Swift River (2024) Essie Chambers "Darkly funny and fiery, heartbreaking and healing, with language so gorgeous I went back to read sentences again and again. What a beautiful debut."
Memory Piece (2024) Lisa Ko "Evocative and luminous. Ko once again introduces us to people we want to know deeply, then as always, delivers that and beyond. A glorious writer."
Redwood Court (2024) DeLana R A Dameron "A triumph of a debut, Redwood Court is storytelling at its best: tender, vivid, and richly complicated."
Rebecca, Not Becky (2023) Catherine Wigginton Greene and Christine Platt "A deep exhale of a narrative, REBECCA, NOT BECKY kept me laughing... and thinking. This is a reminder that talking about race doesn't have to be hard. It simply requires us to be honest."
Coleman Hill (2023) Kim Coleman Foote "Once in a while, a writer comes along with a brilliance that stops the breath. Kim Coleman Foote is that writer."
Temple Folk (2023) Aaliyah Bilal "A beautiful and vivid collection of stories. Aaliyah Bilal is the truth. Grateful for her voice in the world."
Promise (2023) Rachel Eliza Griffiths "A beautifully rendered narrative and a startlingly fresh voice . . . I fell in love with the people between these pages. This is truly the first book in a long time where I had to force myself to stop reading."
Pomegranate (2023) Helen Elaine Lee "Helen Elaine Lee has brought such a deep and beautiful world of people to the page, I found myself already missing them even as I continued to read. In their survival, we find ours and are left grateful, different, better."
Life and Other Love Songs (2023) Anissa Gray "Riveting, rhythmic, transcendent, Life and Other Love Songs is a stellar family saga. Anissa Gray is a writer to watch."
Big Girl (2022) Mecca Jamilah Sullivan "Mecca Jamilah Sullivan has given us a gift as big, beautiful and complicated as living itself, filled with everyday people who in her gifted hands, show us the love and struggle of what it means to be inside bodies that don't always fit with the outside world. I found myself cheering for Percy, Nyela, the Harlem streets and of course, for Malaya. Lovely."
Trust (2022) Hernán Diaz "That rare jewel of a book--jaw-dropping storytelling against the backdrop of beautiful writing. Amidst all the noise I the world, whole days found me curled up on the couch, lost inside Diaz's brilliance."
Memphis (2022) Tara M Stringfellow "Written with the grace of a poet, Memphis is as hopeful as it is heartbreaking. I fell in love with this family, from Joan's fierce heart to her grandmother Hazel's determined resilience. Tara Stringfellow will be an author to watch for years to come . . . A stellar debut."
When the World Turned Upside Down (2022) K Ibura "When The World Turned Upside Down is as clear-eyed as it is engaging, as timely as it is timeless. I fell in love with every single student in this book. And days after reading it, each of them remains with me."
When We Make It (2021) Elisabet Velasquez "The energy. The clarity. The beauty. Elisabet Velasquez brings it all. . . . Her voice is FIRE!"
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois (2021) Honorée Fannone Jeffers "This sweeping, brilliant and beautiful narrative is at once a love song to Black girlhood, family, history, joy, pain… and so much more. In Jeffers' deft hands, the story of race and love in America becomes the great American novel."
Dear Miss Metropolitan (2021) Carolyn Ferrell "Such a beautifully rendered and provocative novel. Ferrell has given me a world I could never have imagined filled with so many people I feel like I’ve always known. A stunner."
Libertie (2021) Kaitlyn Greenidge "This is one of the most thoughtful and amazingly beautiful books I've read all year. Kaitlyn Greenidge is a master storyteller."
Memorial (2020) Bryan Washington "Memorial is a true page-turner. I was entranced, picking this book up every chance I got. Bryan Washington is a great writer and I love the story he tells here. Intriguing. Each character stays with me."
Dactyl Hill Squad (2018) (Dactyl Hill Squad, book 1) Daniel José Older "Daniel has imagined the unimaginable and in doing so sends readers on a dino thrill ride. I have been talking about this book nonstop! The kids, the dinosaurs, the Civil War, this book is true fire. It is everything I didn't even know I needed."
An American Marriage (2018) Tayari Jones "I love An American Marriage, and I'm so excited for this book to be in the world. Tayari's novel is timely, thoughtful, and beautifully written. Reading it, I found myself angry as hell, laughing out loud, choking up and cheering. A gem of a book."
Halsey Street (2018) Naima Coster "Naima Coster is definitely a writer to watch. Her clear-eyed writing interrogates race, class, and family in a refreshing and thoroughly engaging way. A lovely and thoughtful book."
The Outliers (2016) (Outliers , book 1) Kimberly McCreight "Mccreight’s book is an edge of the seat page turner. Her ability to get at the core of what it means to be a friend, a girl, a human being in this society is at once thoughtful and dead on."
(b.1963)
