Avery Cunningham Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Avery Cunningham is a published American author.

She resides in Memphis, Tennessee. Avery graduated from DePaul University in 2016 from their Master of Arts Writing & Publishing Program.

Avery has possessed over a decade of working in the editorial field with small presses, literary magazines, and best-selling authors.

She also had a childhood where she grew up around African-Americans who were exceptional, who made an effort to lift up their communities while also doing their best to keep their hold on prosperity in an environment that was strongly segregated.

The ability to be within and without is a concept that Avery has dealt with since she was a child. She also goes into it thoroughly in her fiction.

Avery is frequently busy writing but when she is not preoccupied doing that, she is going on adventures with Grizzly, her Bernese Mountain Dog. She also is likely doing research to write her next book. Avery aspires to tell the stories of various complex characters, all who are pushing for their right to exist at history’s fringes.

Her debut fictional novel came out in 2024 and is titled The Mayor of Maxwell Street. This is a debut novel that got people talking and has been referred to as a triumph set in the backdrop of Chicago in the early twentieth century.

The Mayor of Maxwell Street is Avery Cunningham’s first novel. If you’ve been looking for a new book to try out and like historical fiction, this book just might be for you!

A wealthy Black debutante gets the help of a lower level speakeasy manager to try and point out the head of an underground crime syndicate. As a result, the pair end up getting pulled into the world of Chicago during its Prohibition era, one of the less safer times to be alive.

It is the year 1921, and America is on fire. Vice and virtue are being brought to life on every shore, and at the heart and very center of it all is Chicago.

Main character Nelly Sawyer is the daughter of a man who is known as the wealthiest Negro man in the United States. It was his affluence that was able to get his family higher up in Black society than ever before.

When Nelly’s only brother unexpectedly passes away, she becomes the top debutante just like that. However, she has always aspired to more than just marriage and society influence. In fact, she has been working undercover for the past year as an investigative journalist.

Her work mainly focuses on sharing the tribulations and achievements of Black people who live in the effects of Jim Crow. She means to expose how it has affected them. Now her assignment is going to take her into the inner workings of a vice lord, the Mayor of Maxwell Street.

Jay Shorey was born in Alabama in the rural area to a couple who was biracial and murdered. Jay is the type of person who knows just what it is like to be turned down a chance to participate in the American dream.

When fate takes a turn to show Jay that he has a way out, he takes it and doesn’t question it at all. He showed up on Chicago’s shores and made his own way to get all the way to the top of the underworld of the city, moving up to run the fanciest speakeasy in Chicago which is known for being the place that politicians, gangsters, the rich and the famous all rub elbows.

Jay and Nelly have their paths cross and she gets him on her team to try and expose the Mayor, hopefully sparking a change that will last in a city that is nothing but corrupt. When Jay shows Nelly a new world, one where she is able to be more than just held in an ivory tower, could it change her existence forever?

This is set in a time where Jim Crow is a monolith, and the world of the Black upper class is anything but flexible as Chicago goes through terrible violence during the Prohibition era. Together they collaborate and in the end may forge a love that lasts for the ages.

This is a historical drama and a representation of the twenties and Black society as well as an epic love story that you won’t want to miss! Read Avery Cunningham’s riveting debut to capture all of the details of this incredible story for yourself.