jonathan Hoffman joined the chess club and lost his first game--and his heart--to the shy and awkward, yet brilliant and beautiful Annika. He admires her ability to be true to herself, quirks and all, and accepts the challenges involved in pursuing a relationship with her. Jonathan and Annika bring out the best in each other, finding the confidence and courage within themselves to plan a future together. What follows is a tumultuous yet tender love affair that withstands everything except the unforeseen tragedy that forces them apart, shattering their connection and leaving them to navigate their lives alone. Now, a decade later, fate reunites Annika and Jonathan in Chicago. She's living the life she wanted as a librarian. He's a Wall Street whiz, recovering from a divorce and seeking a fresh start. The attraction and strong feelings they once shared are instantly rekindled, but until they confront the fears and anxieties that drove them apart, their second chance will end before it truly begins.

Two ex-lovers, both women, reunite decades after their passionate affair in this tender, insightful novel about marriage, motherhood, and sexuality Pages for Her is the story of two women, Flannery and Anne, each at a personal turning point, and the circumstances that lead to their reunion. Twenty years after their brief but passionate affair, chronicled in Sylvia Brownrigg's earlier novel Pages for You , Flannery has the chance once again to meet Anne, who opened young Flannery up to the possibility of love--then left her heartbroken. Having long ago put their love behind them, they live now on opposite coasts. Anne has been in a deep, childless partnership with a fellow scholar, Jasper, who recently left her. Flannery, to her own surprise, married a charismatic artist named Charles, with whom she has a young daughter. Submerged by her husband's demands and personality and her adjustment to motherhood, Flannery has lost sight of herself and her work. When the two women meet at a conference, they find that the passion and understanding between them has endured, though it has been hidden. In rediscovering each other, they are able to rediscover themselves.

Star-crossed lovers get a second chance at romance when they're reunited at a wedding in Nigeria, in a heartfelt novel from the acclaimed author of The Sweetest Remedy . Dunni hasn't seen her high school boyfriend, Obinna, since she left Nigeria to attend college inAmerica. Before their devastating separation, they vowed to find their way back to each otherone day. Twelve years later, and their vow is a thing of the past. Dunni works as a geneticist in Seattle and is engaged to a man she doesn't love but one her parents approve of. Her future is laid out for her, and everything is going according to plan until she returns to Nigeria for a friend's wedding and runs into Obinna. The shy, awkward boy she loved as a teenager is now a sophisticated, confident man. Things have changed, but there's still an undeniable connection between them. As they rediscover each other, their days filled with desire and passion, Dunni is reminded of the beautiful future she once planned with Obinna. But when devastating secrets are revealed and the reckless actions of their past bring new challenges, she's left questioning everything, including if the love that consumed her as a teenager is still worth holding on to.

It's hard to move on from a broken heart--and harder to move on from a broken friendship. Mikaela Marchand is living the polished life she always planned for: a successful New York lawyer, with a promotion in her sights and a devoted boyfriend by her side. She's come a long way from the meek teen she was growing up in small town Georgia, but the memory of her adolescence isn't far--in fact, it's splashed across a massive billboard in Times Square. An old photograph of Mikaela and her former best friend, Julie, has landed on the cover of a high-profile fashion magazine advertised all over the city. And when Julie files a lawsuit, Mikaela is caught in the middle as defense lawyer for the magazine. Not only will she have to face Julie for the first time in years, Mikaela's forced to work closely with the photographer in question: the former love of her life--and Julie's ex-husband--Cameron Murphy. Mikaela needs to win the case to get her promotion--and as a junior partner, she has no margin for error. But unresolved feelings still exist between Cam and Mikaela, and jealousy always made Julie play dirty... With flashbacks to summers of first loves and fragile friendships, Long Past Summer looks at the delicate and powerful thread that binds and breaks friends and flames.

Seven days to fall in love, fifteen years to forget, and seven days to get it all back again... Eva Mercy is a single mom and bestselling erotica writer who is feeling pressed from all sides. Shane Hall is a reclusive, enigmatic, award‑winning novelist, who, to everyone's surprise, shows up in New York. When Shane and Eva meet unexpectedly at a literary event, sparks fly, raising not only their buried traumas, but the eyebrows of the Black literati. What no one knows is that fifteen years earlier, teenage Eva and Shane spent one crazy, torrid week madly in love. While they may be pretending not to know each other, they can't deny their chemistry--or the fact that they've been secretly writing to each other in their books through the years. Over the next seven days, amidst a steamy Brooklyn summer, Eva and Shane reconnect--but Eva's wary of the man who broke her heart, and wants him out of the city so her life can return to normal. Before Shane disappears though, she needs a few questions answered... With its keen observations of creative life in America today, as well as the joys and complications of being a mother and a daughter, Seven Days in June is a hilarious, romantic, and sexy‑as‑hell story of two writers discovering their second chance at love.

All her life, Mulan has trained for one purpose: to win the duel that every generation in her family must fight. If she prevails, she can reunite a pair of priceless heirloom swords separated decades earlier, and avenge her father, who was paralyzed in his own duel. Then a messenger from the Emperor arrives, demanding that all families send one soldier to fight the Rouran invaders in the north. Mulan's father cannot go. Her brother is just a child. So she ties up her hair, takes up her sword, and joins the army as a man.

In one shattering instant, schoolteacher Cassandra Miller lost everything that mattered to her. Stricken with guilt and sorrow, she has no reason to care about tomorrow. An ex-Marine, Wylie Everett has always loved Cass, though their backgrounds were as different as could be. The last person Cass wants help from is Wylie, the man she wants to forget. In childhood, Wylie Everett was her cherished best friend. In adulthood, he was the secret lover who left her without explanation. He walked away believing he could never be good enough for her. But he's never stopped regretting his decision. Now, helping her heal is the only way he can make amends, and hopefully make up for lost time. As he renews her joy in small things, and challenges her to take a fresh perspective, the desire they once shared burns more fiercely than ever—and proves anything but safe. Can he and Cass find one last way to move forward, and risk rebuilding their lives…together?

Shanghai, 1926. A blood feud between two gangs runs the streets red, leaving the city helpless in the grip of chaos. Juliette Cai, a former flapper, has returned to assume her role as the proud heir of the Scarlet Gang, a network of criminals far above the law. Their only rivals in power are the White Flowers, who have fought the Scarlets for generations. And behind every move is their heir, Roma Montagov, Juliette's first love-- and first betrayal. When gangsters on both sides show signs of instability culminating in clawing their own throats out, there are whispers of a contagion, a madness, of a monster in the shadows. Juliette and Roma must work together, for if they can't stop this mayhem, then there will be no city left for either to rule.

*ebook & audiobook on Libby
*audiobook on hoopla

A thrilling reimagining of Shakespeare's Hamlet, The Steep and Thorny Way tells the story of a murder most foul and the mighty power of love and acceptance in a state gone terribly rotten. 1920s Oregon is not a welcoming place for Hanalee Denney, the daughter of a white woman and an African-American man. She has almost no rights by law, and the Ku Klux Klan breeds fear and hatred in even Hanalee's oldest friendships. Plus, her father, Hank Denney, died a year ago, hit by a drunk-driving teenager. Now her father's killer is out of jail and back in town, and he claims that Hanalee's father wasn't killed by the accident at all but, instead, was poisoned by the doctor who looked after him - who happens to be Hanalee's new stepfather. The only way for Hanalee to get the answers she needs is to ask Hank himself, a "haint" wandering the roads at night.