Does a second chance at happiness include your husband's three best friends?

She's an angel.

And she doesn't mind dancing with a demon.

That's why I'd move mountains, dry seas, and hydrate the desert if it made her happy. She brought goodness to the world. It was only right that I made it hers, along with the two tiny beauties that shared her hazel eyes and perfect smile. For them, I'd do whatever. For them, I'd become whoever.

He's a protector.

And, a far cry from the menace they've labeled him.

He's just misunderstood. That's why I'd climb the highest mountain, cross the widest seas, and conquer the desert if it brought us closer together. He brought so much wholesomeness to the world. It was only right that I made him a part of mine, along with my two minis who shared my story and sentiments. Because of him, we'd found happiness. Because of him, we'd found home.

Shantel Jenson Waters is a force to be reckoned with after enduring a trauma that threatened to consume her. Kidnapped and held captive, Shantel's world was forever altered, leaving her struggling to find her way back from the brink of madness. Only four individuals possessed the power to guide her to safety: Henny, Link, Faxx, and Oz, the Four Horsemen of U.C.K.

Together, they provided Shantel with the tools she needed to survive and, eventually, to thrive. Under their guidance, Shantel transformed into an unstoppable force, armed with the skills and determination to conquer any obstacle in her path. Her fierce loyalty was reserved exclusively for the four, who were her sole source of safety and solace. Yet, everything changed when she encountered Ian Nevin Lawe.

Shantel's world collided with Ian's indefinitely once she found out the connection he had with Oz. Now, she finds herself facing a new set of challenges that threaten to unravel the hard-won stability she had fought so tirelessly to attain when the very same people who held her captive attacked her mother. Caught between her unwavering loyalty to the Horseman and her mission to end every person involved with the Cartel, she still couldn't resist the magnetic pull of Ian's enigmatic presence. Shantel must confront her deepest fears and make choices that will shape her destiny.

Ian Nevin 'Rogue' Lawe has always been comfortable operating in the shadows. He is adept at eliminating threats to his younger brother, Lennox 'Oz' Anderson, without drawing attention to himself. He preferred to remain anonymous, a ghost to everyone, but when government agencies started targeting Lennox, Ian was forced to reveal himself.

Stepping out of the shadows and walking into Myth, Ian unexpectedly found himself consumed by the dark brown eyes of Shantel Waters in a way he never anticipated. Now, Ian's fascination with Shantel consumes his thoughts, and he becomes obsessed with every aspect of her life. As he navigates the dangerous world of his brother's enemies and the government's scrutiny, Ian finds himself increasingly entangled in a web of intrigue, with Shantel at its center.

The Other Black Girl meets Midsommar in this spine-chilling, propulsive psychological adult debut from highly acclaimed author Vincent Tirado, in which a married couple moves into a gated “community” that slowly creeps into a pervasive dread akin to the social horror of Jordan Peele and Lovecraft County—We Came to Welcome You cleverly uses the uncanny to illuminate the cultish, shocking nature of systemic racism.

Where beauty lies, secrets are held…ugly ones.

Sol Reyes has had a rough year. After a series of workplace incidents at her university lab culminates in a plagiarism accusation, Sol is put on probation. Dutiful visits to her homophobic father aren’t helping her mental health, and she finds her nightly glass of wine becoming more of an all-day—and all-bottle—event. Her wife, Alice Song, is far more optimistic. After all, the two finally managed to buy a house in the beautiful, gated community of Maneless Grove.

However, the neighbors are a little too friendly in Sol’s opinion. She has no interest in the pushy Homeowners Association, their bizarrely detailed contract, or their never-ending microaggressions. But Alice simply attributes their pursuit to the community motto: “Invest in a neighborly spirit”…which only serves to irritate Sol more.  

Suddenly, a number of strange occurrences—doors and stairs disappearing, roots growing inside the house—cause Sol to wonder if her social paranoia isn’t built on something more sinister. Yet Sol’s fears are dismissed as Alice embraces their new home and becomes increasingly worried instead about Sol’s drinking and manic behavior. When Sol finds a journal in the property from a resident that went missing a few years ago, she realizes why they were able to buy the house so easily…

Through Sol’s razor-sharp tongue and macabre sense of humor, Tirado explores the very real pressures to assimilate with one’s surroundings to “survive,” while also asking the question: Is it survival when you’re no longer your true self? Because in Maneless Grove, either you become a good neighbor—or you die.

SISTERS…FOR LIFE.

It’s been ten years since Priscilla and her Zeta Phi Zeta sorority sisters graduated college. Ten years since they were all in the same room together. Ten years since one of them died. And now Lupe’s killer has been released from prison on a technicality, days before their ten-year reunion.

Priscilla decides that the party must go on; Lupe would have wanted it to. And besides, an epic reunion bash might be the perfect distraction. Back together, the Zetas party like it’s 2012, and it’s wild, just the way it used to be. Maybe too wild. At least everyone makes it out alive this time…or so they think.

When one of them doesn’t return home after the party, Priscilla begins to realize that there might be more to Lupe’s murder and that someone is out for blood. With the murderer in their midst circling closer and closer, the Zetas are forced to confront what really happened the night Lupe died—and the secrets each of them swore to keep.

PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: Novemner 5, 2024

In the fifth book in the sensational, cozy Before the Coffee Gets Cold series translated from Japanese, the mysterious café where customers arrive hoping to travel back in time welcomes four new guests:

- The father who could not allow his daughter to get married
- A woman who couldn't give Valentine's Day chocolates to her loved one
- A boy who wants to show his smile to his divorced parents
- A wife holding a child with no name . . .

They must follow the café's strict rules, however, and come back to the present before their coffee goes cold. Another moving and heartwarming tale from Toshikazu Kawaguchi, in Before we forget kindness our new visitors wish to go back into their past to move on their present, finding closure and comfort so they can embark on a beautiful future.

Catch up on the rest of the captivating Before the Coffee Gets Cold series:
* Before the Coffee Gets Cold
* Tales from the Cafe
* Before Your Memory Fades
* Before We Say Goodbye

PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: November 26, 2024

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

PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: December 24, 2024

Good fences make good neighbors—except when a scorching shared past makes things complicated—in this delightful city-meets-country romance from Zuri Day.

She’s packing her bags—and her baggage.

Ten years ago, Genesis Washington made a very poor decision. At the time, it seemed great. Fantastic. Explosive. But the truth is, your one-night rebound should never be your younger brother’s rival. And he definitely shouldn’t be someone who allegedly only slept with you to gain the upper hand—even if the sex was amazing.

Now Genesis is blindsided when the farm she’s inherited just happens to be right next door to Jaxson King, the regrettable one-night stand she’s still painfully attracted to. This man has aged like the finest of wines, and what’s worse, he’s now a thoughtful and responsible father. Good thing Genesis has a (*cough* long-distance *cough*) boyfriend. Well, sort of. It’s complicated.

Jaxson and his hotness should be easy enough to ignore. But when city-girl Genesis discovers there’s a serious learning curve to her humble new home, it’s Jaxson who’s there to lend a very skilled helping hand. With every problem that arises, Jaxson is seemingly making all the right moves—both on the farm and when things heat up behind closed doors. But, surely, that doesn’t mean he’s right for Genesis, does it?

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

The Devil in Blue Jeans by Stacey Kennedy

Out of Office by A.H. Cunningham

Church Girl by Naima Simone

PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: December 3, 2024

From the New York Times Notable author of The Old Woman with the Knife comes a bracingly original story of family, marriage and the cultural expectations of motherhood, about four women whose lives intersect in dramatic and unexpected ways at a government-run apartment complex outside Seoul

When Yojin moves with her husband and daughter into the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments, she’s ready for a fresh start. Located on the outskirts of Seoul, the experimental community is a government initiative designed to boost the national birth rate. Like her neighbors, Yojin has agreed to have at least two more children over the next ten years.

Yet, from the day she arrives, Yojin feels uneasy about the community spirit thrust upon her. Her concerns grow as communal child care begins and the other parents show their true colors. Apartment Women traces the lives of four women in the apartments, all with different aspirations and beliefs. Will they find a way to live peacefully? Or are the cultural expectations around parenthood stacked against them from the start?

A trenchant social novel from an award-winning author, Apartment Women incisively illuminates the unspoken imbalance of women’s parenting labor, challenging the age-old assumption that “it takes a village” to raise a child.

From the bestselling author of The Direction of the Wind and The Taste of Ginger comes an immersive, fun and heartfelt novel about a disgraced Indian American divorcée who spends a summer in Italy, reconnecting with her passion for cooking and reckoning with cultural expectations to make the choice of a lifetime.

Life's more fun when you ditch the recipe.

Jyoti is the “perfect” Indian American daughter: She stayed out of trouble, looked after her younger sisters, and married a man her parents approved of. So when her husband, Ashok, pushes her to quit her dream job as head chef to focus on conceiving, she obliges, knowing this will please her parents—only for Ashok to leave her when she cannot carry to term. Now unemployed, childless, and divorced, a disgrace to her Gujarati family, Jyoti books a ticket to Tuscany for the summer to visit her best friend (and fellow social outcast), Karishma.

Carbs, chianti, and la bella vita slowly restore Jyoti’s confidence, inspiring her to experiment with Indian-Italian fusion recipes. But when she unexpectedly goes viral for her impromptu cooking vlogs—and candid vent sessions—her gossiping aunties have a field day. And when a shocking reveal comes to light, Jyoti must choose between family acceptance, a fulfilling career, and even motherhood, all before the summer ends…

In this steamy and sweet sapphic romance, set in the world of women's basketball, an uptight athletic trainer has one taboo night with a hot team member determined to play for her heart – and win.

In this steamy and sweet sapphic romance, an uptight athletic trainer has one taboo night with a hot basketball player, but are they ready to play for what they really want?

Scoring was the easy part…

Hard work has Khadijah Upton starting her dream job as an athletic trainer for the Atlanta Cannons. Then an evening of celebratory letting loose turns into a one-night stand with a beautiful stranger. It’s a reckless, wildly sexy encounter that Khadijah intends to forget…until her first day on the job lands her face-to-face with basketball star Shae Harris again.

Shae is a major player in every sense of the word, and Khadijah doesn’t plan to be the latest in a long line of “Harris Honeys.” Personal and professional just don’t mix. But Shae, who’s all about living life to the fullest, keeps tempting Khadijah to blur the boundaries. And the more Shae reveals about herself, the harder it is for Khadijah to resist her.

In the bedroom, their tension sizzles. On the court, it’s a liability. But unless Khadijah’s willing to really let Shae in, it won’t be just the team championship on the line, but a body-and-soul connection that rewrites all the rules.

PRE-ORDER.  ON SALE DATE: December 3, 2024

A wry, tender novel about a Peruvian immigrant mother and a millennial daughter who have one final chance to find common ground

Thirtysomething Flores and her mother, Paula, still live in the same Brooklyn apartment, but that may be the only thing they have in common. It’s been nearly three years since they lost beloved husband and father Martín, who had always been the bridge between them. One day, cleaning beneath his urn, Flores discovers a note written in her mother’s handwriting: Perdóname si te falle. Recuerda que siempre te quise. (“Forgive me if I failed you. Remember that I always loved you.”) But what would Paula need forgiveness for?

Now newfound doubts and old memories come flooding in, complicating each woman’s efforts to carve out a good life for herself—and to support the other in the same. Paula thinks Flores should spend her evenings meeting a future husband, not crunching numbers for a floundering aquarium startup. Flores wishes Paula would ask for a raise at her DollaBills retail job, or at least find a best friend who isn’t a married man.

When Flores and Paula learn they will be forced to move, they must finally confront their complicated past—and decide whether they share the same dreams for the future. Spirited and warm-hearted, Melissa Rivero’s new novel showcases the complexities of the mother-daughter bond with fresh insight and empathy.

For fans of The Holiday comes a heartwarming Christmas house-swap rom-com debut in which finding yourself and finding love come hand in hand.

Bee Tyler needs a break. In the bustling San Francisco tech community, no one ever seems to stand still—especially her perfect sister and business partner, Beth. So when her best friend suggests a getaway on the wildly popular house-swap app, Vacate, Bee decides a countryside retreat might be exactly what she needs.

Clover Mills has had a year. Between losing her mother and making the complicated decision to leave her fiancé, sticking around the idyllic Christmas obsessed town of Salem, Ohio, just doesn’t feel right. So when she hears about Vacate, she jumps at the chance to spend the holidays in the unfamiliar city of San Francisco.

Soon enough, Bee is living in Clover’s cozy Salem cottage, and Clover is living in Bee’s sleek San Francisco apartment. As Clover can’t seem to stop running into Bee’s frustratingly gorgeous sister, Beth, and Bee finds herself spending more and more time with Clover’s ultra charming ex-fiancé, Knox, the two women realize that this Christmas they may find just what they were looking for and more…

The author of the beloved, bestselling Black Girls Must Die Exhausted trilogy returns with an intriguing blend of Such a Fun Age and The Holiday—anirresistible Christmastime novel about heartbreak, hope, love, and the joy that comes from rediscovering oneself.

With Christmas around the corner, Ramona Tucker is desperate to get away. She has been lying to her family about her engagement to Malik, her (ex) fiancé. But breakups are fickle, and Ramona is convinced that she can make her pretend wedding real again—but only if she can avoid everyone discovering her secret at her mother’s over-the-top Christmas Eve party.

Two-thousand miles away in sunny Malibu, Chelsea Flint needs money to hold on to the beloved beachside cottage she shared with her late parents. The taxes are expensive, and her art isn’t paying the bills. Once an irresistible star of the Los Angeles art scene, Chelsea seems to have lost that spark that vaulted her to the top. If she doesn’t rediscover that magic—and sell a painting—soon, it will be her family’s home she’s selling instead.

The two women swap homes, just in time, thanks to some careful planning by Ramona’s best friend and a sturdy nudge from Chelsea’s gallerist godmother. Ramona’s Malibu dreams of sun and surf are interrupted as her first night brings an unwelcome stranger to her door, making her question who she can trust—the meddling neighbor Joan, or Jay, the handsome beachside fitness instructor with a secret of his own. Chelsea, desperate for Ramona to stay, hides what she knows—even if that means jeopardizing her budding connection with charming Carlos, whose dreams for his future could be the very key to unlock Chelsea from the weight of her past.

Combining escapist fun and sizzling romance, a dose of poignant self-reflection, and a little holiday magic, The Most Wonderful Time is a warm and relatable novel that will delight at Christmas and throughout the year.

PRE-ORDER.  ON SALE DATE: October 22, 2024

The spellbinding conclusion to the international bestseller Forged by Blood delves deeper into Nigerian mythology as the Oluso uprising comes to a head…and the young woman caught in between comes to her breaking point. Return to this highly atmospheric, complex world full of magic and romance and war, in which unity is the goal, blood is the sacrifice, and love is at stake.

The King is dead. The Oluso rebel. War is here.

With the end of Alistair Sorenson’s tyrannical reign, Dèmi has accepted Jonas’s proposal to rule as his Queen with hopes to finally free her people, the magical Oluso. Yet social prejudice, corrupt council members, and the continued distrust of the nonmagical Ajès throughout the kingdom prove seemingly implacable obstacles. To make matters worse, Dèmi struggles to control her newly awakened iron blood magic. As Ekwensi’s rebel army—led in part by Colin, her best friend and one-time lover—become more triumphant in their mission, war seems inevitable.

Before long, a new evil appears that hunts Oluso and Ajè alike, promising desolation on a larger level than ever before. When the failed assassination puts the life of Dèmi’s loved one in danger as well as the future of the Oluso into question, Dèmi embarks on a treacherous journey to find an ancestral spirit whose aid could tip the scales in her favor. Whether her new powers will destroy the kingdom or heal the blood-soaked rifts that have pulled it apart, she does not know.

Beyond the battles of swords and magic, there is the battle for Dèmi’s heart. Jonas—the former enemy prince—has divided loyalties despite his love for Dèmi. And Ekwensi and Colin have every intention of winning her to their side, while a past pledge hangs over Dèmi’s head. Dèmi is caught between the kingdom, her people, and the spirits, and must decide what sacrifices she is willing to make for peace, and whether she can outrun the greatest danger that constantly puts her in peril—her own heart. Only one thing is for certain…

There will be blood.

PRE-ORDER.  ON SALE DATE: October 22, 2024

Winner of the 2023 Jan Michalski Prize, a searing novel of loss and resilience that illuminates the often-overlooked human dimension of the migrant crisis, re-imagining the border as a dreamlike purgatory bridging life and death.

 In an unnamed Latin American country, a mysterious plague quickly spreads, erasing the memory of anyone infected. Angustias Romero flees with her family, but their flight is tragically cut short when she loses both her children. Consumed by grief, she finds herself within the hallucinatory expanse of Mezquitte––a town corrupted by greed and populated by storytellers, refugees, and violent, predatory gangs.

Here, Angustias is finally able to lay her children to rest at the Third Country, a cemetery run by the larger-than-life Visitación Salazar and a refuge beyond suffering and fear. While Visitación remains defiant in her mission to care for the dead, the cemetery she oversees is the focal point of a bitter land dispute with Alcides Abundio, the most feared landowner of the border. Caught in this power struggle, Angustias and Visitación–friends and sometimes rivals– stand their ground on a frontier where the law is dictated by violence; a surreal territory whose very nature blurs the boundaries between life and death.

Exploring what we are capable of and how far we will go when we have nothing to lose, No Place to Bury the Dead confirms Karina Sainz Borgo’s importance amongst the voices of modern Latin American literature, merging thriller, western, and classic tragedy in an unforgettable and urgent novel that won the 2023 Jan Michalski Prize.

Translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bryer

PRE-ORDER.  ON SALE DATE: October 29, 2024

Quiet Funke is happy in Nigeria. She loves her art teacher mother, her professor father, and even her annoying little brother (most of the time). But when tragedy strikes, she’s sent to England, a place she knows only from her mother’s stories. To her dismay, she finds the much-lauded estate dilapidated, the food tasteless, the weather grey. Worse still, her mother’s family are cold and distant. With one exception: her cousin Liv.

Free-spirited Liv has always wanted to break free of her joyless family. She becomes fiercely protective of her little cousin, and her warmth and kindness give Funke a place to heal. The two girls grow into adulthood the closest of friends.

But the choices their mothers made haunt Funke and Liv and when a second tragedy occurs their friendship is torn apart. Against the long shadow of their shared family history, each woman will struggle to chart a path forward, separated by country, misunderstanding, and ambition.

Moving between Somerset and Lagos over the course of two decades, This Motherless Land is a sweeping examination of identity, culture, race, and love that asks how we find belonging and whether a family’s generational wrongs can be righted.

PRE-ORDER.  ON SALE DATE: December 3, 2024

A riveting story about the Black Panther Party and the high cost that can come with revolution

Raised in Haiti by a father deeply embedded in activism, Nettie Boileau joins the Black Panthers’ Free Health Clinics in Oakland in 1968. She quickly becomes devoted to the cause and its dedication to helping people in a racially divided America—and gets swept up in an all-consuming love affair with Melvin Mosley, a defense captain of the Black Panther Party. But when Nettie and Melvin head to Chicago to help launch the Illinois chapter of the Panthers, they find themselves targets of J. Edgar Hoover’s famous covert campaigns against civil rights leaders. As she learns more about the inner workings of the Panthers—and her relationship with Melvin reveals its own fault lines—Nettie discovers that fighting for social justice may not always mean equal justice for women. She must figure out what is left for her within the movement, what she stands for, and whom she can count on.

For fans of Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’s The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois and Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s Take My Hand, Fabienne Josaphat’s Kingdom of No Tomorrow takes readers inside the Black Panther movement in this timely story of self-determination and the importance of revolution amid injustice.

PRE-ORDER.  ON SALE DATE: November 12, 2024

A Broadway actress has a chance at stardom when cast by a major Hollywood director, but the role of her dreams may cost her the love of a lifetime in this epic novel from "one of the finest romance writers of our age." (Entertainment Weekly)

 For months I stood in the wings, an understudy waiting for my time to shine. I never imagined he would be in the audience that night. Canon Holt. Famous film director. Talented. Fine. Before I could catch my breath, everything changed. I went from backstage Broadway to center stage Hollywood. From being unknown, to my name, Neevah Saint, on everyone's lips when Canon casts me in a star-studded Harlem Renaissance biopic. But stars shine brightest in the dead of night. Forbidden attraction, scandal and circumstances beyond my control jeopardize my dream. Could this one shot—the role and love of a lifetime—cost me everything?

This beautiful new edition includes a never-before-published bonus epilogue!   

   ·Entertainment Weekly Best Romances of the Year
   ·Washington Post Best Romances of the Year
   ·BookBub's Highest Rated Books of the Year
   ·LA Times 50 Best Hollywood Books of All Time

A smart, sexy "perfect romance" about mistaken identities, a no-strings fling, and the way one night—and one person—can change your life forever from the bestselling author of Darius the Great Is Not Okay (Julie Murphy & Sierra Simone, bestselling co-authors of A Merry Little Meet Cute)

When it comes to love, substitute teacher Farzan Alavi is a disaster. Newly heartbroken—again—he’s drowning his sorrows at Kansas City’s newest wine bar. Only instead of being crowded between strangers, he’s escorted to a VIP table for one. There, the hot sommelier does more than treat him to the meal of his life. The way he flirts with Farzan ignites instant sparks. 
 
There’s just one problem: David Curtis thinks Farzan is Kansas City’s most influential food critic. The truth only comes out after the two spend an unforgettably hot night together. Good news—both think the mix-up is hilarious. Bad news—David is studying to become a master sommelier and has no interest in a relationship. 
 
Neither expects their paths to cross again . . . until Farzan inherits his family’s bistro. The two agree to a friends-sans-benefits exchange: David will share his industry knowledge, and Farzan will help David study. Only business turns to pleasure when neither can ignore the attraction still sizzling between them. But with David set on moving cross-country after his test, and Farzan committed to his family’s restaurant, how can their relationship last past the expiration date?

A major new novel set in nineteenth-century New Orleans by the author of Signs Preceding the End of the World

New Orleans, 1853. A young exile named Benito Juárez disembarks at a fetid port city at the edge of a swamp. Years later, he will become the first indigenous head of state in the postcolonial Americas, but now he is as anonymous and invisible as any other migrant to the roiling and alluring city of New Orleans.

Accompanied by a small group of fellow exiles who plot their return and hoped-for victory over the Mexican dictatorship, Juárez immerses himself in the city, which absorbs him like a sponge. He and his compatriots work odd jobs, suffer through the heat of a southern summer, fall victim to the cons and confusions of a strange young nation, succumb to the hallucinations of yellow fever, and fall in love with the music and food all around them. But unavoidable, too, is the grotesque traffic in human beings they witness as they try to shape their future.

Though the historical archive is silent about the eighteen months Juárez spent in New Orleans, Yuri Herrera imagines how Juárez's time there prepared him for what was to come. With the extraordinary linguistic play and love of popular forms that have characterized all of Herrera's fiction, Season of the Swamp is a magnificent work of speculative history, a love letter to the city of New Orleans and its polyglot culture, and a cautionary statement that informs our understanding of the world we live in.

PRE-ORDER.  ON SALE DATE: October 15, 2024

Welcome to Curdle Creek, a place just dying to make you feel at home. Osira, a forty-five-year-old widow, is an obedient follower of the strict conventions of Curdle Creek, an all-Black town in rural America stuck in the past and governed by a tradition of ominous rituals. Osira is considered blessed, but her luck changes when her children take off, she comes second to last in the Running of the Widows and her father flees when his name is called in the annual Moving On ceremony. Forced into a test of allegiance, Osira finds herself transported back in time, then into another realm where she must answer for crimes committed by Curdle Creek. Exile forces her to jump realms again, landing Osira even farther away from home, in rural England. Safe as long as she sticks to the rules, she quickly learns there are consequences for every kindness. Each jump could lead Osira anywhere but back home.

Curdle Creek is a unique, inventive novel exploring themes of home, belonging, motherhood and what we inherit from society. This American gothic offers a mash-up of the surreal and literary horror that will appeal to fans of Ring Shout, The Underground Railroad and Lovecraft Country. Yvonne Battle-Felton’s fever dream of a tale is enthralling, layered and quite unlike anything else.

Welcome to Rivers Solomon's dark and wondrous Model Home, a new kind of haunted-house novel.

The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors acted nice enough, but right away bad things, scary things―the strange and the unexplainable―began to happen in their house. Maybe it was some cosmic trial, a demonic rite of passage into the upper-middle class. Whatever it was, the Maxwells, steered by their formidable mother, stayed put, unwilling to abandon their home, terrors and trauma be damned.

As adults, the siblings could finally get away from the horrors of home, leaving their parents all alone in the house. But when news of their parents' death arrives, Ezri is forced to return to Texas with their sisters, Eve and Emanuelle, to reckon with their family’s past and present, and to find out what happened while they were away. It was not a “natural” death for their parents . . . but was it supernatural?

Rivers Solomon turns the haunted-house story on its head, unearthing the dark legacies of segregation and racism in the suburban American South. Unbridled, raw, and daring, Model Home is the story of secret histories uncovered, and of a queer family battling for their right to live, grieve, and heal amid the terrors of contemporary American life.

Ripples in the Pool is a symbolic and powerful novel that delves into the tragedy and spiritual disconnection in rural Africa.

Central characters, like Selina, a former prostitute, and Gikere, a hospital assistant, return to their village with ambitions of wealth and power, neglecting the spiritual significance of the village pool. The pool, guarded by a mysterious old man, symbolizes the land's integrity and spiritual essence. As these characters pursue material gains, they disregard this spiritual core, leading to their downfall.

Selina's journey, marked by a conflict between her rural roots and urban disillusionment, ends in personal and communal tragedy. The novel critiques modernity's moral decay and the loss of spiritual connection, questioning whether the pool's sanctity ultimately prevails over such corruption.

The characters, who span a whole tapestry of rural Africa, are portrayed with a depth and richness that illuminates with shocking clarity aspects of rural society heretofore largely unexplored by African writers.

In this poignant novel, award-winning author, Charles Mungoshi, explores the consequences of colonialism in 1960s Zimbabwe. Waiting for the Rain asks how a nation can look to the future and preserve its traditions while being tied down to the present tyranny of its oppressors.

Told through multiple perspectives of the Mandengu family, Waiting for the Rain eloquently captures the generational effects of colonialism and the slow breaking of family bonds.

Writing during the fiercest years of the Zimbabwe War of Independence, Mungoshi treads a fine line between criticising colonial rule and attempting to avoid British censorship. The result is an astute commentary on the challenges faced in 1960s Zimbabwe.

Costa Rica, 1968. When a lethal fire erupts at the American Fruit Company’s most lucrative banana plantation burning all evidence of a massive cover-up, and her husband disappears, the future of Teresa’s family is changed forever.

Now, twenty-seven years later, Teresa and her daughter Lyra are picking up the pieces. Lyra wants nothing to do with Teresa, but is desperate to find out what happened to her family that fateful night. Teresa, haunted by a missing husband and the bitter ghost of her mother, Amarga, is unable to reconcile the past. What unfolds is a story of a mother and daughter trying to forgive what they do not yet understand, and the mystery at the heart of one family’s rupture.

Brimming with ancestral spirits, omens, and the anthropomorphic forces of nature, John Manuel Arias weaves a brilliant tapestry of love, loss, secrets, and redemption in Where There Was Fire.

A NEW MAN ON THE SCENE.

Aspiring comedian Abi has always been told that she’s too much, but never felt like enough. Until she meets Will, who changes everything she’s been made to believe by men, the media and her mum. He loves her just the way she is.

HIS KIDS.

But Will is a package deal and comes with two daughters from a previous relationship. Suddenly Abi finds herself thrown into the spotlight, and not just on the stage…

CAN SHE WIN OVER THIS TOUGH CROWD?

Abi is used to playing to difficult audiences, but step-parenting, and winning over the girls, is going to be her toughest challenge yet. Can she finally prove her critics wrong and triumph at her biggest gig to date?

A fun and feel-good romantic comedy about love, friendship and family for anyone who’s struggled to feel like enough and find their place. Fans of Beth O’Leary and Ruth Jones will love this warm and witty page-turner.

PRE-ORDER: ON SALE DATE: February 11, 2025

A bold, witty, magical new voice in fiction, Justin Haynes weaves a cross-generational Caribbean story of migration, superstition, and a search for family in the novel Ibis.

There is bad luck in New Felicity. The people of the small coastal village have taken in Milagros, an 11-year-old Venezuelan refugee, just as Trinidad’s government has begun cracking down on undocumented migrants—and now an American journalist has come to town asking questions.

New Felicity’s superstitious fishermen fear the worst, certain they’ve brought bad luck on the village by killing a local witch who had herself murdered two villagers the year before. The town has been plagued since her death by alarming visits from her supernatural mother, as well as by a mysterious profusion of scarlet ibis birds.

Skittish that the reporter’s story will bring down the wrath of the ministry of national security, the fishermen take things into their own hands. From there, we go backward and forward in time—from the town’s early days, when it was the site of a sugar plantation, to Milagros’s adulthood as she searches for her mother across the Americas. In between, through the voices of a chorus of narrators, we glimpse moments from various villagers’ lives, each one setting into motion events that will reverberate outwards across the novel and shape Milagros’s fate.

With kinetic, absorbing language and a powerful sense of voice, Ibis meditates on the bond between mothers and daughters, both highlighting the migrant crisis that troubles the contemporary world and offering a moving exploration of how to square where we come from with who we become.

PRE-ORDER: ON SALE DATE: March 4, 2025

A sweeping story about four women whose lives are shaped by love, longing, and pain. Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in the US who is unlucky in love and coping with the pandemic on her own. Zikora, is a successful lawyer living in Washington DC who finds herself, unexpectedly, a heartbroken single mother. Omelogor is a scholar researching pornography for a Master's thesis in Women's Studies. And Nafissatou, Chiamaka's housekeeper, is trying to reclaim her dignity after a terrible sexual assault. In Dream Count, we come to know these interesting, challenging, and complicated women as they navigate their rich and complex lives. Long revered as a writer who understands how we talk about race and identity, Adichie uses these themes to explore a group of disparate and fascinating women and their worlds, turning a sharp eye on contemporary society. A major literary event, Dream Count is a thrilling, sizzling new work that confirms Adichie's status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.

PRE-ORDER:  ON SALE DATE: January 14, 2025

Hurricane Harvey is about to hit Houston. Meanwhile, single mom Jia Shah is already having a rough week: her twelve-year-old son, Ishaan, has just been suspended from school for getting in a fight. Still reeling from the fallout of her divorce-their move to Houston, her family's disapproval, the struggle to make ends meet on her own-now Jia is worried about Ishaan's future, too. Will her solo parenting be enough? Doesn't a boy need a father? And now their apartment complex is under a mandatory evacuation order. Jia's sister, Seema, has invited them to hunker down in her fancy house in Sugar Land, and despite Jia's misgivings-Seema's husband Vipul has been just a little too friendly with her lately-Jia concedes it's probably the best place to keep Ishaan safe during the hurricane. With Jia's philandering ex scrutinizing her every move, all too eager to snatch back custody of Ishaan, she can't afford to make a mistake. When Vipul's brother and his wife show up at Seema's doorstep, too, it's a recipe for disaster. Grandma, the family matriarch, has never been shy about playing favorites among her sons and their wives. As the storm escalates, tensions rise quickly, and soon, someone's dead. Was it a horrible accident or is there a murderer in their midst? With no help available until the floodwaters recede in the morning, Jia must protect her son and identify the culprit before she goes down for a crime she didn't commit-or becomes the next victim. . .

A novel of money and morality from the New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind

Brooke wants. She isn’t in need, but there are things she wants. A sense of purpose, for instance. She wants to make a difference in the world, to impress her mother along the way, to spend time with friends and secure her independence. Her job assisting an octogenarian billionaire in his quest to give away a vast fortune could help her achieve many of these goals. It may inspire new desires as well: proximity to wealth turns out to be nothing less than transformative. What is money, really, but a kind of belief?

Taut, unsettling, and alive to the seductive distortions of money, Entitlement is a riveting tale for our new gilded age, a story that confidently considers questions about need and worth, race and privilege, philanthropy and generosity, passion and obsession. It is a provocative, propulsive novel about the American imagination.

A prominent romance author has a slump in her love life and book sales, but a chance encounter with a hot firefighter helps her reignite her muse in this swoony holiday romance, perfect for book romantics.

Saira Wright is a prominent Black romance author who has been signed to the most prestigious publisher of African American works, Brownstone Literature. Her career has been successful for the past five years. However, she’s in a slump, and so are her sales and reviews. The romance she has been known for seems to be zapped out of her stories . . . and her love life.

Eager to get Saira back on top of the charts, her publisher has given her an ultimatum—write a chart-topping holiday romance or be dropped from the publishing house. There’s only one problem: Saira strongly opposes penning holiday books. To her, they are cliché and off-brand, but with her career on the line, she’s forced to give it a shot. To capture the spirit of the holidays, she books a vacation in the most “Christmassy” town she can find.

Sharing the other side of her rented duplex is the owner, Dorian Black, a volunteer firefighter, and the town’s little league football coach. He’s also “Mr. December” in the firefighter’s annual fundraising calendar . . . and every woman’s dream. Years ago, Dorian was happily married to the love of his life until cancer took her away from him. Still coping with the loss, a romantic relationship is the furthest thing from his mind. However, when he encounters his new tenant for the holiday, sparks fly and a fire is ignited that not even he can extinguish.

As the two navigate through various encounters, holiday festivities, and a snowstorm, will the magic of Christmas help them rediscover a long-awaited connection?