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Tananarive Due

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"...I'd had it drummed into my head in creative writing workshop courses that one could not expect to be a respected writer when writing commercial or genre books. Legitimacy has always been very important to me...Finally, though, I said the heck with all of it. I wasn't going to try to be Toni Morrison or Joyce Carol Oates, I was just going to be me, and I was going to write about the people I know..."
Tananarive Due


Tananarive Due & mom, Patricia Stevens Due

Tananarive Due — pronounced tah-nah-nah-REEVE doo — is the American Book Award-winning author of nine books, ranging from supernatural thrillers to a mystery to a civil rights memoir.

Due has a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University and an M.A. in English literature from the University of Leeds, England, where she specialized in Nigerian literature as a Rotary Foundation Scholar. Due currently teaches creative writing in the MFA program at Antioch University Los Angeles. Due has also taught at the Hurston-Wright Foundation’s Writers’ Week, the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop, and the summer Imagination conference at Cleveland State University. She is a former feature writer and columnist for The Miami Herald.

Due lives in Southern California with her husband, novelist and screenwriter Steven Barnes; their son, Jason; and her stepdaughter, Nicki.

Click to Hear an Interview of Tananarive Due by Lee E. Meadows on Detroit's WPON "Book Beat" Radio Program 11/4/98


In the Night of the Heat: A Tennyson Hardwick Story
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by Blair Underwood, Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes

Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Atria (September 16, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1416569979
ISBN-13: 978-1416569978

Threatened with death after acquittal for murder, football superstar T. D. Jackson asks struggling actor and former gigolo Tennyson Hardwick for protection. Tennyson has a reputation in Hollywood after solving the murder of rapper Afrodite, but politely turns Jackson down: His acting career is taking off with a new series, and he's trying to work out his personal life after a series of wrong turns.

But Tennyson's life is upturned when his seedy past catches up to him on the set of his TV series. Then T. D. Jackson is found dead in his home, the victim of an apparent suicide.

T.D.'s gorgeous cousin, Melanie, is sure the superstar was murdered, and Jackson's family offers Tennyson an irresistible fee to discover the truth. But prying into T. D. Jackson's death means answering the question that divided a nation and destroyed a film star and a football icon's life and career: Did T. D. Jackson kill his wife?

When the investigation takes an unexpected turn toward the governor's mansion and a long-forgotten football game in the segregated South of the 1960s, Tennyson uncovers secrets tearing at the heart of two dynasties and must rely on all of his assets -- his actor's heart, deadly hands, profiler's mind, and every other part of his body -- to keep from dying next.

 

Blood Colony
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The Third Book in Tananarive's African Immortal Series

Hardcover: 432 pages
Publisher: Atria; 1st Atria Books Hardcover Ed edition (June 3, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0743287355

Acclaimed for seven novels, ranging from supernatural thrillers to historical fiction, which have garnered her a multitude of fans and awards, Tananarive Due now imagines the story of an ancient group of immortals -- a hidden African clan that has survived for more than a thousand years -- facing one of the most challenging issues of our time: the AIDS/HIV pandemic.

There's a new drug on the street: Glow. Said to heal almost any illness, it is distributed by an Underground Railroad of drug peddlers. But what gives Glow its power? Its main ingredient is blood -- the blood of immortals. A small but powerful colony of immortals is distributing the blood, slowly wiping out the AIDS epidemic and other diseases around the world.

Meet Fana Wolde, seventeen years old, the only immortal born with the Living Blood. She can read minds, and her injuries heal immediately. When her best friend, a mortal, is imprisoned by Fana's family, Fana helps her escape -- and together they run away from Fana's protected home in Washington State to join the Underground Railroad.

But Fana has more than her parents to worry about: Glow peddlers are being murdered by a violent, hundred-year-old sect with ties to the Vatican. Now, when Fana is most vulnerable, she is being hunted to fulfill an ancient blood prophecy that could lead to countless deaths.

While her people search for Fana and race to unravel the unknown sect's mysterious origins, Fana must learn to confront the deadly forces -- or she and everyone she loves will die.

 

Casanegra: A Tennyson Hardwick Novel
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by Blair Underwood, Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes


Blair Underwood, Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes discuss Casanegra

Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Atria (June 19, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0743287312

Read an AALBC.com book Review

Casanegra follows the adventures of Tennyson Hardwick, a gorgeous, sexy actor and former gigolo, living on the fringes of the good life in Hollywood. This story, which chronicles the redemption of a prodigal son, combines the glamour of Hollywood with the seedy hopelessness of the inner city.

In this hot and steamy mystery, Tennyson struggles to hang on to his acting career and redeem his sex-for-pay history, which estranged him from his family -- especially his father, a decorated LAPD captain who raised Tennyson to call him "sir." Now, in the wake of his father's sudden stroke, Tennyson has to save himself from taking the fall for the first murder of a female rapper. In the process he discovers his hidden talents -- the hard way.

 

The Living Blood
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The Second Book in Tananarive's African Immortal Series

Paperback: 528 pages
Publisher: Washington Square Press (January 1, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0671040847

2002 American Book Award Winner

The pantheon of modern horror gods is a small and frighteningly talented group: Stephen King, Anne Rice, Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Dean Koontz--and Tananarive Due. If there is any justice, Due's exciting, powerful, ambitious, scary, and beautifully written supernatural thriller, The Living Blood, will be the first of a decades-long string of hits that will sell millions.

Jessica Jacobs-Wolde's life was destroyed when her husband, David Wolde, disappeared after killing both their daughter Kira and Jessica herself--and reviving Jessica to immortality with his healing blood. David was a Life Brother, member of an ancient, secret, and immortal African clan. Now Jessica, hiding with her surviving daughter in rural Botswana, attempts to make sense of her new existence as she uses her altered blood to save the incurably ill. But her daughter Fana was born with the living blood in her veins, and at the age of 3 can raise a storm, kill with a thought, and possess her mother's mind. The true extent of her abilities is unknown. Jessica's only hope of teaching Fana to control her dangerous talents is to travel to Ethiopia and find the Life Brothers' hidden colony. But the Life Brothers despise the new immortals and may possess the knowledge to end even immortal lives. And others, unknown to Jessica, are searching for her and Fana: Lucas Shepard, a Florida doctor driven to desperation by his young son's untreatable leukemia; ruthless mercenaries in the pay of an aging medical-company executive, who will stop at nothing to gain immortality and the billion-dollar profits that a drug based on the living blood would bring; and a supernatural being or force called the Bee Lady, who stalks Fana in the world of dreams, seeking to possess Fana's mind and powers for her own evil purposes.

 

Whispers in the Night: Dark Dreams III
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by Tananarive Due (Collaborator), Christopher Chambers (Collaborator), Brandon Massey (Editor)

Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Dafina (July 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0758217412
ISBN-13: 978-0758217417
Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.9 inches

Beyond Your Darkest Dreams...

From the deceptive safety of your very own bed to the seeming stillness of country roads and the bustle of urban streets, your darkest realities reveal themselves as you enter hidden realms, crossing the threshold into one man's tortured mind--a mind haunted by the mocking, derisive voices of his youth... Quench your insatiable thirst for terror at a bar where the drinks are abominable and the patrons never leave. Relive the infamous, harrowing Middle Passage that brought millions of African slaves to America, but this time with a spellbinding twist...

Lie Your Deepest Fears...

From scenes of pulsating ecstasy to unspeakable tragedy, surrender yourself to a world inhabited by bizarre sex cults and violent gangs. Meet the malevolent entities that feed on human misery in the midst of a hurricane's wrath. Endure a sweltering summer on a swamp inhabited by mischievous spirits intent on possessing the most innocent within their slimy grasp. Submit to the tantalizing temptation and the irresistible pull of the unknown in nineteen stories that will illuminate the horrors within--and without. And whatever you do, don't turn off the lights...

 

Voices from the Other Side: Dark Dreams II
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by Eric Jerome Dickey (Contributor), Tananarive Due (Contributor), L.A. Banks (Contributor), Brandon Massey (Editor)

ISBN: 0758212321
Format: Paperback, 336pp
Pub. Date: April 2006
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation

Book Description
BEYOND THE SHADOWS...they linger, showing themselves only to those brave enough to perceive them...willing to see beyond human existence and into the heart of darkness. Feel the racing pulse in the primal desire of werewolves. Embrace the aura of two gifted women as they unleash power beyond imagining. Savor the aroma of otherworldly flora planted in a unique patch of earth.

THEY WALK THE NIGHT...prepared to face terrors humans were never meant to confront. Chant with an African mystic as he protects his people from an entity of unbridled malice. Ride the dusty trails of the Old West in pursuit of monstrous legends. Sail on a ship of damned souls as it languishes in the depths of forbidden waters. From the untamed wilderness of ancient times to the concrete jungles of today, these seventeen excursions into nightmares will keep you awake long past the midnight hour--and praying for daylight...



Joplin's Ghost

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ISBN: 0743449037
Format: Hardcover, 496pp
Pub. Date: September 2005
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group

From the award-winning writer of The Good House, The Living Blood, and more, Joplin's Ghost is a chilling tale of a star-in-the-making whose life goes haywire as she is haunted by the ghost of a long-dead music legend.

When Phoenix Smalls was ten, she nearly died at her parents' jazz club when she was crushed by a turn-of-the-century piano. Now twenty-four, Phoenix is launching a career as an R & B singer. She's living the life young artists envy and seems destined for fame and fortune. But a chance visit to a historical site in St. Louis ignites a series of bizarre, erotic encounters with a spirit who may be the King of Ragtime, Scott Joplin.

The music of Scott Joplin is strange enough to the ears of the hip-hop generation, but the idea that these antique sounds are being channeled by the protegee of rap superstar G-Ronn is nothing short of ludicrous.

With growing violence in G-Ronn's inner circle and a ghost bent on living forever through her, Phoenix's life suddenly hangs in the balance," writes Tananarive Due. Can the power of her own inner song and the love of a music writer who believes in her give Phoenix the strength to fight to live out her own future? Or will she be trapped forever in Scott Joplin's doomed, tragic past?

 

The Good House
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ISBN: 0743449002
Format: Hardcover, 482pp
Pub. Date: September 2003
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group

Read an AALBC.com Review

From the American Book Award winner and author of "one of the most talked about debuts in the horror field since the advent of Stephen King" (Publishers Weekly) comes a terrifying story of supernatural suspense, as a woman searches for the inherited power that can save her hometown from evil forces.

Tananarive Due's first three novels gained her legions of dedicated fans who recognize a true master of the genre. Now she returns with her best yet -- a chilling story set in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. The house Angela Toussaint's late grandmother owned is so beloved that townspeople in Sacajawea, Washington, call it the Good House. But is it?

Angela hoped her grandmother's famous "healing magic" could save her failing marriage while she and her family lived in the old house the summer of 2001. Instead, an unexpected tragedy ripped Angela's family apart.

Now, two years later, Angela is moving past her grief and taking control of her life as a talent agent in Los Angeles, and she is finally ready to revisit the rural house she loved so much as a child. Back in Sacajawea, Angela realizes she hasn't been the only one to suffer a shocking loss. Since she left, there have been more senseless tragedies, and Angela wonders if they are related somehow. Could the events be linked to a terrifying entity Angela's grandmother battled in 1929? Did her teenage son, Corey, reawaken something that should have been left sleeping?

With the help of Myles Fisher, her high school boyfriend, and clues from beyond the grave, Angela races to solve a deadly puzzle that has followed her family for generations. She must summon her own hidden gifts to face the timeless adversary stalking her in her grandmother's house -- and in the Washington woods.

 

Freedom in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for Civil Rights
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Tananarive Due, Patricia A. Duester, Patricia Stephens Due

ISBN: 0345447336
Format: Hardcover, 384pp
Pub. Date: January 2003
Publisher: Ballantine Books, Inc.
Edition Description: 1ST

Patricia Stephens Due fought for justice during the height of the Civil Rights era, surrendering her very freedom to ensure that the rights of others might someday be protected. Her daughter, Tananarive, grew up deeply enmeshed in the values of a family committed to making right whatever they saw as wrong. Together, they have written a paean to the movement–its struggles, its nameless foot-soldiers, and its achievements–and an incisive examination of the future of justice in this country. Their mother-daughter journey spanning the struggles of two generations is an unforgettable story.


Patricia Stephens Due was a civil rights activist with CORE while attending Florida A&M University. In 1960, based on her nonviolent stand during a landmark “jail-in,” she received the prestigious Gandhi Award. She is married to a civil rights lawyer, has three daughters, and continues to work for change in America. Over the years, she has conducted civil rights workshops and re-enactments for colleges, public schools, civic groups, and churches. She lives in Miami, Florida, with her husband, John Due.

In 1960, when she was a student at Florida A&M University, Patricia and her sister Priscilla were part of the movement’s landmark “jail-in,” the first time during the student sit-in movement when protestors served their time rather than paying a fine. She and her sister, and three FAMU students, spent forty-nine days behind bars rather than pay for the “crime” of sitting at a Woolworth lunch counter. Thus began a lifelong commitment to human rights. Patricia and her husband, civil rights lawyer John Due, worked tirelessly with many of the movement’s greatest figures throughout the sixties to bring about change, particularly in the Deep Southern state of Florida.

Freedom in the Family chronicles these years with fascinating, raw power. Featuring interviews with civil rights leaders like Black Panther Stokely Carmichael (later known as Kwame Ture) and ordinary citizens whose heroism has been largely unknown, this is a sweeping, multivoicedaccount of the battle for civil rights in America. It also reveals those leaders’ potentially controversial feelings about the current state of our nation, a country where police brutality and crippling disparities for blacks and whites in health care, education, employment, and criminal justice still exist today.

A mother writes so that the civil liberties she struggled for are not eroded, so that others will take up the mantle and continue to fight against injustice and discrimination. Her daughter, as part of the integration generation, writes to say thank you, to show the previous generation how very much they’ve done and how much better off she is for their effort–despite all the work that remains. Their combined message is remarkable, moving, and important. It makes for riveting reading.

 

The Black Rose
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Format: Paperback, 384pp.
ISBN: 0345441567
Publisher: One World
Pub. Date: January  2001
Edition Desc: 1ST TRADE

Born to former slaves on a Louisiana plantation in 1867, Madam C.J. Walker rose from poverty and indignity to become America's first black female millionaire, the head of a hugely successful beauty company, and a leading philanthropist in African American causes. Renowned author Alex Haley became fascinated by the story of this extraordinary heroine, and before his death in 1992, he embarked on the research and outline of a major novel based on her life. Now with The Black Rose, critically acclaimed writer Tananarive Due brings Haley's work to an inspiring completion.

Blending documented history, vivid dialogue, and a sweeping fictionalized narrative, Tananarive Due paints a vivid portrait of this passionate and tenacious pioneer and the unforgettable era in which she lived.
 


My Soul to Keep

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The First Book in Tananarive's African Immortal Series

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Eos (April 8, 1998)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 006105366X

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One of the Publishers Weekly Best Novels of the Year in 1997.

Tananarive Due mixes nearly unbearable suspense with fantasy and horror in this tightly woven tale. When people close to her begin to meet violent, mysterious deaths, Jessica's husband makes an unimaginable confession: More than 400 years ago he and other members of an Ethiopian sect gave up their humanity for immortality--a secret that he must now protect at any cost. 352 pp. 15,000 print.

 

The BetweenThe Between
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Publisher:  HarperCollins Publishers, Incorporated
Date Published:  March 1996
Format:  Trade Paper, 346 pages

Nominated for the Bram Stoker Award

A features writer and columnist for the Miami Herald electrifies the literary world with her brilliant first novel. Hilton's grandmother drowned trying to save his life. Thirty years later, he's beginning to suspect that he was never meant to survive the accident--and that dark forces are working to rectify that mistake.

 


Related Links

Tananarive Due Web Site
http://www.tananarivedue.com/

Horror Net Book Reviews
http://horrornet.com/HNRmysoul2keep.htm

Dark Echo
http://www.darkecho.com/tananarive/
http://www.darkecho.com/darkecho/archives/due.html

Miami Herald Article Written by Ms. Due
http://www.landmark-education.com/overvw/articles/miami/home.htm

All Things Considered Interview
http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/archives/971031.atc.html

 



 














 

 

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