A personal meditation on, examination of, and tribute to Black single motherhood, unapologetically told through poignant essays and candid interviews by a celebrated cultural critic

“Jamilah Lemieux is one of the most important feminist writers of the twenty-first century.”—Brittney Cooper

With her signature candid, humorous, and sometimes biting takes, Jamilah Lemieux suffers no fools while also courageously revealing the scars of her own parenting journey and search for self-acceptance in a world that hates “baby mamas.” With a particular verve and relatability—honed in her many years among Black Twitter’s most prominent voices—Lemieux centers the complex reality of Black single motherhood: uncertainty and fierceness alike.

Black. Single. Mother. combines riveting personal essays, infused with whip-smart cultural and historical analysis, with twenty-one intimate first-person testimonies from a spectrum of Black single mothers. A long-overdue offering in celebration of the American matriarch most often maligned, Black. Single. Mother. sets out to inspire a new cultural and community dialogue about this powerful figure as one profoundly deserving of love, support, and respect.

Perfect for fans of The Day You Begin and Evelyn Del Rey Is Moving Away, author Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow and illustrator Shahrzad Maydani’s Sister Friend is a heartwarming new picture book celebrating the unique joy of cultivating friendships within your cultural community.
 
Ameena feels invisible. It’s been that way since she started at her new school. But now there is another new girl in class. Ameena sees her brownness and her hijab, even though the other kids do not.
 
Ameena wants to be her friend, but she can’t seem to find the right words or do the right things. Until one day, they find them together: “Assalamu Alaikum, Sister. Welcome.”

There will be blood.

Ace of Spades meets House of Hollow in this villain origin story.

Laure Mesny is a perfectionist with an axe to grind. Despite being constantly overlooked in the elite and cutthroat world of the Parisian ballet, she will do anything to prove that a Black girl can take center stage. To level the playing field, Laure ventures deep into the depths of the Catacombs and strikes a deal with a pulsating river of blood.

The primordial power Laure gains promises influence and adoration, everything she’s dreamed of and worked toward. With retribution on her mind, she surpasses her bitter and privileged peers, leaving broken bodies behind her on her climb to stardom.

But Laure quickly learns she’s not the only monster around, and her vicious desires make her a perfect target for slaughter. As she descends into madness and the mystifying underworld beneath her, she is faced with the ultimate choice: continue to break herself for scraps of validation or succumb to the darkness that wants her exactly as she is—monstrous heart and all. That is, if the god-killer doesn’t catch her first.

From debut author Jamison Shea comes an edge-of-your-seat thriller that lifts a veil on the institutions that profit on exclusion and the toll of giving everything to a world that will never love you back.

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Nova Albright was going to be the first Black homecoming queen at Lovett High—but now she's dead. Murdered on coronation night. Fans of One of Us Is Lying and The Other Black Girl will love this unputdownable thriller.

Nova Albright, the first Black homecoming queen at Lovett High, is dead. Murdered the night of her coronation, her body found the next morning in the old slave cemetery she spent her weekends rehabilitating.

Tinsley McArthur was supposed to be queen. Not only is she beautiful, wealthy, and white, it’s her legacy—her grandmother, her mother, and even her sister wore the crown before her. Everyone in Lovett knows Tinsley would do anything to carry on the McArthur tradition.

No one is more certain of that than Duchess Simmons, Nova’s best friend. Duchess’s father is the first Black police captain in Lovett. For Duchess, Nova’s crown was more than just a win for Nova. It was a win for all the Black kids. Now her best friend is dead, and her father won’t face the fact that the main suspect is right in front of him. Duchess is convinced that Tinsley killed Nova—and that Tinsley is privileged enough to think she can get away with it. But Duchess’s father seems to be doing what he always does: fall behind the blue line. Which means that the white girl is going to walk.

Duchess is determined to prove Tinsley’s guilt. And to do that, she’ll have to get close to her.

But Tinsley has an agenda, too.

Everyone loved Nova. And sometimes, love is exactly what gets you killed.

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An essential guide for frontline educators to address systemic racial oppression, repair harm, and foster safe, inclusive learning spaces for their students

For educators and readers of Bettina Love’s We Want to Do More Than Survive, with a foreword by Leigh Patel, author of No Study Without Struggle

Toward Liberation is the timely and practical guide that pioneers new pathways for educators to repair harm and foster transformative learning spaces. This road map for liberatory pedagogy is replete with resources, tools, and strategies drawn from Jamilah Pitts's experiences as a young Black girl, a Black student, a teacher, a former school leader, and a consultant with schools across the country.

Educators will want to mark up and keep their copy of Toward Liberation at their desks for easy reference. In its pages, they will find

• Real-life examples and student writing from Pitts’s classroom
• Explorative questions for teachers to consider in their equity work
• Constructive charts that map out manifestations of harm
• Activities to engage students in liberatory learning
• Healing and self-care strategies for teachers—particularly Black women educators

Pitts infuses her writing with an extensive knowledge base of the education system, honed over years as a teacher, a coach, a dean, an assistant principal, and a national education consultant. The tenets of this book—rooted in truthtelling, activism, healing, wellness, self-care, and, ultimately, love— both inform and are inspired by the healing work Pitts does with educators to this day. In doing this work, she helps to reimagine the role of the critical teacher.

Toward Liberation equips teachers with the tools they need to carve a path toward liberatory educational practices, ensuring that students are afforded the full range of their humanity and their experience, in and out of the classroom.

A zany and sexy romance about a woman who finds herself stranded on a far-off planet and mated to the warlord alien king, from USA Today bestselling author Kimberly Lemming.

It’s not in Blair’s nature to just give up. Not when she’s beamed up to a spaceship and then dropped on an alien planet. Not even when she’s in the middle of a forest fire surrounded by dinosaurs. And definitely not when she’s captured by an arrogant alien king. If King Osid thinks he can break her, he’s in for a shock. Blair lives by one motto: If you stay ready, you never have to get ready.

But absolutely nothing could have prepared her for finding out that she’s that arrogant King Osid’s mate.

Despite recent hiccups, the alien researchers are determined to get their breeding program back on track. With that in mind, Blair and Osid are bundled off to the research center for what they’re told is couples counseling. As they face a series of increasingly dangerous challenges, it soon becomes clear the research aliens may have confused an episode of The Bachelor with Survivor. Bonding over their common enemy, and shall we say...encouraged by love darts, Blair and Osid let down their walls (and take off their clothes). When they discover that there are—somehow—even more secret plans in the works, another hilarious, steamy, over-the-top adventure is in store.

“Perfectly balancing sweetness and steam.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Stuck in the Country with You

She's a good girl trying to rebuild her restaurant.

He's a felon trying to rebuild…everything.

Second chances have never been so sweet.

For Jamilah Carver, a by-the-books entrepreneur with refined tastes, running her own restaurant has been a dream come true. Until she’s buried in debt and without a chef, her once-bustling eatery on the brink of collapse. Enter Rashad White, a newly released ex-con who happens to be a culinary genius…and likes to play by his own rules.

With nothing in common but their love for food, the two clash at every turn. But when they’re not bickering over menu items or cooking methods, neither can deny the attraction that simmers between them. After Rashad proposes a daring plan, they’ll have to put their differences aside to work together—that’s when things really start heating up in the kitchen.

Can two completely different people, from two completely opposite worlds, find the perfect recipe for a fresh start…and maybe even love?

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…

Stuck in the Country with You by Zuri Day

Ms. V's Hot Girl Summer by A.H. Cunningham

The Grump Whisperer by Katy James

A young girl learns how to make a difference both in the real world and in the world of Minecraft in this exciting original novel!

Ever since her family moved to the suburbs and Nzinga started middle school, she’s been really lonely. Her only consolation has been working on Phantasy Philly, a special build she and her team will present at a huge Minecraft convention in just a few weeks. Nzinga, her brother Samir, and her cousin Jannah have decided to recreate and reimagine a blocky version of their old Philadelphia street. Now that summer is here, Nzinga can’t wait to return to the old neighborhood and finish their build.

But when Nzinga and Samir arrive at their grandmom’s house, things aren’t how she pictured. Jannah, usually a design whiz, seems distracted and unwilling to work on their project. Incessant drilling can be heard all hours of the day as new apartments are constructed, replacing beloved parts of their street. The constant noise makes it hard to think straight, let alone get anything done.

Nzinga sees how noise pollution and redevelopment are hurting the street, but what can she do about it? And how is she supposed to fight that battle while also inspiring her team to build their ideal Minecraft neighborhood? As Nzinga struggles to answer these questions, she may just learn how even the quietest voices can have the biggest impact.

“This singular memoir stunned me. With a poet’s precision, Rachel Eliza Griffiths renders two interwoven tragedies few others could have lived through, much less written about with such clear-eyed candor.”—Mary Karr, New York Times bestselling author of The Liars’ Club

On September 24, 2021, Rachel Eliza Griffiths married her husband, the novelist Salman Rushdie. On the same day, hundreds of miles away, Griffiths’ closest friend and chosen sister, the poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, who was expected to speak at the wedding, died suddenly. Eleven months later, as Griffiths attempted to piece together her life as a newlywed with heartbreak in one hand and immense love in the other, a brutal attack nearly killed her husband. As trauma compounded trauma, Griffiths realized that in order to survive her grief, she would need to mourn not only her friend, but the woman she had been on her wedding day, a woman who had also died that day.

In the process of rebuilding a self, Griffiths chronicles her friendship with Moon, the seventeen years since their meeting at Sarah Lawrence College. Together, they embraced their literary foremothers—Lucille Clifton, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, to name a few—and fought to embrace themselves as poets, artists, and Black women. Alongside this unbreakable bond, Griffiths weaves the story of her relationship with Rushdie, of the challenges they have faced and the unshakeable devotion that endures.

In The Flower Bearers, Griffiths inscribes the trajectories of two transformational relationships with grace and honesty, chronicling the beauty and pain that comes with opening oneself fully to love.

A modern-day dark academia fantasy with a twist, perfect for fans of Babel and A Deadly Education.

Warren University has stood amongst the ivy elite for centuries, built on the bones―and forbidden magic―of its most prized BIPOC students…hiding the rot of a secret society that will do anything to keep their own powers burning bright. No matter who they must sacrifice along the way.

Ellory Morgan is determined to prove that she belongs at Warren University, an ivy league school whose history is deeply linked to occult rumors and dark secrets. But as she settles into her Freshman year, something about the ornate buildings and shadowy paths feels strangely…familiar. And, with every passing day, that sense of déjà vu grows increasingly sinister.

Despite all logic, despite all reason, despite all the rules of reality, Ellory knows one thing to be true: she has been here before. And if she can't convince brooding legacy student Hudson Graves to help her remember a past that seems determined to slip through her fingers as if by some insidious magic…this time, she may lose herself for good.

"Draws readers into its spell before asking readers to consider who pays the true price of power―and what it means to refuse to let the powerful win." ― Laura R. Samotin, author of The Sins on Their Bones