Have you read any books which feature African American heroines as a lead character? It seems like so many stories feature white males as the key character. A portion have white females. But to find books outside that area can be quite challenging.

Tara from the Sookie Stackhouse series comes to mind, but she's of course a side character, and a bit stereotypical.

I just started a book by Isabel Allende (Chilean or Peruvian), called Island Beneath the Sea, and the lead character is an African American heroine and slave. Have not finished it yet, but Allende is a great writer. A bunch of other stories come to mind, but for some reason my mind is a blank. But there are a lot out there, I know.

If the books we're inquiring about include those written by African American authors, then yes there are quite a few books by Toni Morrison and Donna Hill which feature African American heroines as lead characters. Apart from these (and a few others by other Black authors), I am yet to come across any other works with an African American female lead.

Hi All,

I'm kind of shocked people haven't seen all the thousands or millions of books written with black female leads by black authors! Wow. I mean I couldn't even name all of the authors who write these types of books. The majority of black authors write black female leads. There are TONS, tons of writers who write AA characters. I for instance write crime and mystery with an interracial romance subplot and in my current series, my lead female detective is black.

There are so many I couldn't possibly name them all but here are some. Also ReShonda Tate Billingsly and Victoria Christopher Murray are two of the biggest sellers of black fiction today! LOL!

Deatri-King Bey
Angelia Vernon Menchen
Shelia Goss
Charisma Knight
Beverly Johnson
Elissa Gabrielle
Roslyn Hardy Holcomb
ReShonda Tate Billingsley
Victoria Christopher Murray
Pamela Samuels-Young
Solomon Jones
Lena Matthews
Connie Briscoe
Trice Hickman
Michelle Monkou
Barbara Grovner
Francine Craft
Vivienne Diane Neal
A'ndrea Wilson


This is just a tiny fraction of black authors who write all types of genres with black lead heroines. The genres differ from romance and paranormal to mystery but these are some of them. There are millions of us out here but you have to look where we are. That's the key. You got to get involved in the black part of the writing industry to see all of the fabulous black authors and learn about the variety of our work. The typical black author does not get the exposure or promo that Hill and Morrison get. If you go by mainstream media or the NYT list then you will only see a few black authors up there and they do not even come close to representing how much of us are there. If a reader isn't reading black books or keeping up with the black literary community regularly than I can understand how they don't know about all the wonderful black authors out there. There are TONS of more blacks in writing that have a lot to offer so I do hope people search others out.

Hope I helped because this is what I am here for!

Best Wishes!