Seven Deadly Sins (Murray)

From the NAACP Image award winner and national bestselling author Victoria Christopher Murray, a novel inspired by the seven deadly sins about a woman caught between an entertainment mogul with a shady past and his childhood friend who is out for revenge. Is lust a sin? Tiffanie has lived a sheltered life in a very strict household with her pastor grandfather and her grandmother in Washington, D.C. But when she meets Damon, she falls for the successful entertainment businessman despite his history as a drug dealer. Everyone sees a bright future for the couple-yet when Tiffanie meets Trey, her lustful feelings leave her confused just days before her wedding. Trey is Damon's childhood best friend with whom he built a successful drug business. But when the game got hot and Damon decided to leave, Trey stayed and continued to sell drugs until he was arrested and spent seven years in prison. Now he's out and able to attend the wedding. While Damon is thrilled to have Trey back and hopes to bring his best friend into his business, Trey has other plans. And in the end, there will only be one man standing . . . Contains mature themes.

A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones. Gabrielle Wilson has the perfect life: a Beverly Hills mansion, a loving family, and a massively successful PR firm. When her father admits that an affair he had years before resulted in a daughter, Gabrielle is shocked, but is actually happy. Could this be the sister she has been praying for all her life? Keisha Jones's life is a struggle. Her late mother worked on the streets, and school was its own nightmare. When Gabrielle offers to fly Keisha out of Arkansas to meet the family, Keisha instantly agrees. But Gabrielle doesn't realize that Keisha has known about the Wilsons for years. Keisha is determined to have everything she has always envied, and nothing can stand in her way. Contains mature themes.

You can't put a price on love… Zuri Maxwell isn't happy. Her job is a grind, and money is always tight. Her boyfriend Stephon is the best part of life, but between his income as an artist and her commission-based paycheck, they are barely scraping by. When Zuri meets a sleek entrepreneur eager to pick her brain, she jumps at the chance to talk business with someone who has everything she wants. As he wines and dines her, Zuri starts moving in elite circles, and she faces a crossroads: Will she give up the stable, loving life she knows for one that glitters, but may not be gold?

The award-winning author delivers a passionate and unforgettable exploration of a marriage caught in the crossroads of rage. When Chastity Butler and Xavier Owens first meet, they instantly connect over their shared dedication to activism. After all, Xavier is a civil rights attorney and Chastity uses her business degree to work with a local foundation that helps battered women. Together, they work to make the world a better place and find themselves falling deeper in love. Even though friends and family warn them to slow down, Xavier and Chastity marry within a year. But their marriage is soon strained by the intense differences between their backgrounds. Chastity, the only child of a prominent popular pastor in Philadelphia, was raised with privilege. Xavier, meanwhile, never knew his father, was abandoned by his mother, and shuffled between houses, leaving him feeling isolated and inadequate. As an adult, he was determined to leave his past behind. As time goes on, Xavier is slowly overcome with resentment about his past. Soon, Chastity finds herself on the receiving end of his increasing rage. It starts with verbal abuse and escalates until the physical abuse makes Chastity feel like she's living in a prison. She has built a career on helping women in similar situations, but her religious upbringing, her position at the domestic violence foundation, as well as her family's high social profile all work to keep her in their home, praying that Xavier will change. Things only get worse when the local Democratic Party asks Chastity to run for office, and Xavier can't handle the amount of attention his wife is suddenly getting. When his rage explodes at a level Chastity has never seen, will their marriage survive or is this finally the last straw?

The 7 Deadly Sins series that inspired four Lifetime original movies continues with this unputdownable novel following mortgage broker Journee Alexander as she tries to escape the secrets of her past without losing all she has worked to build in the present. Journee Alexander grew up believing that the only person she could depend on was herself. After being abandoned by her mother, burning bridges with friends, and narrowly escaping bad business dealings with her first mentor, her trust is hard to earn and harder to keep. But she has overcome all of that and now, as a successful mortgage broker at the top of her game in Houston's booming real estate market, she has every reason to be proud of her accomplishments. She achieved this massive success on her own-there's no need to put her trust in anyone else. But when Journee starts receiving cryptic text messages from an unknown number threatening to destroy everything she has worked to build, she is out of her depth for the first time. Forced to consider accepting help from someone, Journee turns to the first man she loved, the one who got away. But old habits are hard to break and after trusting only her own instincts for so long, can she put her pride aside and accept advice from an old flame? Or should she put her trust in a brand-new love who is in sync with all that she wants to do? Journee is forced to confront the secrets of her past, the old hurts that never seem to heal, and the fact that sometimes a meteoric rise is just the first step in a devastating fall that will change her life forever.