One night, you will calmly put a knife to your husband's private part and promise to cut it off. It will scare him so much that the next day, he will call his family members for a meeting in the house. He will not call your family members, but you will not care. You won’t need them.

 In this remarkable short story collection, Damilare Kuku takes us deep into the heart of modern Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, and the lives of a collection of audacious women who cope with romantic difficulties by brilliantly turning the tables on the men who wrong them.

One hardworking married woman calmly threatens sharp-edged revenge on her lazy, hypocritical husband. Another skillfully protects her own business interests by shielding her pastor-husband from allegations of cheating that may or may not be true. A group of wealthy wives deceived by their husbands join forces in a WhatsApp support group called the Virtuous Wives Guild. And a discerning dater fed up with Nigerian men makes a vow to date only oyibos before discovering that white men can act just as badly.

A bestseller in Damilare Kuku’s native Nigeria, Nearly All the Men in Lagos Are Mad is a raunchy, satisfying, and outrageous read steeped in the chaos and allure of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest city. It’s also a love letter to Nigerian women: the women in these stories may be confronted at every turn with liars, scammers, and cheaters in their quests for love, but they always figure out how to come out victorious.

The first in a thrilling new series from Emmy Award–winning journalist Tamron Hall, in which a reporter unravels the disturbing mystery around the deaths of two black girls, the work of a serial killer terrorizing Chicago.

When crime reporter Jordan Manning leaves her hometown in Texas to take a job at a television station in Chicago, she’s one step closer to her a dream: a coveted anchor chair on a national network.

Jordan is smart and aggressive, with unabashed star-power, and often the only woman of color in the newsroom. Her signature? Arriving first on the scene—in impractical designer stilettos. Armed with a master’s degree in forensic science and impeccable instincts, Jordan has thus far been able to balance her dueling motivations: breaking every big story—and giving voice to the voiceless.

From her time reporting in Texas, she’s sure she has covered the vilest of human behaviors, but nothing has prepared her for Chicago. You see, Jordan is that rare breed of journalist who can navigate a crime scene as well as she can a newsroom—often noticing what others tend to miss. Again and again, she is called to cover the murders of black females, many of them sexually assaulted, most brutalized, and all of them quickly forgotten.

All until Masey James—the story that Jordan just can’t shake, try as she might. A fifteen-year-old girl whose body was found in an abandoned lot, Masey has come to represent for Jordan all of the frustration that her job—with its required distance—often forces her to repress. Putting the rest of her workload and her (fraying) personal life aside, Jordan does everything she can to give the story the coverage it desperately requires, and that a missing black child would so rarely get. Three young boys are eventually charged with Masey’s murder, but Jordan remains unconvinced.

There’s a serial killer on the loose, Jordan believes, and he’s hiding in plain sight.

A short story collection in the vein of Danielle Evans and Bryan Washington, about community, home, betrayal, and forgiveness.

HOLLER, CHILD is a short story collection packed with extraordinary and unforgettable writing and scenes, that explores concerns and issues that press at the bruises of guilt, betrayal, and forgiveness.

Set in the same Black community in Texas as PERISH, LaToya's debut novel, each story focuses on unique characters that illuminate life in Texas; they offer briliant, heartbreaking, but ultimately hopeful perspectives from the women and men in the community, and touch on big themes like race, power, inequality, and more.

In one story, the appearance of a horse in a man's suburban backyard places a former horse breeder in trouble with the police, while in another, following the mass suicide of his entire congregation, the mother of a cult leader tries to honor him in a way she couldn't while he was alive.

Fresh and urgently told, HOLLER, CHILD is a wise follow-up to LaToya's debut novel.

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The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author of Harlem Shuffle continues his Harlem saga in a powerful and hugely-entertaining novel that summons 1970s New York in all its seedy glory.

It’s 1971. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is careening towards bankruptcy, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Amidst this collective nervous breakdown furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney tries to keep his head down and his business thriving. His days moving stolen goods around the city are over. It’s strictly the straight-and-narrow for him — until he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May and he decides to hit up his old police contact Munson, fixer extraordinaire.  But Munson has his own favors to ask of Carney and staying out of the game gets a lot more complicated – and deadly.

1973. The counter-culture has created a new generation, the old ways are being overthrown, but there is one constant, Pepper, Carney’s endearingly violent partner in crime.  It’s getting harder to put together a reliable crew for hijackings, heists, and assorted felonies, so Pepper takes on a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem.  He finds himself in a freaky world of Hollywood stars, up-and-coming comedians, and celebrity drug dealers, in addition to the usual cast of hustlers, mobsters, and hit men. These adversaries underestimate the seasoned crook – to their regret.

1976.  Harlem is burning, block by block, while the whole country is gearing up for Bicentennial celebrations.  Carney is trying to come up with a July 4th ad he can live with. ("Two Hundred Years of Getting Away with It!"), while his wife Elizabeth is campaigning for her childhood friend, the former assistant D.A and rising politician Alexander Oakes.  When a fire severely injures one of Carney’s tenants, he enlists Pepper to look into who may be behind it. Our crooked duo have to battle their way through a crumbling metropolis run by the shady, the violent, and the utterly corrupted.

CROOK MANIFESTO is a darkly funny tale of a city under siege, but also a sneakily searching portrait of the meaning of family.  Colson Whitehead’s kaleidoscopic portrait of Harlem is sure to stand as one of the all-time great evocations of a place and a time.

Ola Olajide, a celebrated journalist at Womxxxn magazine, is set to marry the love of her life in one month’s time. Young, beautiful, and successful—she and her fiancé Michael are considered the “couple goals” of their social network and seem to have it all. That is, until one morning when they both wake up to the same message: “Oh my god, have you seen The List?” 

It began as a crowdsourced collection of names and somehow morphed into an anonymous account posting allegations on social media. Ola would usually be the first to support such a list—she’d retweet it, call for the men to be fired, write article after article. Except this time, Michael’s name is on it.

Compulsively readable, wildly entertaining, and filled with sharp social insight, The List is a piercing and dazzlingly clear-sighted debut about secrets, lies, and the internet. Perfect for fans of Such a Fun Age, Luster, and My Dark Vanessa, this is a searing portrait of these modern times and our morally complicated online culture.

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A stunning, contemporary Black southern gothic novel about what it means to be a poor woman in the God fearing south in the age of OnlyFans, by a breakout new Affrilachian writer, perfect for readers of The Other Black Girl and Luster

Magnolia Brown is nineteen years old, broke, and effectively an orphan. She feels stuck and haunted: by her overdrawn bank account, her predatory landlord, and the ghost of her late grandmother Mama Brown.

One night, while working at her dead-end gas station job, a mysterious, slick stranger named Cotton walks in and offers to turn Magnolia’s luck around with a lucrative “modeling” job at his family’s funeral home. She accepts. But despite things looking up, Magnolia’s problems fatten along with her wallet. When Cotton’s requests become increasingly weird, Magnolia discovers there’s a lot more at stake than just her rent.

Sharp as a belted knife, this sly social commentary cuts straight to the bone. House of Cotton will keep you mesmerized until the very last page.

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In the first Spice Isle Bakery Mystery, investigating a murder was never supposed to be on the menu. . .

Little Caribbean, Brooklyn, New York: Lyndsay Murray is opening Spice Isle Bakery with her family, and it’s everything she’s ever wanted. The West Indian bakery is her way to give back to the community she loves, stay connected to her Grenadian roots, and work side-by-side with her family. The only thing getting a rise out of Lyndsay is Claudio Fabrizi, a disgruntled fellow bakery owner who does not want any competition. On opening day, he comes into the bakery threatening to shut them down. Fed up, Lyndsay takes him to task in front of what seems to be the whole neighborhood. So when Claudio turns up dead a day later—murdered—Lyndsay is unfortunately the prime suspect. To get the scent of suspicion off her and her bakery, Lyndsay has to prove she’s innocent—under the watchful eyes of her overprotective brother, anxious parents, and meddlesome extended family—what could go wrong?

An all-powerful ruler's son vies for control over the human race in this brilliant conclusion to the Patternist saga, from the critically acclaimed author of Parable of the Sower.

Newly Reissued

A man risks his soul and his sanity to save his family from malevolent forces in this brilliant novel of horror and the supernatural, now updated with new material, from the award-winning pioneer of speculative fiction and author of the classic My Soul to Keep. 

When Hilton was a boy, his grandmother sacrificed her life to save him from drowning. Thirty years later, he begins to suspect that he was never meant to survive that accident, and that dark forces are working to rectify that mistake. 

When Hilton's wife, the only elected African American judge in Dade County, Florida, begins to receive racist hate mail from a man she once prosecuted, Hilton becomes obsessed with protecting his family. The demons lurking outside are matched by his internal terrors—macabre nightmares, more intense and disturbing than any he has ever experienced. Are these bizarre dreams the dark imaginings of a man losing his hold on sanity—or are they harbingers of terrible events to come? 

As Hilton battles both the sociopath threatening to destroy his family and the even more terrifying enemy stalking his sleep, the line between reality and fantasy dissolves . . . 

Chilling and utterly convincing, The Between is the haunting story of a man desperately trying to hold on to the people and life he loves as he slowly loses himself. 

A chance to rewrite their ending is worth the risk in this swoony romantic comedy from Kosoko Jackson.

It’s been months since aspiring journalist Kian Andrews has heard from his ex-boyfriend, Hudson Rivers, but an urgent text has them meeting at a café. Maybe Hudson wants to profusely apologize for the breakup. Or confess his undying love…But no, Hudson has a favor to ask—he wants Kian to pretend to be his boyfriend while his parents are in town, and Kian reluctantly agrees.

The dinner doesn’t go exactly as planned, and suddenly Kian is Hudson’s plus one to Georgia’s wedding of the season. Hudson comes from a wealthy family where reputation is everything, and he really can’t afford another mistake. If Kian goes, he’ll help Hudson preserve appearances and get the opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the biggest names in media. This could be the big career break Kian needs.

But their fake relationship is starting to feel like it might be more than a means to an end, and it’s time for both men to fact-check their feelings.

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A classic anthology of short stories by Black writers including James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, and Richard Wright -- edited and with an introduction by Langston Hughes. 

Originally published in 1967, The Best Short Stories by Black Writers offers a timeless and unforgettable portrait of the tragedy, comedy, triumph, and suffering that were part of African American life from 1899 to 1967. 

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Set within a contemporary black community in Southern California, Brit Bennett's mesmerizing first novel is an emotionally perceptive story about community, love, and ambition. It begins with a secret.

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A tale of what happens when we can no longer ignore what has been lost in this world.

Grievers is the story of a city so plagued by grief that it can no longer function.

Dune’s mother is patient zero of a mysterious illness that stops people in their tracks—in mid-sentence, mid-action, mid-life—casting them into a nonresponsive state from which no one recovers. Dune must navigate poverty and the loss of her mother as Detroit’s hospitals, morgues, and graveyards begin to overflow. As the quarantined city slowly empties of life, she investigates what caused the plague, and what might end it, following in the footsteps of her late researcher father, who has a physical model of Detroit’s history and losses set up in their basement. She dusts it off and begins tracking the sick and dying, discovering patterns, finding comrades in curiosity, conspiracies for the fertile ground of the city, and the unexpected magic that emerges when the debt of grief is cleared.

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Agreeing to go to a wedding with a guy she gets stuck with in an elevator is something Alexa Monroe wouldn't normally do. But there's something about Drew Nichols that's too hard to resist.

On the eve of his ex's wedding festivities, Drew is minus a plus one. Until a power outage strands him with the perfect candidate for a fake girlfriend....

After Alexa and Drew have more fun than they ever thought possible, Drew has to fly back to Los Angeles and his job as a pediatric surgeon, and Alexa heads home to Berkeley, where she's the mayor's chief of staff. Too bad they can't stop thinking about the other....

They're just two high-powered professionals on a collision course toward the long distance dating disaster of the century--or closing the gap between what they think they need and what they truly want....

Black love. A love built on something true. A love so pure. A God sent love, is what Kaivon Lewis and Harlee Rivers found within one another.

Something worth fighting for. After two extremely beautiful years, the duo’s past starts to interlock with their future. Greed and bitterness from both sides, forces the hand of someone close. The domino effect it causes is one that neither, Kaivon nor Harlee, can shy away from.

Kaivon Lewis is the definition of making something out of nothing. As the highest paid defensive back in the NFL, he was given the opportunity to create a better life and leave all he knew in his growing years. The streets. They are a way of life for some, but now an option for Kaivon. It was once how he survived and protected. It is still his to manage. His secret attachment is not one he can easily cut ties with. His natural instinct is to protect and provide. When duty calls, he answers, especially when the ones he love are a factor. Whatever Kaivon loves, he is All In for.

Harlee Rivers is a successful nail artist, dominating in an industry that was never created for women that resemble her. Harlee is the backbone for everyone else around her, except herself. When tragedy struck, claiming the life of her Granny, her battle with anxiety doubled. Harlee quickly learns that what fills, spills. The battle to regain self-love and overcome anxiety is a struggle but fortunately, she’s both a lover and fighter. Harlee is All In and determined to conquer whatever comes her and her family’s way.

The duo can only pray that love is enough. The struggle to disconnect from what is familiar, could be the same thing that destroys everything. Three things are the determining factors. All three can give them the highest of highs and lowest of lows. When combined, one or all three could lead to a tragic demise. Can Kaivon and Harlee juggle them all? Will the Big Three be the very thing to take them down?

Love. The Streets. Football.

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR BY VOGUE, ELLE, OPRAH DAILY, THE WASHINGTON POST, BUZZFEED AND VULTURE

“Erudite, intimate, hilarious, poignant . . . A gorgeously written novel of youth’s promise, of the quest to find one’s tribe and one’s calling.” —Leigh Haber, Oprah Daily

The Booker Prize finalist and widely acclaimed author of Real Life and Filthy Animals returns with a deeply involving new novel of young men and women at a crossroads

In the shared and private spaces of Iowa City, a loose circle of lovers and friends encounter, confront, and provoke one another in a volatile year of self-discovery. Among them are Seamus, a frustrated young poet; Ivan, a dancer turned aspiring banker who dabbles in amateur pornography; Fatima, whose independence and work ethic complicate her relationships with friends and a trusted mentor; and Noah, who “didn’t seek sex out so much as it came up to him like an anxious dog in need of affection.” These four are buffeted by a cast of artists, landlords, meatpacking workers, and mathematicians who populate the cafes, classrooms, and food-service kitchens of the city, sometimes to violent and electrifying consequence. Finally, as each prepares for an uncertain future, the group heads to a cabin to bid goodbye to their former lives—a moment of reckoning that leaves each of them irrevocably altered.

A novel of friendship and chosen family, The Late Americans asks fresh questions about love and sex, ambition and precarity, and about how human beings can bruise one another while trying to find themselves. It is Brandon Taylor’s richest and most involving work of fiction to date, confirming his position as one of our most perceptive chroniclers of contemporary life.

You can’t keep a sizzling little secret in a town like Peachtree Cove…

For a place that just won an award for Best Small Town, Peachtree Cove sure has a big rumor mill. And Tracey Thompson is tired of being at the center of it. She’s worked hard to make her bed-and-breakfast a success—only to have her soon-to-be ex’s very public affair with her business partner result in a shocking pregnancy…and the biggest scandal around.

If the whole town is going to talk no matter what she does, maybe it’s time that Tracey stopped trying to be perfect. Maybe she should start doing things for herself—like having a little fun. And Brian Nelson, the sexy nursery owner who supplies plants for all her special events, is more than willing to help.

Fresh out of a bad marriage, Brian is done with drama. Ever since high school, he’s admired Tracey’s strength and sass, and a friends with benefits deal sounds perfect. But now everyone in Peachtree Cove is talking. And they can all see what Brian and Tracey don’t want to admit, even to themselves…that nothing complicates a simple arrangement quite like love…

Peachtree Cove

Book 1: The Secret to a Southern Wedding
Book 2: Waiting for Friday Night
Book 3: Frenemies with Benefits

Lennox ‘Oz’ Anderson met what would become his obsession the night Shandea ‘Dea’ Saunders sat down to play a game of poker. Now that he had his obsession in his possession, he had to ensure that he could keep her. Oz never expected his own flesh and blood to betray him. And he definitely wasn’t going to let his twin go as far as kidnapping Dea for his own twisted pleasure, a right that was only Oz’s, without having to pay for it... with his life. Dea belonged to him and him alone. Family or not, Lennox planned to ensure that everyone, including Shandea, understood that he would do anything to protect what was his.
Will Oz find Dea in time, or will he be too late to stop his brother?
Shandea ‘Dea’ Saunders had always known how crazy Lennox was, but she never thought the craziness in his life would get so close to her. Dea didn’t know if she could look into Lennox’s face without seeing his twin... if she even made it out alive.
How will Dea ever be able to face the love of her life when he has the face of her kidnapper?

Hendrix ‘Henny’ Pharma knew things would have to change once he had another taste of his addiction. Henny refused to make the same mistake twice, but life always interfered with his desires. This time, Hendrix planned to have it all with Tali by his side and avenge the death of his brother.
Can Hendrix manage to keep his addiction and both his legal and illegal empires? Or will the ghosts of his past take it all?
Tali Saunders had one goal: to leave Union City and never look back. She successfully stuck to that commitment until her mother fell ill, and she had to return home. She never imagined her last night in Union City would be one she would never forget. Six years later, Henny was still on her mind. Tali never expected to run into the very man she’d compared every encounter she’d had to that one night with him. Now Tali had entered into a deal with the very man she couldn’t keep off her mind. Tali believed she could walk away from Henny when it was all said and done. But Henny has other ideas, like keeping Tali exactly where she belonged…in his bed.
Will Tali walk away again? Or will she stay?

Soul ties were created in one night, bonding two couples in ways they’d never planned or imagined. Now that betrayal, jealousy, and death have appeared, will it make them second guess their connections being destiny, or will it rip them apart?

***This book contains explicit language, graphic violence, and strong sexual content. It is intended for adults.***

From the bestselling author of We the Animals, Blackouts mines lost histories—personal and collective.

Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly but who has haunted the edges of his life: Juan Gay. Playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized, Juan has a project to pass along, one built around a true artifact of a book—Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns—and its devastating history. This book contains accounts collected in the early twentieth century from queer subjects by a queer researcher, Jan Gay, whose groundbreaking work was then co-opted by a committee, her name buried. The voices of these subjects have been filtered, muted, but it is possible to hear them from within and beyond the text, which, in Juan’s tattered volumes, has been redacted with black marker on nearly every page. As Juan waits for his end, he and the narrator recount for each other moments of joy and oblivion; they resurrect loves, lives, mothers, fathers, minor heroes. In telling their own stories and the story of the book, they resist the ravages of memory and time. The past is with us, beside us, ahead of us; what are we to create from its gaps and erasures?

A book about storytelling—its legacies, dangers, delights, and potential for change—and a bold exploration of form, art, and love, Justin Torres’s Blackouts uses fiction to see through the inventions of history and narrative. A marvel of creative imagination, it draws on testimony, photographs, illustrations, and a range of influences as it insists that we look long and steadily at what we have inherited and what we have made—a world full of ghostly shadows and flashing moments of truth. A reclamation of ransacked history, a celebration of defiance, and a transformative encounter, Blackouts mines the stories that have been kept from us and brings them into the light.

A Nigerian psychologist travels to a remote southern border town to uncover the truth about the murder of three university students in this "original and fast-paced thriller" (Lauren Wilkinson, author of American Spy).
 
When Dr. Philip Taiwo is called on by a powerful Nigerian politician to investigate the public torture and murder of three university students in remote Port Harcourt, he has no idea that he’s about to be enveloped by a perilous case that is far from cold.
 
Philip is not a detective. He’s an investigative psychologist, an academic more interested in figuring out the why of a crime than actually solving it. But when he steps off the plane and into the dizzying frenzy of the provincial airport, he soon realizes that the murder of the Okriki Three isn’t as straightforward as he thought. With the help of his loyal and streetwise personal driver, Chika, Philip must work against those actively conspiring against him to parse together the truth of what happened to these students.
 
A thrilling and atmospheric mystery, and an unforgettable portrait of the contemporary Nigerian sociopolitical landscape, Lightseekers is a wrenching novel tackling the porousness between the first and third worlds, the enduring strength of tribalism and homeland identity, and the human need for connection in the face of isolation.
 

From Ibi Zoboi, bestselling, award-winning author of American Street and co-author of Punching the Air, comes a bold new YA coming-of-age story, which explores race, feminism, and complicated family dynamics. The ideal next read for fans of Roxane Gay, Jacqueline Woodson, and Elizabeth Acevedo.

Warrior Princess. That’s what Nigeria Jones’s father calls her. He has raised her as part of the Movement, a Black separatist group based in Philadelphia. Nigeria is homeschooled and vegan and participates in traditional rituals to connect her and other kids from the group to their ancestors. But when her mother—the perfect matriarch of their Movement—disappears, Nigeria’s world is upended. She finds herself taking care of her baby brother and stepping into a role she doesn’t want.

Nigeria’s mother had secrets. She wished for a different life for her children, which includes sending her daughter to a private Quaker school outside of their strict group. Despite her father’s disapproval, Nigeria attends the school with her cousin, Kamau, and Sage, who used to be a friend. ­There, she begins to flourish and expand her universe.

As Nigeria searches for her mother, she starts to uncover a shocking truth. One that will lead her to question everything she thought she knew about her life and her family.

From award-winning author Ibi Zoboi comes a powerful story about discovering who you are in the world—and fighting for that person—by having the courage to be your own revolution.

Join us as we celebrate The Autobiography of Skin with debut author, LaKiesha Carr!

EVENT DEETS

When: Wednesday, March 1 at 6:30 PM CST

Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)

How: RSVP to secure your seat or RSVP with book to support the author and Kindred Stories. Only books purchased from Kindred Stories will be eligible for the signing line.

ABOUT THE BOOK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

LAKIESHA CARR graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and received her MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was awarded a Maytag Fellowship for Excellence in Fiction and a Jeff and Vicki Edwards Post-graduate Fellowship in Fiction. A journalist and writer from East Texas, she has held various editorial and production positions with CNN, The New York Times, and other media.

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

Kendra Allen was born and raised in Dallas, Tx. She loves laughing, leaving, and writing. Some of her other work can be found in, or on, The Paris Review, High Times, The Rumpus, and more. She's the author of poetry collection The Collection Plate and essay collection When You Learn the Alphabet, which won the 2018 Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction. Fruit Punch, her memoir, is out now. 

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From the author of the PEN/Faulkner Award winner Delicious Foods comes the raucous, irreverent, and harrowing story of a trans woman's reentry into life on the outside after more than twenty years in prison, over one consequential Fourth of July weekend

Carlotta Mercedes has been misunderstood her entire life. When she was pulled into a robbery gone wrong, she still went by the name she’d grown up with in Fort Greene, Brooklyn—before it gentrified. But not long after her conviction, she took the name Carlotta and began to live as a woman, an embrace of selfhood that prison authorities rejected, keeping Carlotta trapped in an all-male cell block, abused by both inmates and guards, and often placed in solitary.

In her fifth appearance before the parole board, Carlotta is at last granted conditional freedom and returns to a much-changed New York City. Over a whirlwind Fourth of July weekend, she struggles to reconcile with the son she left behind, to reunite with a family reluctant to accept her true identity, and to avoid any minor parole infraction that might get her consigned back to lockup.

Written with the same astonishing verve of Delicious Foods, which dazzled critics and readers alike, Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta sweeps the reader through seemingly every street of Brooklyn, much as Joyce’s Ulysses does through Dublin. The novel sings with brio and ambition, delivering a fantastically entertaining read and a cast of unforgettable characters even as it challenges us to confront the glaring injustices of a prison system that continues to punish people long after their time has been served.

Danika Brown knows what she wants: professional success, academic renown, and an occasional roll in the hay to relive all that career-driven tension. But romance? Been there, done that, burned the T-shirt. Romantic partners, whatever their gender, are a distraction at best and a drain at worst. So Dani asks the universe for the perfect friend-with-benefits—someone who knows the score and knows their way around the bedroom.  

When big, brooding security guard Zafir Ansari rescues Dani from a workplace fire drill gone wrong, it’s an obvious sign: PhD student Dani and ex-rugby player Zaf are destined to sleep together. But before she can explain that fact, a video of the heroic rescue goes viral. Suddenly, half the internet is shipping #DrRugbae—and Zaf is begging Dani to play along. Turns out, his sports charity for kids could really use the publicity. Lying to help children? Who on earth would refuse?  

Dani’s plan is simple: fake a relationship in public, seduce Zaf behind the scenes. The trouble is, grumpy Zaf’s secretly a romantic—and he’s determined to corrupt Dani’s stone-cold realism. Before long, he’s tackling her fears into the dirt. But the former sports star has issues of his own, and the walls around his heart are as thick as his... um, thighs. 

Vern—seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised—flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth to twins and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world.

But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes.

To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past and, more troublingly, the future—outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering not only the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history of America that produced it.

Rivers Solomon’s Sorrowland is a genre-bending work of gothic fiction. Here, monsters aren’t just individuals but entire nations. This is a searing, seminal book that marks the arrival of a bold, unignorable voice in American fiction.

"Don't Cry for Me is a perfect song."—Jesmyn Ward

A Black father makes amends with his gay son through letters written on his deathbed in this wise and penetrating novel of empathy and forgiveness, for fans of Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robert Jones Jr. and Alice Walker

As Jacob lies dying, he begins to write a letter to his only son, Isaac. They have not met or spoken in many years, and there are things that Isaac must know. Stories about his ancestral legacy in rural Arkansas that extend back to slavery. Secrets from Jacob's tumultuous relationship with Isaac's mother and the shame he carries from the dissolution of their family. Tragedies that informed Jacob's role as a father and his reaction to Isaac's being gay.

But most of all, Jacob must share with Isaac the unspoken truths that reside in his heart. He must give voice to the trauma that Isaac has inherited. And he must create a space for the two to find peace. 

With piercing insight and profound empathy, acclaimed author Daniel Black illuminates the lived experiences of Black fathers and queer sons, offering an authentic and ultimately hopeful portrait of reckoning and reconciliation. Spare as it is sweeping, poetic as it is compulsively readable, Don't Cry for Me is a monumental novel about one family grappling with love's hard edges and the unexpected places where hope and healing take flight.