No one ever called Delia Dukes by her real name. Instead, they called her Duck, because, as everyone said, she was the ugly one. Her older sister, Merline, was the perfect one - beautiful, precocious, well mannered. Merline was the pride of Greenville, Texas's Negro community, and Duck was just her unfortunate-looking younger sister. But Duck was smarter than anyone expected, and, growing up in her small, segregated town in the 1930s and 1940s, she knew secrets. In fact, she knew the biggest secret of all: the fact that her seventeen-year-old sister was pregnant by Greenville's heir apparent, Kenny Banks.When she was seventeen, Duck took her secrets to Chicago, where she cleaned jazz clubs and dreamed about singing on stages instead of cleaning them. By 1960, Duck was known on the Chicago jazz scene as Delia Dukes, a middling singer who didn't quite have what it took to play the Blue Note, but who did quite well in the city's second-tier clubs. By 1970, Duck and Merline's...

Ellison Emory begins college with both hope and trepidation. It has been only a year since his mother died, his relationship with his father has deteriorated beyond repair and Duke University offers him a much-needed fresh start.Ellison's life takes a turn for the better when he meets Angela. He nurses a secret crush on her until his roommate, Jason, announces that he's fallen for her, dooming Ellison to watch the woman he loves from the sidelines. However, Ellison soon finds himself embroiled in a love triangle that destroys his friendship with Jason and his relationship with Angela.Ellison's struggles during his senior year lead him back to both his father and Angela. He is trying to find answers, but those answers may destroy Ellison's future.

Tina Jones is glad to be away from her controlling Aunt Gillian. Gillian has always had something to say about Tina's job, her love life, her weight problems; all have been fair game for Gillian's sniping at one time or another. Now, however, things have changed. Gillian has Alzheimer's and can no longer live alone. She moves in with Tina, and Tina makes a shocking discovery: a birth certificate proving that Gillian has a daughter. Tina sets out to discover the truth about her past, and along the way learns not only about the ties of family, but also that love rarely comes in the form you expect.