Sex, vengeance, and betrayal in modern day Tehran—Navid Sinaki’s bold and cinematic debut is a queer literary noir following Anjir, a morbid romantic and petty thief whose boyfriend disappears just as they’re planning to leave their hometown for good

Anjir and Zal are childhood best friends turned adults in love. The only problem is they live in Iran, where being openly gay is criminalized, and the government’s apparent acceptance of trans people requires them to surgically transition and pass as cis straight people. When Zal is brutally attacked after being seen with another man in public, despite the betrayal, Anjir becomes even more determined to carry out their longstanding plan for the future: Anjir, who’s always identified with the mythical gender-changing Tiresias, will become a woman, and they’ll move to a new town for a fresh start as husband and wife.

Then Zal vanishes, leaving a cryptic note behind that sets Anjir on a quest to find the other man, hoping he will lead to Zal. Stalking and stealing his way through the streets, clubs, library stacks, hotel rooms, and museum halls of Tehran—where he encounters his troubled mother, addict brother, and the dynamic Leyli, a new friend who is undergoing a transition of her own—Anjir soon realizes that someone is tailing him too. It quickly becomes clear that more violence may be the fastest route to freedom, as Anjir’s morals and gender identity are pushed to new places in the pursuit of love, peace, and self-determination.

Steeped in ancient Persian and Greek myths, and brimming with poetic vulnerability, subversive bite, and noirish grit, Medusa of the Roses is a page-turning wallop of a story from a bright new literary talent.

On the heels of Scattered All Over the Earth, Yoko Tawada’s new and irresistible Suggested in the Stars carries on her band of friends’ astonishing and intrepid adventures

It’s hard to believe there could be a more enjoyable novel than Scattered All Over the Earth―Yoko Tawada’s rollicking, touching, cheerfully dystopian novel about friendship and climate change―but surprising her readers is what Tawada does best: its sequel, Suggested in the Stars, delivers exploits even more poignant and shambolic.

As Hiruko―whose Land of Sushi has vanished into the sea and who is still searching for someone who speaks her mother tongue―and her new friends travel onward, they begin opening up to one another in new and extraordinary ways. They try to help their friend Susanoo regain his voice, both for his own good and so he can speak with Hiruko―and amid many often hilarious misunderstandings (some linguistic in nature)―they empower each other against despair.  Coping with carbon footprint worries but looping singly and in pairs, they hitchhike, take late-night motorcycle rides, and hop on the train (learning about railway strikes but also packed-train-yoga) to convene in Copenhagen. There they find Susanoo in a strange hospital working with a scary speech-loss doctor.  In the half-basement of this weird medical center (with strong echoes of Lars von Trier’s 1990s TV series The Kingdom), they also find two special kids washing dishes. They discover magic radios, personality swaps, ship tickets delivered by a robot, and other gifts. But friendship―loaning one another the nerve and heart to keep going―sets them all (and the reader) to dreaming of something more... Suggested in the Stars delivers new delights, and Yoko Tawada’s famed new trilogy will conclude in 2025 with Archipelago of the Sun, even if nobody will ever want this “strange, exquisite” (The New Yorker) trip to end.

A long forgotten Beat poet brought back to life in utterly fantastical fashion.

In beautifully vivid journal entries, Black poet Mardou Fox chronicles her 1950s and ‘60s experiences with the Beat Generation--and her adventures in the mysterious, otherworldly realm “over the fence.” Characters based on star Beat authors like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac fight alongside Mardou or battle against her as she challenges racism and sexism to win happiness, freedom, and respect for her work. Are the answers she’s seeking shrouded in the mists of magic? Inspired by the true story of Alene Lee, whose crucial role is often left out of Beat Generation lore.

PRE-ORDER.  ON SALE DATE: March 25, 2025

Winner of the Lee Smith Novel Prize,Behind the Waterline takes readers to the home of a teenager and his grandmother in a New Orleans neighborhood on the eve of Katrina, where there are few resources and little warning of what is about to happen, in this novel that mixes magical realism with reality.

When Hurricane Katrina approaches New Orleans, teenaged Eric and his grandmother and many of their neighbors decide to ride out the storm. Kionna Walker LeMalle's masterful debut novel brings her readers, like the rising water, onto Eric's street in the Third Ward, where stranded dogs bark for a time, where neighbors are floating on doors, and where Eric and his grandmother must take refuge in his second floor bedroom. After days of heat, dwindling supplies, and relentless rising water, neighbors begin to disappear and Eric's grandmother, already known as an eccentric, begins to falter. It is then that Eric-in a dream, a hallucination, or something else-discovers a room beyond his closet wall, a place he has never seen. What he discovers inside will send him on a path to discover secrets to survival, bitter progress, and, ultimately, the history of his own people-those he sorely misses and those he never even knew.

A sardonic, Palestinian Citizen Kane, Sand-Catcher is a dark and thrilling fable about collective memory and the many ways it can be both saved and subverted.

Four Palestinian journalists at a Jordanian newspaper are tasked with writing a profile on one of the last living witnesses of the Nakba, the violent expulsion of native Palestinians by the nascent state of Israel in 1948. Confident that the old man will be more than willing to go on record about his experiences, the reporters are nonplussed when they are repeatedly, and obscenely, rebuffed by the man and his grandchildren. This living witness to history seems to have no desire to be interviewed, no desire for his memories to be preserved, no desire to talk. As the team's editor-in-chief puts more and more pressure on the young journalists, a battle of wills escalates to ruinous consequences that will leave no one unscathed.

Omar Khalifah's debut novel Sand-Catcher is at once a polyphonic satire and a tightly plotted tale of suspense. Walking the line between gallows humor, rage, and depthless heartbreak, it is a unique reflection of contemporary Palestinian identity in all its facets.

A bold multi-generational debut novel exploring themes of queerness, revolution and Islamic sisterhood.

Paris, 1940. The course of Fatiha Bin-Khalid’s life is changed forever when she befriends the Muslim feminist Doria Shafik. But after returning to Egypt and dedicating years to the fight for women’s rights, she struggles to reconcile her political ideals with the realities of motherhood.

Cairo, 1966. After being publicly shamed when her relationship with a bisexual boyfriend is revealed, Fatiha’s daughter is faced with an impossible decision. Should Yasminah accept a life she didn’t choose, or will she leave her home and country in pursuit of independence?

Bristol, 2011. British-born Nadia is battling with an identity crisis and a severe case of herpes. Feeling unfulfilled (and after a particularly disastrous one-night stand), she moves in with her old-fashioned Aunt Yasminah and realises that she must discover her purpose in the modern world before it’s too late.

Following the lives of three women from the Bin-Khalid family, Daughters of the Nile is an original and darkly funny novel that examines the enduring strength of female bonds. These women are no strangers to adversity, but they must learn from the past and relearn shame and shamelessness to radically change their futures.

The lives of working class Mexican America, where everyday stories offer a portal to myth and fable.

"No one writes like Dagoberto Gilb! I loved these energetic, soulful, and hilarious stories that by the end had me wondering if I'd encountered the sublime on the page."—Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Woman of Light

This collection of eleven stories is the newest installment of an ongoing, multi-volume literary documentary project, penned by one of the contemporary legends of Chicanx literature. Dagoberto Gilb's cast of characters includes a young family whose exposure to a mysterious cloud of gas alters their lives forever; a high school dropout whose choice to learn the ways of the world from the adults at work in his uncle’s industrial laundry leads him into a dangerous dalliance;  a former high-rise union carpenter who agrees to meet up with an eager old flame; an aging Chicano, living alone, whose children watch over him for signs of decline; and more.

These are stories about working class people who come and go mostly unnoticed or ignored, whose lives are not fodder for literary tropes or cliches. They are neither heroes nor villains, just regular people with their flaws and merits, facing the challenges and questions posed by everyday life. Gilb writes in a distinctive, appealing voice, welcoming the reader in with an easy sense of familiarity, and the effect is spare on the surface, but profound. Deftly capturing the nuances of interpersonal relationships in a simple word or gesture, he peels back the surface of seemingly unremarkable encounters to reveal layers of myth and uncanny surrealism, propelled by the momentum of new, changing times.

After a public meltdown over her breakup from her cheating musician boyfriend, Cherisse swore off guys in the music industry--and dating in general, for a while--preferring to focus on growing her pastry chef business. When Cherisse's younger sister reveals she's getting married in a few months, Cherisse hopes that will distract her mother enough to quit harassing her about finding a guy, settling down, and having kids. But her mother's matchmaking keeps intensifying. Cherisse tries to humour her mother, hoping if she feigns interest in the eligible bachelors she keeps tossing her way, she'll be off the hook--but things don't quite go as planned

As Udonwa grows, her hidden family history changes her forever.

Let me tell you a story. It’s about a war. This war is not the type fought with guns and machetes. It is a family type. A silent war. The type fought in the heart. It began long before I was formed.

Udonwa’s family is at war ― a war of relationships, played out under the tyranny of a monster dad. Age twelve, Udonwa has a peculiar love for her father, Reverend Leonard Ilechukwu, who favours her but beats his wife and his other children. She sees his good side: after all, he pays the school fees, and tells her that she, named “the peaceful child,” is the one most likely to become a doctor.

When her newly married eldest sister suddenly takes her from their family compound in Iruama, Nigeria, to live with her in Awka, Udonwa experiences violence first-hand. Later, pieces of a sinister picture emerge that shake her life to the core.

No longer the person she thought she was, Udonwa launches into a period of extreme change, and parts of her life spiral into chaos as she finds herself torn between her love for her father and an underlying need to free herself. This vivid family saga is engrossing, deeply unsettling, and finally uplifting.

PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: May 20, 2025

Amos Tutuola’s second novel recounting the fate of mortals who stray into the world of ghosts, now available in a standalone volume

First published in 1954, now acclaimed as a modern classic, and named one of TIME’s “100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time,” My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is the second novel by the Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola. A small boy finds himself lost in the heart of an impenetrable African forest, populated with fantastical beings and ghosts. As every hunter and traveler knows, it is almost impossible to leave the bush—yet the appearance of the television-handed ghostess may offer him a rare opportunity for escape. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is a masterpiece of the surreal that blends Tutuola’s native Yoruba culture with the encroaching influences of British and Christian colonialism in West Africa, a picaresque and darkly funny journey that is unique in literature.

PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: May 20, 2025

Amos Tutuola’s masterful first novel of a nightmarish quest into the land of the dead, now available in a standalone volume with an introduction by Wole Soyinka

Widely considered to be his masterpiece, Amos Tutuola’s debut novel The Palm-Wine Drinkard was first published in 1952. Named one of TIME’s “100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time” and introduced here by Wole Soyinka, the novel tells the phantasmagorical story of a wealthy alcoholic who drinks 225 kegs of palm wine a day. When the man’s personal tapster dies and leaves him without any remaining supply of alcohol, the man desperately follows the tapster into the nightmarish Dead’s Town. Drawing on Yoruba folklore and narrated with a unique voice that mixes West African oral traditions with the Colonial British English that Tutuola learned at school, The Palm-Wine Drinkard is a seminal work of African literature from one of Nigeria’s most influential writers and an important part of the global literary canon.

An impulsive, madcap, and newly concussed young woman comes of age as she navigates her Ghanaian American identity, her relationships, and the muddled landscape of history, memory, imagination, and delusion.

Twenty-four-year-old Akosua is easily knocked off her feet. When she falls and hits her head, she’s too preoccupied with her latest dramas to fully absorb the shock. In the span of three months, she has broken up with her boyfriend Wisdom, discovered that her deadbeat dad has moved back to the States from Ghana, and dropped so many classes that she believes she’s the only history grad student in the history of grad students to be registered for just one partial-credit class. Instead of facing her problems, Akosua seeks distraction in Daniel, a “good Ghanaian man.” But as her head injury worsens, she questions whether she can continue to run away from her father any more than she can keep ignoring her brain and its traumas. Vibrant, funny, and bittersweet, Blood on the Brain is a novel about the complications of family, romance, and culture—and how coming of age can feel like a blow to the head.

 Meticulous and driven Gwen Gilmore knows what she wants... especially in a man. She is newly single and doesn't have time for lackluster chemistry or mixed signals. But the dating scene proves to be slow and unserious, and she realizes she may need some help.

Professional help.

A matchmaker, to be more specific.

Nothing will distract her from finding a man who checks all the boxes, except maybe her brother's grumpy best friend who's just moved into her home.

Anthony Woods has had a crush on his best friend's sister since the day he met her, and he's managed the unfortunate affliction by keeping his distance. However, when apartment problems have him temporarily sleeping on her couch, Gwen is suddenly closer than ever. And as much as he tries, his scowls and frowns can't stop the sparks from flying.

 As they connect and get to know each other, Gwen can't help but notice when the perfect-on-paper boyfriend she has in mind starts to take an unexpected shape. Will she stick to the dating plan outlined by the professionals? Or admit when it comes to love, there's no right way to fall.

More than a year after leaving her unfaithful husband, Renee Mattison is ready to move on, but how can she move on from someone who refuses to let go? Lorenzo Higgs is handsome and magnetic with a past that would send most women running, not to mention a little emotional baggage. Renee knows she should be afraid of Lorenzo, but the only thing that frightens her is the possibility of another broken heart. The two share an electric attraction and a smoldering chemistry, but will they learn to truly believe in each other enough to build a lasting love?

Twice unlucky in love, natural hair vlogger, Angela Strickland, has settled into a life centered around avoiding men and relationships like the plague. Unwilling to risk another broken heart, she resigns herself to being a perpetually single woman.Corporate man and self-professed womanizer, Ryan Boyé, doesn't believe in relationships or love and thinks anyone who does is a fool. But there's just something about Angela Strickland he can't shake...When these two cross paths, their attraction to one another is undeniable. Will they find that the love they've both evaded is exactly what they both need?

adj.
1. A girl or guy who is quick to engage in sexual activities.
--Oftentimes used to shame. Oftentimes used to blame victims for their own abuse.

After the untimely death of her mother, Caprice Latimore has to move in with her grandmother. At eight years old, life as she knows it is turned upside down. The trauma of losing her mother is made worse with the introduction of Marcel, her grandmother's adult son who still lives in the home.

Her uncle Marcel takes an inappropriate interest in her that ultimately results in a tragic breaking point for the child. The only silver lining is that shortly after what Caprice calls "that night", Marcel is booked by local police with a drug possession charge. He's sentenced to prison for twelve years.

Seven years later, however, Marcel is released on good behavior.

Caprice is now sixteen, still dealing with the emotional scars of the past. But things aren't like they were before.

Because now she has Shaun Taylor, the boy across the street who will do whatever it takes to make sure no one ever hurts Caprice again.

fast is a standalone that spans twenty years. Separated into three acts, we watch Caprice grow from eight years old to sixteen years old to twenty-eight years old. She gets hurt, she falls in love, she grows, and she just might overcome.

fast is a story written about victims who were made to feel like their abuse was their own fau

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.