A mythic love story set in Trinidad, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s radiant debut introduces two unforgettable outsiders brought together by their connection with the dead.

“Heartwarming and heartbreaking, fantastical and familiar, with characters that burrow their way into your heart and mind…  [When We Were Birds] is glorious.”—ROBERT JONES JR., New York Times bestselling author of THE PROPHETS

In the old house on a hill, where the city meets the rainforest, Yejide’s mother is dying. She is leaving behind a legacy that now passes to Yejide: one St Bernard woman in every generation has the power to shepherd the city’s souls into the afterlife. But after years of suffering her mother’s neglect and bitterness, Yejide is looking for a way out.

Raised in the countryside by a devout Rastafarian mother, Darwin has always abided by the religious commandment not to interact with death. He has never been to a funeral, much less seen a dead body. But when the only job he can find is grave digging, he must betray the life his mother built for him in order to provide for them both. Newly shorn of his dreadlocks and his past, and determined to prove himself, Darwin finds himself adrift in a city electric with possibility and danger.

Yejide and Darwin will meet inside the gates of Fidelis, an ancient and sprawling cemetery, where the dead lie uneasy in their graves and a reckoning with fate beckons them both. A masterwork of lush imagination and exuberant storytelling, When We Were Birds is a spellbinding and hopeful novel about inheritance, loss, and love’s seismic power to heal.

From Marlon James, author of the bestselling National Book Award finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf, the second book in the Dark Star trilogy, his African Game of Thrones.

In Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Sogolon the Moon Witch proved a worthy adversary to Tracker as they clashed across a mythical African landscape in search of a mysterious boy who disappeared. In Moon Witch, Spider King, Sogolon takes center stage and gives her own account of what happened to the boy, and how she plotted and fought, triumphed and failed as she looked for him. It’s also the story of a century-long feud—seen through the eyes of a 177-year-old witch—that Sogolon had with the Aesi, chancellor to the king. It is said that Aesi works so closely with the king that together they are like the eight limbs of one spider. Aesi’s power is considerable—and deadly. It takes brains and courage to challenge him, which Sogolon does for reasons of her own.

Both a brilliant narrative device—seeing the story told in Black Leopard, Red Wolf from the perspective of an adversary and a woman—as well as a fascinating battle between different versions of empire, Moon Witch, Spider King delves into Sogolon’s world as she fights to tell her own story. Part adventure tale, part chronicle of an indomitable woman who bows to no man, it is a fascinating novel that explores power, personality, and the places where they overlap.

Story Locale: Mythical Africa

Series Overview: Three characters—Tracker, the Moon Witch, and the Boy—are locked in a dungeon in the castle of a dying king, awaiting torture and trial for the death of a mysterious child. They were three of eight mercenaries who had been hired to find a particular child who had been missing for three years. The search, expected to take two months, took nine years. In the end, five of the eight mercenaries, as well as the child, were dead. What happened? Where did their stories begin? And how did each story end? These are the questions posed in the Dark Star Trilogy, three novels set amid African legend and Marlon James’ expansive imagination.

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Told from alternating perspectives, an evocative and riveting novel about the lifelong bond between two women, one Black and one white, whose friendship is indelibly altered by a tragic event—a powerful and poignant exploration of race in America today and its devastating impact on ordinary lives.

Jen and Riley have been best friends since kindergarten. As adults, they remain as close as sisters, though their lives have taken different directions. Jen married young, and after years of trying, is finally pregnant. Riley pursued her childhood dream of becoming a television journalist and is poised to become one of the first Black female anchors of the top news channel in their hometown of Philadelphia.

But the deep bond they share is severely tested when Jen’s husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. Six months pregnant, Jen is in freefall as her future, her husband’s freedom, and her friendship with Riley are thrown into uncertainty. Covering this career-making story, Riley wrestles with the implications of this tragic incident for her Black community, her ambitions, and her relationship with her lifelong friend.

Like Tayari Jones’s An American Marriage and Jodi Picoult’s Small Great Things, We Are Not Like Them explores complex questions of race and how they pervade and shape our most intimate spaces in a deeply divided world. But at its heart, it’s a story of enduring friendship—a love that defies the odds even as it faces its most difficult challenges.

Jonah's Gourd Vine, Zora Neale Hurston's first novel, originally published in 1934, tells the story of John Buddy Pearson, "a living exultation" of a young man who loves too many women for his own good. Lucy, his long-suffering wife, is his true love, but there's also Mehaley and Big 'Oman, as well as the scheming Hattie, who conjures hoodoo spells to ensure his attentions. Even after becoming the popular pastor of Zion Hope, where his sermons and prayers for cleansing rouse the congregation's fervor, John has to confess that though he is a preacher on Sundays, he is a "natchel man" the rest of the week.

And so in this sympathetic portrait of a man and his community, Zora Neale Hurston shows that faith, tolerance, and good intentions cannot resolve the tension between the spiritual and the physical. That she makes this age-old dilemma come so alive is a tribute to her understanding of the vagaries of human nature.

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Winter 1916

The wind whips against her face. Snowflakes stick to her hair, her cheeks, her eyelashes.

She’s disoriented as she tries to find her way home. The sun set at four in the afternoon, but it’s much later now. It’s so dark that it feels as if blackness has swallowed up the city. She’s making her way down the streets, relying on streetlamps and muscle memory. It’s impossible to see in the snow.

She knows two things: first, that she’s going to be in big trouble for being so late; second, that it’s not going to be easy to locate her house in this terrible storm. It’s a small home. She’s the oldest of four girls. The youngest are twins—­high energy and overly demanding of her patience. It’s exhausting to keep them in line. They don’t behave as they’re supposed to. Even worse, they’re all crammed into one bedroom.

They live with their widowed father and his sister. Her aunt is strict, but her father is ruthless. He works in the church and has high standards for his children. She also suspects he resents all of them for not being boys. He can snap at any time, for any reason. Anything she can do to protect the twins, she will do.

What’s the world like outside of this place? she wonders.

Maybe someday she’ll find out.

Maybe not.

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Laila desperately wants to become a mother, but each of her previous pregnancies has ended in heartbreak. This time has to be different, so she turns to the Melancons, an old and powerful Harlem family known for their caul, a precious layer of skin that is the secret source of their healing power.

When a deal for Laila to acquire a piece of caul falls through, she is heartbroken, but when the child is stillborn, she is overcome with grief and rage. What she doesn’t know is that a baby will soon be delivered in her family—by her niece, Amara, an ambitious college student—and delivered to the Melancons to raise as one of their own. Hallow is special: she’s born with a caul, and their matriarch, Maman, predicts the girl will restore the family’s prosperity.

Growing up, Hallow feels that something in her life is not right. Did Josephine, the woman she calls mother, really bring her into the world? Why does her cousin Helena get to go to school and roam the streets of New York freely while she’s confined to the family’s decrepit brownstone?

As the Melancons’ thirst to maintain their status grows, Amara, now a successful lawyer running for district attorney, looks for a way to avenge her longstanding grudge against the family. When mother and daughter cross paths, Hallow will be forced to decide where she truly belongs.

Invasive. Possessive. Assertive. Truce Wright is an ambitious man on a mission. Nothing in life is off limits to him. Whatever he wants, he gets….even if it’s someone else’s.

Displeased. Submissive. Captivating. Sanai Lee is a risk taker. Her boldness creates an exit for fear. What she didn’t know she needed comes in the form of a Truce.

What happens when you follow your heart and let him come over when your man is not there?

Welcome to Indigo Falls…

A gripping, page-turning “masterpiece” (Joe Hill, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman) set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.

Gracetown, Florida.

June 1950.

Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens Jr. is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.

Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules, but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.

The Reformatory is a “hallucinatory, haunting, terrifying, and moving” (S.A. Cosby, bestselling author of All the Sinners Bleed) work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.

She’s a preacher’s daughter, a runaway bride and now the (not quite) qualified nanny for a sexy tattoo artist with a beautiful daughter—and a dirty mouth.

What’s a bad boy to do with a woman like her?

Everything…

Aaliyah Montgomery isn’t just ditching her wedding. She’s also fleeing her suffocating small town and her family’s expectations. She’s got plans—for college, for finding herself. But landing a job in Chicago that fits her schedule isn’t easy. Good thing Von Howard is desperate to find a live-in nanny. Bad thing that he’s a gritty, grumpy, gorgeous tattoo artist carrying as much baggage as he has ink.

Von’s new hire is inexperienced and a fire hazard in the kitchen. She’s also all thick curls, thicker curves, and a distracting mix of innocence and sensuality. After the upheaval of a divorce, he just needs a nanny, not a sneaky link. Meanwhile, Aaliyah is bonding with his seven-year-old and showing an unexpected flair for tattoo art. Who could resist?

Yet deep down, Aaliyah’s still running—from her feelings and her fear of losing herself to someone else’s expectations again. Even as their pasts return to haunt them, their undeniable heat says maybe it’s time to stand and fight for a love they didn’t see coming.

From showing up to glowing up, the characters in Afterglow Books are on the path to leading their best lives and finding sizzling romance along the way. Don’t miss any of these other fun titles…

Frenemy Fix-Up by Yahrah St. John

Out of Office by A.H. Cunningham

Manila Takes Manhattan by Carla de Guzman

Fake Flame by Adele Buck

In a hidden enclave in Sag Harbor, affectionately known as SANS—Sag Harbor Hills, Azurest, and Nineveh—there’s a close-knit community of African American elites who escape the city and enjoy the beautiful warm weather and beaches at their vacation homes. Since the 1930s, very few have known about this part of the Hamptons on Long Island, and the residents like it that way.

That is, until real estate developers discover the hidden gem. And now, the residents must fight for the soul of SANS.

Against the odds, Olivia Jones has blazed her own enviable career path and built her name in the finance world. But hidden behind the veneer of her success, there is a gaping hole. Mourning both the loss and the betrayal of Omar, a surrogate father to her and her two godsisters, Olivia is driven to solve the mystery of what happened to her biological father, a police officer unjustly killed when she was a little girl.

Untethered from her life in New York City, Olivia moves to a summer home in Sag Harbor and begins forging a new community out in SANS. Friendships blossom with Kara, an ambitious art curator; and Whitney, the wife of an ex-basketball player and current president of the Sag Harbor Homeowners Association; and a sexy new neighbor and single father, Garrett, who makes her reconsider her engagement with Anderson. She also takes to a kind, older gentleman named Mr. Whittingham, but soon discovers he too is not without his own troubles.

As the summer stretches on, each relationship teaches her more about who she really is. Though not without cost, Olivia’s search for her authentic identity in the secret history of her family of origin and her fight to preserve her new Black utopia, will lead her to redefine the meaning of love, friendship, community, and family—and restore her faith in herself, her relationships, and her chosen path.

A sly, madcap novel about supervillains and nothing, really, from an American novelist whose star keeps rising

The protagonist of Percival Everett’s puckish new novel is a brilliant professor of mathematics who goes by Wala Kitu. (Wala, he explains, means “nothing” in Tagalog, and Kitu is Swahili for “nothing.”) He is an expert on nothing. That is to say, he is an expert, and his area of study is nothing, and he does nothing about it. This makes him the perfect partner for the aspiring villain John Sill, who wants to break into Fort Knox to steal, well, not gold bars but a shoebox containing nothing. Once he controls nothing he’ll proceed with a dastardly plan to turn a Massachusetts town into nothing. Or so he thinks.

With the help of the brainy and brainwashed astrophysicist-turned-henchwoman Eigen Vector, our professor tries to foil the villain while remaining in his employ. In the process, Wala Kitu learns that Sill’s desire to become a literal Bond villain originated in some real all-American villainy related to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. As Sill says, “Professor, think of it this way. This country has never given anything to us and it never will. We have given everything to it. I think it’s time we gave nothing back.”

Dr. No is a caper with teeth, a wildly mischievous novel from one of our most inventive, provocative, and productive writers. That it is about nothing isn’t to say that it’s not about anything. In fact, it’s about villains. Bond villains. And that’s not nothing.

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Before her Hollywood dreams were shattered, Pearle Monalise Brown was the tenacious aspiring actress from Compton's unforgiving, scarred streets. Never broken, Pearle switches gears to a fallback plan—resorting to her beauty and acting skills to swindle money and expensive jewels. When she's hired by the Colombian cartel to steal a priceless Basquiat from the debonair kingpin and art collector, Blaque, her talents might not be enough to keep her from falling into a trap she never saw coming. 

Blaque is sagacious and handsome—not to mention the legacy of two powerful organized crime families: the Laurent’s—known dons hailing from Kingston, Jamaica, and the Savage’s—a sophisticated syndicate with criminal enterprises across the U.S. As Blaque and Pearle become passionately entangled, Pearle falls prey to a darker underworld. Time is ticking. Lives are at stake. Will these love outlaws be able to outsmart their enemies, or will they wage an all-out war, leaving the bodies to fall wherever they may?

After years away from home, Summer Graves is back in Austin, Texas, to accept a new teaching position. Of all the changes to the old neighborhood, the most dispiriting one is the slated demolition of the high school her grandmother founded. There’s no way she can let developers destroy her memories and her family legacy. But the challenge stirs memories of another kind.

On the architectural team revitalizing the neighborhood, hometown girl Aiko Holt is all about progress. Then she sees Summer again. Some things never change.

Neither can forget the kiss they shared at their senior-year dance. Neither can back down from her unwavering beliefs about what’s right for the neighborhood.

For now, the only thing Summer and Aiko are willing to give in to is a heat that still burns. But can two women with so much passion—for what once was and what could be—agree to disagree long enough to fall in love?

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For fans of My (Not So) Perfect Life and Jasmine Guillory’s While We Were Dating, a disarmingly fun debut novel follows Carlisa Henton as her life comes undone after a chance meeting with a rising pop star.

Carlisa “Carli” Henton is a musician and songwriter hoping to follow in her father’s musical footsteps. But, biding her time until she makes it big in the music industry, she works as a junior account manager at a big-name media company to cover her New York City rent. Carli meticulously balances her work with her musical endeavors as a songwriter—until a chance meeting with rising star Tau Anderson sends her calculated world into a frenzy. Their worlds collide and quickly blur the strict lines Carli has drawn between her business and her personal life, throwing Carli’s reputation—and her burgeoning songwriting career—into question.

A smart, timely, energizing romance, Good Morning, Love shows us what the glamorous New York’s music scene is really like and takes us into the lives of a rising but somewhat troubled R&B star and a promising protégé who knows her job better than she knows herself.

With fresh and honest prose, Good Morning, Love examines the uncertainty of being a new professional looking to chase a dream while also trying to survive in a world that’s not always kind to ambitious women.

A delicious debut rom-com about a plus-size sweetheart who gets a full-life makeover after a brutal breakup.

Savvy Sheldon spends a lot of time tiptoeing around the cracks in her life: her high-stress and low-thanks job, her clueless boyfriend and the falling-apart kitchen she inherited from her beloved grandma—who taught her how to cook and how to love people by feeding them. But when Savvy’s world starts to crash down around her, she knows it’s time for some renovations.

Starting from the outside in, Savvy tackles her crumbling kitchen, her relationship with her body, her work–life balance (or lack thereof) and, last but not least, her love life. The only thing that doesn’t seem to require effort is her ride-or-die squad of friends. But as any home-reno-show junkie can tell you, something always falls apart during renovations. First, Savvy passes out during hot yoga. Then it turns out that the contractor she hires is the same sexy stranger she unintentionally offended by judging based on appearances. Worst of all, Savvy can’t seem to go anywhere without tripping over her ex and his latest "upgrade." Savvy begins to realize that maybe she should’ve started her renovations the other way around: beginning with how she sees herself before building a love that lasts.

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Ronke wants happily ever after and 2.2. kids. She’s dating Kayode and wants him to be “the one” (perfect, like her dead father). Her friends think he’s just another in a long line of dodgy Nigerian boyfriends.

Boo has everything Ronke wants—a kind husband, gorgeous child. But she’s frustrated, unfulfilled, plagued by guilt, and desperate to remember who she used to be.

Simi is the golden one with the perfect lifestyle. No one knows she’s crippled by impostor syndrome and tempted to pack it all in each time her boss mentions her “urban vibe.” Her husband thinks they’re trying for a baby. She’s not.

When the high-flying, charismatic Isobel explodes into the group, it seems at first she’s bringing out the best in each woman. (She gets Simi an interview in Shanghai! Goes jogging with Boo!) But the more Isobel intervenes, the more chaos she sows, and Ronke, Simi, and Boo’s close friendship begins to crack.

A sharp, modern take on friendship, ambition, culture, and betrayal, Wahala (trouble) is an unforgettable novel from a brilliant new voice.

A beautifully layered portrait of motherhood, immigration, and the sacrifices we make in the name of love from award-winning novelist Nicole Dennis-Benn.

Heralded for writing “deeply memorable . . . women” (Jennifer Senior, New York Times), Nicole Dennis-Benn introduces readers to an unforgettable heroine for our times: the eponymous Patsy, who leaves her young daughter behind in Jamaica to follow Cicely, her oldest friend, to New York. Beating with the pulse of a long-withheld confession and peppered with lilting patois, Patsy gives voice to a woman who looks to America for the opportunity to love whomever she chooses, bravely putting herself first. But to survive as an undocumented immigrant, Patsy is forced to work as a nanny, while back in Jamaica her daughter, Tru, ironically struggles to understand why she was left behind. Greeted with international critical acclaim from readers who, at last, saw themselves represented in Patsy, this astonishing novel “fills a literary void with compassion, complexity and tenderness” (Joshunda Sanders, Time), offering up a vital portrait of the chasms between selfhood and motherhood, the American dream and reality.

A debut collection of stories set across the American South, featuring characters who struggle to find love and belonging in the wake of painful histories. How can you love where you come from, even when home doesn’t love you back?

In eleven stories that span Florida marshes, North Carolina mountains, and Southern metropolitan cities, Make Your Way Home follows Black men and women who grapple with the homes that have eluded them. A preteen pregnant alongside her mother refuses to let convention dictate who she names as the father of her child. Centuries after slavery separated his ancestors, a native Texan tries to win over the love of his life, despite the grip of a family curse. A young deaconess, who falls for a new church member, wonders what it means when God stops speaking to her. And at the very end of the South as we know it, two sisters seek to escape North to freedom, to promises of a more stable climate.

Artfully and precisely drawn, and steeped in place and history as it explores themes of belonging, inheritance, and deep intimacy, Carrie R. Moore’s debut collection announces an extraordinary new talent in American fiction, inviting us all to examine how the past shapes our present—and how our present choices will echo for years to come.

This summer, beware of sharks...

Mega bestselling and award-winning author Tiffany D. Jackson (The Weight of Blood; White Smoke) makes her thrilling middle-grade debut with a can't-put-it-down murder mystery set on Martha's Vineyard.

Brooklyn girl Kaylani McKinnon feels like a fish out of water. She's spending the summer with family friends in their huge house on Martha's Vineyard, and the vibe is definitely snooty. Still, there are beautiful beaches, lots of ice cream, and a town full of fascinating Black history. Plus a few kids her age who seem friendly.

Until the shocking death of a popular teenage boy rocks the community to its core. Was it a drowning? A shark attack? Or the unthinkable--murder?

Kaylani is determined to solve the mystery. But her investigation leads her to uncover shocking secrets that could change her own life as she knows it... if she survives.

New York Times bestselling author Tiffany D. Jackson makes her thrilling middle-grade debut with this heart-pounding mystery packed with twists and turns that will keep readers guessing until the end.

After the devastating loss of her child's father, Leerah struggles to piece her life back together. Despite her best efforts to keep her distance, she finds herself entangled in a complicated situation. Trying to resist her growing feelings for her baby father's godbrother, Cree, Leerah grows overwhelmingly confused with mixed emotions.

He was against the rules-strictly forbidden.

But sometimes... rules were meant to be ignored. They both knew the risks and the boundaries they were crossing, yet their connection was undeniable. Cree didn't pursue her to save her but to remind her of what she meant to him... of who she'd always been. Maybe, just maybe, Cree was the person Leerah needed all along.

Please note: Here With You Forever is book 2 in the Evermore Series and does not include a cliffhanger.

In the gripping conclusion to the Warring Gods duology, two women find themselves caught in an ancient feud between ruthless entities, and embark on an epic quest for power and liberation.
 
Reina is full of hope.
 
At long last, Reina has the peace she’s been searching for on the idyllic islands of Tierra’e Sol with the lover she's always wanted and in service to the god of the sun. But she can’t quite trust how long this will last. When monstrous creatures of the Void appear on the isle’s shores, she is certain she knows who is behind the attacks. Reina will stop at nothing to protect the woman she loves, but it could cost her everything she’s fought so hard for.
 
Eva is cherished.
 
Finally reunited with her father, the Liberator, Eva struggles to prove herself worthy of being his heir while keeping secret her alliance with the god of the Void. As destruction, both human and magical, tears across the lands, Eva is thrust into a power struggle she’s ill-prepared for. Confronted with the limits of her own ambition, Eva must fight to save herself from the powerful corruption of the Void before she loses the family she holds dear.
 
The warring gods are returning and the only thing between them and absolute power are two young women. But for the first time in their lives, Reina and Eva have something to fight for. And they won’t back down.

A cutting-edge collection of the best short stories in contemporary Afrofuturist fiction—from Hugo, Nebula, and Stoker award-winning Black authors

20 mind-blowing, horror-strewn, weird, and woke tales celebrate Black identity, community, and imagination

Black speculative fiction has never been better than it is here and now. On the shoulders of Afrofuturist masters like Octavia E. Butler and Samuel R. Delany and pioneering visionaries before them, a new, abundant, and brilliant generation of contemporary Black authors, some of them just beginning their careers, is conjuring up a very real renaissance.

Edited by SF-expert andré carrington, and including Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award winners alongside emerging and experimental voices, The Black Fantastic showcases the artistry of these breakout literary stars and celebrates the diversity of their talents.

Including Afrofuturist science fiction, weird and fantastic tales, horror and the paranormal, apocalyptic lyricism, time travel, superheroes, and more, here are twenty mindblowing, horror-strewn, weird, woke, nerdy, terrifying, liberating, fantastic, utopian, surreal, genre-defying and empowering short stories, all of them worth reading and rereading now and far into futurity.

Reclaiming histories of racism and oppression and seizing the day, these writers are forging kaleidoscopic new senses of Black identity, community, and imaginative freedom.

A visual celebration of Black women and their gardens, filled with inspiration, stories, and the healing magic of gardening, based on the popular Instagram account BlackGirlsGardening.

Through first-person narratives and arresting photography, this unique gardening book profiles women who demonstrate how a gardening practice has the power to heal, empower, educate, and connect. Thirty-one compelling personal stories about creating backyard, flower, and vegetable gardens, participating in community gardens, and gardening with kids are included. Sidebars offer advice on composting, pest control, must-have tools, greenhouse gardens, and more.

In a beautiful, chunky package that can be read cover to cover or displayed on a coffee table, Black Girls Gardening makes a lovely gift for aspiring and practicing Black women gardeners, first-time homeowners, parents who garden with their kids, and women of all ages who enjoy sinking their hands into the soil.

GARDENING AS EMPOWERMENT: With stories on starting a garden from seed, building your own vegetable and flower beds, growing your own food, connecting with a community, and showing your kids the power and joy that come from these experiences, this uplifting book demonstrates how gardening empowers women and green thumbs of all ages and levels. 

HEALTH BENEFITS: Gardening is good for you, and it’s a lifelong hobby! Spending time outside is an excellent way to relieve stress and anxiety, and gardening is an accessible and increasingly common pastime that provides respite from our indoor, online, sedentary lives. This book celebrates gardens as a sanctuary, a source of solace and joy, and a place for self-discovery and connection.

CELEBRATES DIVERSITY: This uniquely inspiring nature and gardening book highlights stories from Black, biracial, and multiracial women, an underrepresented audience in mainstream gardening, nature, and outdoor media.

Perfect for:
* Self-care gift or self-purchase for Black women, ages 18 - 50+
* Gift-giving for Mother’s Day, birthday, housewarming, or retirement
* Women gardeners and aspiring green thumbs
* Garden admirers and nature enthusiasts
* First-time homeowners who want to plant a garden
* Followers of @BlackGirlsGardening
* Fans of Nature Swagger, Wild at Home, My Beautiful Black Hair, She Explores

A small-town woman’s journey of self-discovery takes an unexpected detour when she inherits a Brooklyn brownstone—complete with one hot next-door neighbor—in this sexy, emotional contemporary romance.

When you least expect it, love comes knocking…

Holland Davenport is ready to go beyond her small-town existence. Her plan involves moving into an apartment in Charleston—not inheriting a run-down brownstone in Brooklyn from a relative she never knew. Yet in a burst of daring, Holland meets the challenge head-on, moving to New York to learn more about her family and renovate the place. Add to that a gorgeous next-door neighbor who turns out to be a board member at her new job, and she’s definitely out of her depth.

Noble Washington is the successful CEO of a company he spent a decade building. But his carefully ordered life begins to unravel the second he meets fiery social worker Holland—and spends one unforgettable night with a woman who should be off-limits.

There’s a wall and a world of differences lying between them. But the sheltered Southerner and the ambitious native New Yorker feel a pull that just won’t be denied…

From showing up to glowing up, the characters in Afterglow Books are on the path to leading their best lives and finding sizzling romance along the way. Don’t miss any of these other fun titles…

Frenemy Fix-Up by Yahrah St. John

Church Girl by Naima Simone

Out of Office by A.H. Cunningham

A young girl must face a life-altering decision after awakening her sister’s ghost, navigating truths about love, friendship, and power as the Civil War looms in this moving debut.
 
Sixteen years old and enslaved since she was born, Junie has spent her life on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, cooking and cleaning alongside her family, and tending to the white master’s daughter, Violet. Her daydreams are filled with poetry and faraway worlds, while she spends her nights secretly roaming through the forest, consumed with grief over the sudden death of her older sister, Minnie.
 
When wealthy guests arrive from New Orleans, hinting at marriage for Violet and upending Junie’s life, she commits a desperate act—one that rouses Minnie’s spirit from the grave, tethered to this world unless Junie can free her. She enlists the aid of Caleb, the guests’ coachman, and their friendship soon becomes something more. Yet as long-held truths begin to crumble, she realizes Bellereine is harboring dark and horrifying secrets that can no longer be ignored.
 
With time ticking down, Junie begins to push against the harsh current that has controlled her entire life. As she grapples with an increasingly unfamiliar world in which she has little control, she is forced to ask herself: When we choose love and liberation, what must we leave behind?

Every Tongue Got to Confess is an extensive volume of African American folklore that Zora Neale Hurston collected on her travels through the Gulf States in the late 1920s.

The bittersweet and often hilarious taleswhich range from longer narratives about God, the Devil, White Folk, and Mistaken Identity to witty one-linersreveal attitudes about faith, love, family, slavery, race, and community. Together, this collection of nearly 500 folktales weaves a vibrant tapestry that celebrates the African American life in the rural South and represent a major part of Zora Neale Hurstons literary legacy.

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“A narrative of great power. Warm with friendly personality and pulsating with . . . profound eloquence and religious fervor.”

—New York Times

In this novel based on the familiar story of the Exodus, Zora Neale Hurston blends the Moses of the Old Testament with the Moses of black folklore and song to create a compelling allegory of power, redemption, and faith.