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- PRE-ORDER: Love Spells Trouble
PRE-ORDER: Love Spells Trouble
Nia Davenport
$19.99PRE-ORDER: ON SALE DATE: July 8, 2025
You Should See Me in a Crown meets Black girl magic--literally--in this cozy romantasy about a reluctant witch caught up in a faking dating scheme.
Witches and humans have always had issues. Cayden is well aware of that: her witch mom was shunned by her high-society parents when she fell in love with a Cayden's human dad. And now, the family's business is in trouble due to wealthy witches gentrifying her historic Texas neighborhood. So when Cayden realizes she unknowingly went on a date with Coven it-boy Khy Carter, it feels like things can't get any worse. But then her father's bakery has an influx of new customers, and a solution to her family's problems appears: Cayden absolutely cannot be with a Coven boy, but that doesn't mean she can't pretend to be.
Suddenly, Cayden is thrown into the Coven system she grew up despising, but it turns out embracing this side of herself is actually…fun. And as she and Khy spend more time together, their fake dating may just lead to real feelings. But even though she's doing this for her family, Cayden knows she's also betraying them. Her parents may have put love before everything else, but is Cayden willing to do the same?
- Systemic: How Racism is Making Us Sick
Systemic: How Racism is Making Us Sick
by Layal Liverpool
from $18.00Paperback Release: June 17, 2025
A science-based, data-driven, and global exploration of racial disparities in health care access by virologist, immunologist, and science journalist Layal Liverpool; In the spirit of ambitious bestselling books like Medical Apartheid and Killing the Black Body. The COVID-19 pandemic taught us that viruses disproportionately affect people of color. Here, Layal Liverpool goes a step further to show that this disparity exists for all types of illness and that it is caused by racism. Liverpool will show how racism is woven, invisibly, not just into the structure of medicine and science but into our very bodies. Refuting the false belief that there are biological differences between races, Liverpool goes on to show that racial stereotyping and trauma can however lead to biological changes that make people of color more vulnerable to illness. Systemic tackles: * The problem of racial bias and data gaps in medicine where the default human subject is white * The dangerous health consequences of systemic racism, from the physical and psychological effects of daily micro- and macro-aggressions to intergenerational trauma * The fatal stereotypes that keep people of color undiagnosed, untreated, and unsafe * How we can fix these problems by confronting bias and closing the data gap Using data-driven science, Layal Liverpool shows that racism itself can have biological consequences on the body.
- We Don't Talk About Carol: A Novel
We Don't Talk About Carol: A Novel
Kristen L. Berry
$30.00A dedicated journalist unearths a generations-old family secret—and a connection to a string of missing girls that hits way too close to home—in this gripping debut novel.
In the wake of her grandmother's passing, Sydney Singleton finds a hidden photograph of a little girl who looks more like Sydney than her own sister or mother. She soon discovers the mystery girl in the photograph is her aunt, Carol, who was one of six North Carolina Black girls to go missing in the 1960s. For the last several decades, not a soul has talked about Carol or what really happened to her. But now, with her grandmother gone and Sydney looking to start a family of her own, she is determined to unravel the truth behind her long-lost aunt’s disappearance, and the sinister silence that surrounds her.
Unfortunately, this is familiar territory for Sydney: Years earlier, while she worked the crime beat as a journalist, her obsession with the case of another missing girl led to a psychotic break. And now, in the suffocating grip of fertility treatments and a marriage that's beginning to crumble, Sydney’s relentless pursuit for answers might just lead her down the same path of self-destruction. As she delves deeper into Carol's fate, her own troubled past reemerges, clawing its way to the surface with a vengeance. The web of secrets and lies entangling her family leaves Sydney questioning everything—her fixation on the missing girls, her future as a mom, and her trust in those she knows and loves.
Delving into family, community, secrets, and motherhood, We Don’t Talk About Carol is a gripping and deeply emotional story about overcoming the rot at the roots of our family trees—and what we’ll do for those we love.
- PRE-ORDER: The Best Man: Unfinished Business (The Best Man Series)
PRE-ORDER: The Best Man: Unfinished Business (The Best Man Series)
Malcolm D. Lee
$20.00PRE-ORDER: ON SALE DATE: July 1, 2025
The beloved characters from The Best Man movies and hit television series reunite for a sexy and soulful, heartbreaking and hilarious reckoning of love.
Recently divorced and fresh off a Pulitzer Prize win, Harper Stewart is in a new era. He’s working on a movie and living the ultimate bachelor life in his Brooklyn penthouse. But still, something is missing. What else explains the stubborn creative block? The carousel of women? And seventh-wheel status with his friends?
Jordan Armstrong had to flee New York. First, to give herself distance from Harper and, second, to escape the corporate grind. In her beachfront Malibu property, the façade of a “healed” Jordan flourishes. Yet she finds herself unmoored. Despite the physical distance, she still feels Harper’s magnetic pull.
Meanwhile, in Ghana, Robyn has gone full bohemian restaurateur. She has finally found peace and won’t let another man ruin it—that is, until a handsome local entrepreneur commands her attention. But it’s all too much change for her daughter, Mia, and when she secretly calls Harper with an emergency Robyn would rather hide, their world is shaken and relationships are tested once more.
Book one of The Best Man trilogy follows Harper, Jordan, and Robyn as they try to establish lives away from the hurts of the past and come to realize that some love is impossible to break. With support from their close-knit crew of chosen family—Quentin, Shelby, Lance, Murch, and Candace—they fight for a future that proves one’s second act can be the extended chapter worth it all.
- When We Ruled: The Rise and Fall of Twelve African Queens and Warriors
When We Ruled: The Rise and Fall of Twelve African Queens and Warriors
Paula Akpan
$32.00Discover the reigns of twelve African queens and warriors from across the continent in this immersive and pioneering history.
Njinga Mbande. Nana Yaa Asantewaa. Makobo Modjadji VI. Ranavalona the First.
These queens and warriors ruled vast swathes of the African continent, where they led, loved, and fought for their kingdoms and people. Their impact can still be felt today, and yet, beyond the lands they called home, so few of us have ever heard their names.
In When We Ruled, historian Paula Akpan takes us into the worlds of these powerful figures, following their stories and how they came to rule and influence the futures of their people. Through deep research and discovery, Akpan will uncover new truths and grapple with uncomfortable realities, allowing us to be immersed in countless moments of bravery, intrigue, and, for some, the unraveling of their rule.
With reigns spanning from pre-colonial Nigeria to the rich lands of Rwanda, and from Ancient Egypt to apartheid South Africa, these rulers shed new light on gender politics in these regions, showing how women were celebrated and revered before colonizing powers took hold, and continued to be long after.
In this game-changing narrative of twelve lives, Akpan takes us on a spellbinding, enrapturing, and immersive history that is nothing short of revelatory.
- The Divine Frequency: Harness the Magic of Universal Laws for Transformation, Manifestation, and Freedom
The Divine Frequency: Harness the Magic of Universal Laws for Transformation, Manifestation, and Freedom
Abiola Abrams
$18.99Actionable and practical advice to help you fine-tune your vibe, manifest your desires, attract what you want, and navigate obstacles with ease using Universal Laws—the universe's most potent secrets.
The Divine Frequency is the frequency of God consciousness, the very essence of conscious creation. In this book, Abiola Abrams shows readers how to use the Universal Laws, like the Law of Attraction, to reach this frequency. The Universal Laws are the pathway to aligning ourselves with this sacred frequency, empowering us to manifest our desires.
Every page shows you (in simple language) how to sync up with the cosmic groove and unlock a life that's brimming with joy, meaning, and yes, a whole lot of magic. The Divine Frequency strips away the mystique of the Universal Laws, serving them up in bite-size, actionable pieces that will fit right in to your daily hustle.
You'll get inspiration and practical advice that'll have you fine-tuning your vibe, manifesting and attracting what you want, and navigating obstacles with ease. Plus, dive into stories that prove how real people—maybe even someone like you—have harnessed these laws to transform their lives from mundane to miraculous.
- PRE-ORDER: Bones at the Crossroads (Blood at the Root)
PRE-ORDER: Bones at the Crossroads (Blood at the Root)
LaDarrion Williams
$20.99PRE-ORDER: ON SALE DATE: July 29, 2025
Read the sequel to the explosive, instant New York Times bestseller fantasy debut that People Magazine calls “unforgettable.” A Black teenager with magical powers returns to Caiman University only to find new dangers and new secrets.
It's Homecoming season at Caiman University, and all 17-year-old Malik Baron wants to do is be a regular college student…or as regular as he can get at a magical HBCU for young, Black Conjurers. He’s ready to go to parties, hang out with his new friends, choose a major, and talk to girls. Instead, he's reeling from a summer of revelations, heartbreak and betrayal, and still uncovering the truth about his powers and his legacy.
The family he only just discovered is already fractured beyond repair, and a new relative who shows up on his doorstep brings even more questions. Then there’s the mother he risked everything to find, who might be the biggest threat to the life he's trying to build. To protect his new community, Malik joins an elite secret society with roots in ancient magic.
His journey takes him even deeper into his own heritage and the history of the magical world, while bringing him closer to a classmate whose friendship might mean something more, if Malik is ready to let her in. But how can he use powers he can’t even control to defend a world he’s not sure will ever fully accept him? And as the pressure and danger builds, will he be able to confront the deepening cracks within the magical society, and those building within himself?
- PRE-ORDER: The Girls Who Grew Big: A Novel
PRE-ORDER: The Girls Who Grew Big: A Novel
Leila Mottley
$28.00PRE-ORDER: ON SALE DATE: June 25, 2025
From the author of Oprah's Book Club pick and New York Times bestseller Nightcrawling, here is an astonishing new novel about the joys and entanglements of a fierce group of teenage mothers in a small town on the Florida panhandle.
Adela Woods is sixteen years old and pregnant. Her parents banish her from her comfortable upbringing in Indiana to her grandmother’s home in the small town of Padua Beach, Florida. When she arrives, Adela meets Emory, who brings her newborn to high school, determined to graduate despite the odds; Simone, mother of four-year-old twins, who weighs her options when she finds herself pregnant again; and the rest of the Girls, a group of outcast young moms who raise their growing brood in the back of Simone’s red truck.
The town thinks the Girls have lost their way, but really they are finding it: looking for love, making and breaking friendships, and navigating the miracle of motherhood and the paradox of girlhood.
Full of heart and life and hope, set against the shifting sands of these friends’ secrets and betrayals, The Girls Who Grew Big confirms Leila Mottley’s promise and offers an explosive new perspective on what it means to be a young woman.
- PRE-ORDER: Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings
PRE-ORDER: Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings
Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
$30.00PRE-ORDER. ON SALE DATE: June 24, 2025
*Includes a signed bookplate
The New York Times-bestselling, National Book Award-nominated author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois and The Age of Phillis makes her nonfiction debut with this personal and thought-provoking work that explores the journeys and possibilities of Black women throughout American history and in contemporary times.
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is at a crossroads.
Traditional African/Black American cultures present the crossroads as a place of simultaneous difficulty and possibility. In contemporary times, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the phrase “intersectionality” to explain the unique position of Black women in America. In many ways, they are at a third crossroads: attempting to fit into notions of femininity and respectability primarily assigned to White women, while inventing improvisational strategies to combat oppression.
In Misbehaving at the Crossroads, Jeffers explores the emotional and historical tensions in Black women’s public lives and her own private life. She charts voyages of Black girlhood to womanhood and the currents buffeting these journeys, including the difficulties of racially gendered oppression, the challenges of documenting Black women’s ancestry; the adultification of Black girls; the irony of Black female respectability politics; the origins of Womanism/Black feminism; and resistance to White supremacy and patriarchy. As Jeffers shows with empathy and wisdom, naming difficult historical truths represents both Blues and transcendence, a crossroads that speaks.
Necessary and sharply observed, provocative and humane, and full of the insight and brilliance that has characterized her poetry and fiction, Misbehaving at the Crossroads illustrates the life of one extraordinary Black woman—and her extraordinary foremothers.
- PRE-ORDER: Duels (The French List)
PRE-ORDER: Duels (The French List)
Néhémy Dahomey
$25.00PRE-ORDER:ON SALE DATE: Oct 6, 2025
A gripping tale of education, violence, and hope, in which one man's dream for a better future collides with a community on the edge of transformation.
Set in 1842, this novel foregrounds a Haiti that is grappling with the weight of an onerous debt imposed by France, forcing its citizens to pay reparations to French colonists in exchange for diplomatic recognition of the first Black republic of the Americas. In the town of Boën, a prosperous notary, Ludovic Possible, decides to take a bold step to secure the future of his community. He opens a schoolhouse where local children can learn both artisanal skills and the essential ability to read and write. For Ludovic, education represents the best chance for the people of Boën to rise above their hardships and build a prosperous future—especially for Aïda, a quiet and enigmatic girl whose mother’s marvelous stories captivate him.
The tranquility of Boën is soon shattered, however, by a series of duels that pit families, neighbors, and even animals against each other. As tensions rise, Ludovic’s vision for a better future is threatened by the escalating violence. In Duels, Néhémy Pierre-Dahomey introduces readers to a rich and unforgettable cast of characters—Aïda, Ludovic, Balthazar Possible, Pépé the Tempest, and many others—who find themselves at the crossroads of a nation on the brink of transformative change.
- PRE-ORDER: A is for Arab: ABCs of the Arab World
PRE-ORDER: A is for Arab: ABCs of the Arab World
Aya Mobaydeen
$11.95PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: August 5, 2025
Celebrate Arab culture and tradition with this joyful early concept board book!
Discover the ABCs with a journey through the vibrant culture of the Arab world in A is for Arab, a bright joyful early concept board book. From "P for Palestine" to "H for Habibi", "S for Sitti", and "J for Jiddo", each page introduces young readers to beloved words, people, and traditions. Accompanied by Aya Mobaydeen’s captivating illustrations, this board book offers a warm, joyful introduction to Arab culture for little ones and their families. Perfect for read-aloud, A is for Arab is a celebration of heritage, language, and love that will bring families together across generations.
- PRE-ORDER: The Journey of Yes: The Everyday Adventure of Radical Obedience
PRE-ORDER: The Journey of Yes: The Everyday Adventure of Radical Obedience
Brenda Palmer
$17.00PRE-ORDER: ON SALE DATE: June 24, 2025
A captivating exploration into the transformative power of saying yes to God’s call, even when it leads to unexpected paths—and into a wildly more fulfilling life.
“This is a powerful testimony of what happens when you surrender to God’s call and trust Him with the process. Brenda’s story will stir your spirit and remind you that obedience to God isn’t always easy, but it’s always worth it.”—Crystal Renee Hayslett, actor, producer, singer, host of Keep It Positive, Sweetie podcast
Stepping into the unknown is scary. But what if saying yes despite your fears leads you to a life beyond your imagination? In The Journey of Yes, pastor and podcast host Brenda Palmer shares how everyday obedience freed her from fear and led to profound purpose. Through intimate anecdotes, insightful reflections, and practical guidance, she illuminates the incredible gift of saying yes to God, who leads us through all of life’s opportunities and challenges.
Drawing from scripture and her own personal odyssey—from leaving a dream career and moving across country to giving up financial security and status to follow God's call—Palmer empowers you to conquer fears, embrace vulnerability, and embark on a remarkable journey of self-discovery. She illuminates the paradox that while obedience may come at a cost, it unveils a world of unimaginable blessings and spiritual abundance. As you join her on this journey of faith and obedience, you'll learn that God’s purpose for your life is much grander than material gifts or achieving goals, but about the giver of life Himself.
Palmer’s inspiring revelations and storytelling equip you with a renewed sense of purpose and encouragement to live a life of wholehearted devotion and surrender. Because by saying yes to God, you will uncover a life of infinite possibilities, joy, and lasting fulfillment.
- PRE-ORDER: The Great Misfortune of Stella Sedgwick
PRE-ORDER: The Great Misfortune of Stella Sedgwick
S. Isabelle
$19.99PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: July 8, 2025
This wildly entertaining YA historical romance follows a young Black woman in 1860s England who yearns for a writing career and independence rather than love and marriage, but an unexpected inheritance forces her into London society and reunites her with the boy who broke her heart. Perfect for fans of The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue and The Davenports.
Eighteen-year-old Stella Sedgwick is a lost cause. While 1860s England offers little opportunity beyond marriage for a sharp-tongued, dark-skinned girl, Stella dreams of a writing career and independence.
When her late mother’s former employer—the wealthy Thomas Fitzroy—summons Stella to London, he bequeaths her one of the family’s great estates on his deathbed. But such an inheritance will precipitate a legal battle, one that would be much easier if Stella were married. Suddenly thrust into lily-white London society with the goal of finding a husband, Stella also reunites with the Fitzroy heir Nathaniel, her childhood best friend, now somewhat of a stranger.
But London presents other opportunities, like picking up her mother’s old advice column, where “Fiona Flippant” anonymously guided readers through upper-class perils. It turns out the dresses and balls aren’t so bad, though the stares and insults sometimes feel impossible to navigate. Things only grow more complicated with the attention of handsome suitors and Stella’s increasingly tempestuous relationship with Nathaniel. As new opportunities arise and old secrets are uncovered, Stella must decide when to play by the rules, when to break them, and when to let herself follow her heart. - PRE=ORDER: A Summer for the Books : A Novel
PRE=ORDER: A Summer for the Books : A Novel
Michelle Lindo-Rice
$18.99PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: July 15, 2025
Jewel Stone has it all—the perfect marriage, a bestselling author career, her dream home—or so she likes everyone to believe. But between her writer’s block and her husband losing his job, her picture-perfect life is in shambles. And inspiration just isn’t hitting…until she receives a call she never expected: her former best friend needs her help.
When Shelby Andrews wakes up in the hospital after a biking accident, she can’t remember the last twelve years. She knows she owns a bookstore on the beach, but she has no memory of Lacey, her nineteen-year-old adopted daughter who’s away for the summer. There’s only one person who can help Shelby through this—her bestie, Jewel.
With so many secrets and heartbreaks between them, Jewel and Shelby haven’t spoken in years. Yet Jewel can’t turn away from the friend who doesn’t remember their fallout. Besides, the best writing she’s ever done was with Shelby…
But when they learn Lacey’s really spending her summer searching for her birth parents, their tentative reunion might just unravel along with all of their secrets.
- PRE-ORDER: Specs
PRE-ORDER: Specs
Van G. Garrett, Reggie Brown (Illustrated by)
$19.99PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: August 5, 2025
In this follow-up to Kicks, dynamic duo Van G. Garrett and New York Times bestselling artist Reggie Brown reunite to celebrate kids who wear glasses, or specs, and all the amazing, stylish things they can do and be while being true to themselves—in spectacular fashion!
You shouldn’t pick SPECS carelessly. No rough-and-ready, unsteady, speedily selected pair of glasses will do.
This is a love letter to glasses. But not just any glasses. Only the shiniest, flyest, you-est specs you can find—the ones that let you see things in a whole new way!
In this playful and joyful ode to specs of all kinds, young readers follow one girl on her journey of acceptance and join the fun of picking the perfect pair of glasses.
- PRE-ORDER:The Strangers : Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them
PRE-ORDER:The Strangers : Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them
Ekow Eshun
$35.00PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: July 8, 2025
In the western imagination, a Black man is always a stranger, outsider, foreigner, intruder, alien; one who remains associated with their origins irrespective of how far they have travelled from them. One who is not an individual in his own right, but the representative of a type.
What kind of performance is required for a person to survive this condition? What happens beneath the mask—what is the cost to the mind and body, to one’s relationships and one’s sense of self?
Searching for answers, Ekow Eshun channels the voices of five very different individuals. Each man a renowned trailblazer in his field. Each man haunted by a sense of isolation and exile. Each man a stranger in his own world:
- Ira Aldridge, nineteenth century British actor and playwright;
- Matthew Henson, the first Black man to reach the North Pole;
- Frantz Fanon, French-Martinican psychiatrist and political philosopher;
- Malcolm X, civil rights activist and leader;
- Justin Fashanu, Britain’s first openly gay professional footballer.
Telling their stories, Eshun pushes the boundaries of genre to capture them in all their complexity, interweaving biography, fiction, historical record, and memoir, sharing his own experiences living as a Black Briton in the art world. The Strangers illuminates both the hostility and the beauty each man encountered in the world, positioning them all within a wider landscape of Black art, culture, history, and politics throughout the diaspora.
- PRE-ORDER: Basquiat : A Quick Killing in Art
PRE-ORDER: Basquiat : A Quick Killing in Art
Phoebe Hoban
$19.99PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: November 25, 2025
In less than a decade, Jean-Michel Basquiat went from being a teenage graffiti artist to an international art star. His meteoric rise to fame coincided with the outrageous excess of the heady ’80s art boom. A fixture of the downtown scene, with its explosive mix of music, fashion, art, and drugs, he soon became involved with some of its most celebrated personalities, including Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, and Madonna.
Basquiat fulfilled that cynical aphorism: Die young and leave a beautiful corpse. But Basquiat did more than that: he left a beautiful corpus. With each passing year, the remarkable energy, perspicacity and originality of his work increases in power.
In a world where Black Lives Matter and the imperative need for diversity are among the driving forces of our time, Basquiat’s success in the 1980s white art world, and his ongoing universal celebrity, have made him a significant role model for generation of artists to come.
From the rise and fall of the graffiti movement, to the East Village art scene, to the art dealers and out-of-control auction houses, Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art, the definitive biography of the young painter, is a vivid portrait of both the artist and his time.
Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art includes 12-14 photographs.
- PRE-ORDER: The Dilemmas of Working Women : Stories
PRE-ORDER: The Dilemmas of Working Women : Stories
Fumio Yamamoto, Brian Bergstrom (Translated by)
$26.99PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: August 12, 2025
A spiky, edgy collection of five sly yet sensitive stories spotlighting clear-eyed and “difficult” women who are navigating their identities as workers and women in contemporary Japan—a feminist, anti-capitalist modern classic published outside Asia and in English for the first time.
The Dilemmas of Working Women is Fumio Yamamoto’s darkly witty look at modern Japanese women who are ambivalent about their lives and jobs. In “Naked,” a woman who’s simultaneously lost her business and her husband finds that it is surprisingly comfortable to stay at home sewing stuffed animals, even if it makes her a “loser” in the eyes of society. In “Planarian,” a young woman recovering from breast cancer tells her friends and boyfriend that she would prefer to be the titular worm to organically regenerate her body. Each of these spiky women—as well as the three other protagonists in this groundbreaking work—chafes against social expectations that equate work with worth and demand women squeeze into the confining and sometimes dehumanizing role of employee in a world built by and for men.
First published in Japan in 2000, The Dilemmas of Working Women struck a nerve with Japanese readers and became a bestselling literary sensation, selling nearly half a million copies and winning the prestigious Naoki Prize in Literature. A quarter of a century later, this brilliant modern classic—available for the first time outside Asia and in English—remains deliciously funny and astonishingly relevant.
Translated from the Japanese by Brian Bergstrom
- PRE-ORDER: Both/And : Essays by Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Writers of Color
PRE-ORDER: Both/And : Essays by Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Writers of Color
Denne Michele Norris, Electric Literature
$27.99PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: August 12, 2025
Inspired by the groundbreaking Electric Literature series, a vital essay anthology spotlighting and celebrating trans and gender-nonconforming writers of color.
Both/And began as a series of 15 essays, published on a weekly basis, on Electric Literature through the spring of 2023. Two editors reviewed over 100 submissions, all which were sent in the form of a pitch—rather than a drafted essay—to ensure the series remained accessible to the community it intended to elevate, and to allow the opportunity for creative growth during the generative process. Both editors reviewing pitches were trans people of color, and selected writers worked closely with editor-in-chief Denne Michele Norris, the first Black openly transgender head of a major literary platform, through all stages of the editorial and publication process.
This anthology, which features more than a dozen essays by trans people of color—leaders in their field and influential in their community—spans the breadth of what it means to live as a trans or gender nonconforming person of color, each story told with honesty, authenticity, and beauty.
- PRE-ORDER: Family Spirit : A Novel
PRE-ORDER: Family Spirit : A Novel
Diane McKinney-Whetstone
$26.99PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: August 12, 2025
The eccentric Mace family believes that the Philadelphia rowhouse they’ve lived in for decades is built on sacred ground, and that the space enhances the clairvoyance passed down to them through generations. But developers, viewing the family’s lifestyle an impediment to gentrification efforts, begin a campaign to displace them. Meanwhile, a prodigal daughter’s return deepens family schisms and exposes betrayals. Can she also help them battle the havoc, both internal and external, that would ruin them?
The Maces believe that a clairvoyant gene, they refer to as the knowing, has been passed down in their family to at least one girl child in every generation from as far back as they can trace—they claim Harriet Tubman in their family tree. Main character Lil, considered the most gifted of her generation, has returned to Philadelphia for cancer treatment. Lil is painfully estranged from her mother and aunts and cousins. Decades ago, after too much brandy and cocaine, Lil acquiesces to her boyfriends’ request to prove her clairvoyance by advising him on a business venture. Doing so, Lil violates a sacred family code because the Maces believe a knowing is an act of community where they agree through storytelling and rituals that invoke the ancestors, that their prognostications contribute to a greater good. Lil’s boyfriend benefits from her breach of faith and in an act of gratitude—and exploitation—books Lil on the Mike Douglass show. Lil’s mother and grandmother are mortified as they watch Lil predict trivialities in a game-like format for some fawning white man, making a mockery of their sacrosanct practice. They sever all contact with Lil and ban her from the family home.
Lil becomes a media darling for a time after her appearance on The Mike Douglas Show, and since then has been paid handsomely as a consultant, advisor, counselor, coach, or similar titles that legitimate entities use to obscure that they’re paying for fortunetelling.
Lil has remained close with her brother Miles and when she returns to Philadelphia, settles into the chaos of his household. Miles is an aspiring novelist in search of a book deal; Mile’s wife Jetta, a once local model, is now trying her hand at interior decorating. Jetta and Miles are teetertottering on Bankruptcy, their marriage is disintegrating, and they can’t agree on how to help their twenty-one-year-old daughter Ayana work through her issues. Lil offers Miles and Jetta money and advice, but she primarily concentrates on Ayana in whom she recognizes her younger self.
Ayana is back home with her parents following an abysmal six years trying to finish college. After a dearth of girl babies on her father’s side, she feels pressured to manifest and carry on the family gift. She’s conflicted. Her entire life, her mother, who doesn’t believe in a clairvoyant gene, has tried to persuade Ayana that she is not like the Maces. Though Ayana craves a normal life and wishes Jetta was right, she knows that she is very much like her father’s people. Plus, she adores them with their unapologetic authenticity, and color-clashing outfits, and free-standing crinkly hair. She loves the stories her grandmother tells about the ancestors, bringing them to life. She especially loves the rituals.
Still, Ayana pretends to her family that the knowing gene has bypassed her, disappointing her grandmother and aunts, greatly relieving her mother, and causing Ayana enormous guilt. She distracts herself from the guilt by jumping in and out of relationships. Her latest guy lives in his car.
More complications arise for Ayana when she thinks she experiences a knowing about Lil’s treatment and doesn’t want to out herself by exposing it.
Meanwhile, the man who exploited Lil years ago has also returned to Philly after a lucrative run as a Black man purveying anti-Black rhetoric. He again contacts Lil for help. As appalled as she is by his brazenness, she considers his appeal an opportunity to right her past wrong and pave a way back home to her mother. She tussles with whether and how to bring him down as she prepares to start her cancer treatment. Ayana begs her to get a second opinion, and Lil relents and discovers the radiologist’s error, and Ayana’s deceit.
Ayana’s unhoused boyfriend learns through his internship with a gentrifying housing development corporation that a campaign is underway to remove Ayana’s grandmother, aunts, and cousins from the home they’ve occupied for decades. The threat fuels the internal struggles of the main characters. Ayana, just trying to live a normal life, and Lil, just trying to keep living, become a formidable duo in the climactic battle to save the family home, their block, their culture, and their traditions.
Each chapter of Family Spirit opens with a text message thread that captures the chapter’s focus—hence the title Family Spirit. Told in an omniscient voice, and primarily set in the current day, Family Spirit dips into the past with depictions of enslaved ancestors through the stories Ayana’s grandmother tells.
- PRE-ORDER: Lore of the Tides : A Novel
PRE-ORDER: Lore of the Tides : A Novel
Analeigh Sbrana
$30.00PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: July 8, 2025
Lore Alemeyu wakes up to discover she’s on a ship in the middle of the ocean. Held prisoner and with no way to escape, she’s faced with a dire set of circumstances…
A crew that’s distrustful of Lore’s magic capabilities…
Her betrayal by a Fae she thought she could trust…
A dangerous quest for the sun book, which, if placed in the wrong hands, will make the Alytherian Fae even more powerful.
Lore must navigate threats on the ship and beyond, into the ocean’s magical and mysterious depths, in order to find the sun book herself and help free the humans. All the while, Lore can’t help but feel the intense pull of one Fae male who has been helping her all along. But is she willing to risk her human heart for creatures that have burned her in the past, and jeopardize her people’s future?
- PRE-ORDER: Mounted : On Horses, Blackness, and Liberation
PRE-ORDER: Mounted : On Horses, Blackness, and Liberation
Bitter Kalli
$22.00PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: August 19, 2025
Joining the growing Black creative movement currently refashioning horses and cowboy imagery, a thoughtful, probing exploration of the shared history of Blackness and horses which reveals what its image can teach us about nationhood, race, and culture.
Drawing on their personal history as a former urban equestrian, Black queer person, and child of Jamaican and Filipino immigrants, essayist and art critic Bitter Kalli contends the horse should be regarded as a critical source of power and identity in Black life.
In a series of astute essays, Kalli explores the work of Black artists and influencers from Beyoncé to filmmakers Tiona Nekkia-McClodden and Jeymes Samuel and explores their own life-long relationship to equines. Alternatively playful and critical, meditative and biting, these essays navigate time and place—from the shadows of racetracks where jockey culture and the ubiquity of “equestrian chic” was born, to the reclamation—or, in Lil Nas X’s word, yeehawification—of the image of the cowboy, to the fraught connections of equestrian sport to slavery, US militarization, and European colonial domination. At heart, Kalli probes a central question: What does it mean for Black people to ride and tend horses in the context of a culture that has also used horses against them?
Throughout these essays, Kalli reflects on the experience of being the only Black member of the equestrian team at Columbia University, and how the aesthetics, ethos, and practice of horse stewardship contributed to their understanding of gender, sexuality, and radical community building. Mounted moves beyond the reductive stereotypes that dominate our perceptions of “horse people”—the swaggering masculinity, snooty elitism, and assumed whiteness—to reveal how Black people relate to the image and physical presence of the horse in nature and culture, considering violence, sexualization, power, migration, and more through its image.
- PRE-ORDER: Positive Obsession : The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler
PRE-ORDER: Positive Obsession : The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler
Susana M. Morris
$29.99PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: August 19, 2025
A magnificent cultural biography that charts the life of one of our greatest writers, situating her alongside the key historical and social moments that shaped her work.
As the first Black woman to consistently write and publish in the field of science fiction, Octavia Butler was a trailblazer. With her deft pen, she created stories speculating the devolution of the American empire, using it as an apt metaphor for the best and worst of humanity—our innovation and ingenuity, our naked greed and ambition, our propensity for violence and hierarchy. Her fiction charts the rise and fall of the American project—the nation’s transformation from a provincial backwater to a capitalist juggernaut—made possible by chattel slavery—to a bloated imperialist superpower on the verge of implosion.
In this outstanding work, Susana M. Morris places Butler’s story firmly within the cultural, social, and historical context that shaped her life: the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power, women’s liberation, queer rights, Reaganomics. Morris reveals how these influences profoundly impacted Butler’s personal and intellectual trajectory and shaped the ideas central to her writing. Her cautionary tales warn us about succumbing to fascism, gender-based violence, and climate chaos while offering alternate paradigms to religion, family, and understanding our relationships to ourselves. Butler envisioned futures with Black women at the center, raising our awareness of how those who are often dismissed have the knowledge to shift the landscape of our world. But her characters are no magical martyrs, they are tough, flawed, intelligent, and complicated, a reflection of Butler’s stories.
Morris explains what drove Butler: She wrote because she felt she must. “Who was I anyway? Why should anyone pay attention to what I had to say? Did I have anything to say? I was writing science fiction and fantasy, for God’s sake. At that time nearly all professional science-fiction writers were white men. As much as I loved science fiction and fantasy, what was I doing? Well, whatever it was, I couldn’t stop. Positive obsession is about not being able to stop just because you’re afraid and full of doubts. Positive obsession is dangerous. It’s about not being able to stop at all.”
- PRE-ORDER: Toni at Random : The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship
PRE-ORDER: Toni at Random : The Iconic Writer's Legendary Editorship
Dana A. Williams
$29.99PRE-ORDER: On Sale Date: June 17, 2025
An insightful exploration that unveils the lesser-known dimensions of this legendary writer and her legacy, revealing the cultural icon’s profound impact as a visionary editor who helped define an important period in American publishing and literature.
A multifaceted genius, Toni Morrison transcended her role as an author, helping to shape an important period in American publishing and literature as an editor at one of the nation’s most prestigious publishing houses. While Toni Morrison's literary achievements are widely celebrated, her editorial work is little known. Drawing on extensive research and firsthand accounts, this comprehensive study discusses Morrison's remarkable journey from her early days at Random House to her emergence as one of its most important editors. During her tenure in editorial, Morrison refashioned the literary landscape, working with important authors, including Toni Cade Bambara, Leon Forrest, and Lucille Clifton, and empowering cultural icons such as Angela Davis and Muhammad Ali to tell their stories on their own terms.
Toni Morrison herself had great enthusiasm about Dana Williams's work on this story, generously sharing memories and thoughts with the author over the years, even giving her the book's title. From the manuscripts she molded, the authors she nurtured, and the readers she inspired, Toni at Random demonstrates how Toni Morrison has influenced American culture beyond the individual titles or authors she published. Morrison’s contribution as an editor transformed the broader literary landscape and deepened the cultural conversation. With unparalleled insight and sensitivity, Toni at Random charts this editorial odyssey.
- Supa Nova (Supa Nova, 1)
Supa Nova (Supa Nova, 1)
Chanté Timothy
$9.99Venture into Nova's secret underground lab— and witness a gum monster come to life! A full-color, action-packed graphic novel about a young Black girl with a love for science and enough determination and confidence to fix the world.
Nova is horrified when she learns about the world's plastic problem and the trash islands floating in the ocean. Good thing she has a super-secret lab in her basement. No problem is too big for SUPA NOVA or for SCIENCE! But things go spectacularly awry when she creates a plastic-eating monster who won't stop eating and GROWING! Will Supa Nova be able to save the day--and the planet?
- PRE-ORDER: Jordan's Perfect Haircut
PRE-ORDER: Jordan's Perfect Haircut
Sharee Miller
$18.99PRE-ORDER: ON SALE DATE: August 19, 2025
Celebrate a Black boy's first haircut in this joyful book from the creator of the popular Princess Hair and Don't Touch My Hair!
Jordan loves his hair: soft like a cloud, regal like a crown. He doesn't want a haircut to change all that.
Jordan’s friends are getting new haircuts for picture day at school. Shape-ups, low fades, frohawks, and more—there are way too many styles to choose from. But when Mama brings Jordan to the barbershop, he sees everyone’s haircuts are like magic.
Can Jordan find a style that’s just right for him?
With her trademark bright colors and expressive characters, Sharee Miller teaches confidence and self-love through the timeless tradition of school picture day.
- PRE-ORDER: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: A Veteran's Memoir
PRE-ORDER: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: A Veteran's Memoir
Khadijah Queen
$30.00PRE-ORDER: ON SALE DATE: August 5, 2025
We stay fighting, even if we don't call it war.
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is a poet’s memoir about family, survival, and one servicewoman’s search for autonomy. Yanked out of college and torn from her sunny hometown of Los Angeles in the early 1990s, Khadijah Queen finds herself sharing a basement apartment with her mother and sister and working two retail jobs in snowy, tiny Inkster, Michigan. Longing to escape the cycle of her family’s poverty, incarceration, and addiction, she joins the US Navy, determined to earn money to finish college and make it back to L.A. on her own terms.
But soon after Queen completes her grueling training and boards a doomed destroyer, she finds herself faced with near-constant sexual harassment, demeaning labor assignments, and overt racism. Stuck on a ship with nowhere to hide, she looks to poetry, literature, and letters from home to get through the long days and maintain her dignity. She keeps her head down until the workplace hostility against women spills over into her dating life and threatens to derail everything she has worked for.
In trying to break through the unspoken code of silence between sailors, Queen must decide where her loyalties lie: with the Navy or within herself. Unflinching and masterfully penned, this memoir questions the promises of service to reveal the true price of being a woman at sea.
- PRE-ORDER: Vivir Bruja (Being Bruja): Una guía para jóvenes (Spanish Edition)
PRE-ORDER: Vivir Bruja (Being Bruja): Una guía para jóvenes (Spanish Edition)
Zayda Rivera
$17.99PRE-ORDER: ON SALE DATE: July 29, 2025
Para ellos que alguna vez han sentido que tengan magia por dentro, o vínculos inexplicables con el Universo o los ancestros, esta guía de Brujería en español, es una introducción esencial a la práctica derivada de las tradiciones latinas, hispanas e indígenas. Vivir Bruja (edición en español de Being Bruja) es una guía completa e inclusiva centrada en presentar la práctica de la Brujería a jóvenes místicos curiosos. Conozca la breve historia y el origen de la práctica y la palabra bruja, las herramientas necesarias para la práctica, los rituales para principiantes, cómo conectarse con la tierra y sus ancestros, limpiezas y protección espirituales y cómo incorporar la Brujería en su práctica diaria. Aunque es una aceptación de las tradiciones místicas latinas/hispanas, este libro deja claro que cualquiera puede identificarse como bruja, brujo o brujx. Los lectores obtendrán un mayor conocimiento y apreciación de nuestra conexión con el Universo, así como rituales prácticos, como realizar baños y limpias de principiantes. Edición en ingles, Being Bruja, también disponible.
- PRE-ORDER: Being Bruja: A Young Mystic's Guide
PRE-ORDER: Being Bruja: A Young Mystic's Guide
Zayda Rivera
$17.99PRE-ORDER: ON SALE DATE: July 29, 2025
For those who have ever felt the call of magic, or unexplained ties to the Universe or ancestors, this guide to Brujería is an essential introduction to the practice for beginners stemming from the Latinx, Hispanic, and indigenous traditions.
Being Bruja is a comprehensive and inclusive guide focused on introducing the practice of Brujería to curious young mystics. Learn about the brief history and origin of the practice and the word bruja, along with the tools needed for the practice, beginner rituals, how to connect with the earth and your ancestors, spiritual cleansings and protection, and how to incorporate Brujería into your daily life. While embracing Latine/Hispanic mystic traditions, this book makes it clear that anyone can identify as a bruja, brujo, or brujx. Readers will come away with a further knowledge and appreciation of our connection to the Universe, as well as practical rituals, like how to perform beginner baños and limpias.
- PRE-ORDER: Lonely Crowds : A Novel
PRE-ORDER: Lonely Crowds : A Novel
Stephanie Wambugu
$28.00PRE-ORDER: ON SALE DATE: July 29, 2025
Luster meets The Idiot in this riveting debut novel about a volatile friendship between two outsiders who escape their bleak childhoods and enter the glamorous early '90s art world in New York City, where only one of them can make it.
Ruth, an only child of recent immigrants to New England, lives in an emotionally cold home and attends the local Catholic girl’s school on a scholarship. Maria, a beautiful orphan whose Panamanian mother dies by suicide and is taken care of by an ill, unloving aunt, is one of the only other students attending the school on a scholarship. Ruth is drawn forcefully into Maria’s orbit, and they fall into an easy, yet intense, friendship. Her devotion to her charming and bright new friend opens up her previously sheltered world.
While Maria, charismatic and aware of her ability to influence others, eases into her full self, embracing her sexuality and her desire to be an artist, Ruth is mostly content to follow her around: to college and then into the early-nineties art world of New York City. There, ambition and competition threaten to rupture their friendship, while strong and unspoken forces pull them together over the years. Whereas Maria finds early success in New York City as an artist, Ruth stumbles along the fringes of the art world, pulled toward a quieter life of work and marriage. As their lives converge and diverge, they meet in one final and fateful confrontation.
Ruth and Maria's decades-long friendship interrogates the nature of intimacy, desire, class and time. What does it mean to be an artist and to be true to oneself? What does it mean to give up on an obsession? Marking the arrival of a sensational new literary talent, Lonely Crowds challenges us to reckon honestly with our own ambitions and the lives we hope to lead. - PRE-ORDER: The Kids in Mrs. Z's Class: Synclaire Fields Knows the Score (The Kids in Mrs. Z's Class, 8)
PRE-ORDER: The Kids in Mrs. Z's Class: Synclaire Fields Knows the Score (The Kids in Mrs. Z's Class, 8)
Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
$6.99PRE-ORDER: ON SALE DATE: July 8, 2025
Meet the kids in Mrs. Z’s wacky and wonderful third-grade class! Synclaire Fields is proud to be the best in the class at math—until one mistake in a high-stakes situation means she's NOT the best after all. So who is she instead?
Synclaire Fields is the Math Kid in Mrs. Z's class, getting perfect marks on every quiz and helping her classmates master tricky concepts. She especially loves demonstrating her skills at her parents' store after school. Then she gets TWO ANSWERS WRONG on a math test, and ... How can she be the Math Kid if she isn't good at math anymore?
So Synclaire embarks on a quest to figure out what's next. Maybe she'll be a piano prodigy? A board-games whiz? A skating star? She likes some of these hobbies, but there's one constant with every role: She seems to come back to math. Maybe, with the help of her friends in Mrs. Z's class, she can still be the Math Kid after all?
Both sweetly poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, with black-and-white illustrations by Pura Belpré Honor artist Kat Fajardo, Synclaire's story invites readers into Mrs. Z’s class where friendship and fun rule the school, from NAACP Image Award finalist Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich.
Perfect for!
★ My Weirdtastic School fans
★ Reluctant readers
★ Classroom read-alouds
★ Andrew Clements fans
★ Math whiz kids
★ Math haters
★ Kids who haven't found their hobby yet!
Read them all! The Kids in Mrs. Z’s Class have plenty of stories to share!
Emma McKenna, Full out (#1)
Rohan Murthy Has a Plan (#2)
Poppy Song Bakes a Way (#3)
The Legend of Memo Castillo (#4)
Wyatt Hill Brings a Lizard to School (#5)
Ayana Ndoum Takes the Stage (#6)
Olive Little Gets Crafty (#7) — available for preorder now!
Theo Chang is Not a Cat (#9) — available for preorder now!
Thunder Nelson Does the Impossumble (#10) — available for preorder now!
*The Kids in Mrs. Z’s Class is an innovative series where every book is written by a different all-star author and features a different kid in the same third-grade class. They can be read in any order! - Gaysians
Gaysians
Michael Curato
$32.00From the acclaimed author of the young adult graphic novel Flamer comes a heartwarming story following four gay Asians navigating love, identity, and friendship—a celebration of queer chosen family.
When AJ moves to Seattle in the early aughts, he’s ready to reinvent himself as a gay Asian man—but his dreams hit reality fast with no friends, no job, and an apartment so far out, “not even lesbians live there.” Then a spilled drink at a bar introduces him to K, a glamorous drag queen; John, a shy gamer; and Steven, a reckless flirt. AJ’s “Boy Luck Club” helps him find love, pride, and belonging—until a brutal attack tests everything they know about friendship and family.
Meticulously observed and gorgeously illustrated, Gaysians is a fierce, funny, and tender story of queer resilience and self-discovery.
“I’ve been hunting for books like this my whole life; this story broke my heart and healed it.”—Maia Kobabe, author of Gender Queer
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