April Book Nominations

 

Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson

Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Brown was promised her freedom on her eighteenth birthday. But when her birthday finally comes around, instead of the idyllic life she was hoping for with her true love, she finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil’s Half-Acre, a jail where slaves are broken, tortured, and sold every day. Forced to become the mistress of the brutal man who owns the jail, Pheby faces the ultimate sacrifice to protect her heart in this powerful, thrilling story of one slave’s fight for freedom.

- Genre: Historical Fiction

- Triggers: Slavery, Racism, Colorism, Sexual Assault, Starvation, Death of Parent, Drowning of baby

- Author: Sadeqa Johnson

- Pages: 278

- Average Rating: 4.42

This Could Be Us by Kennedy Ryan

Soledad Barnes has her life all planned out. Because, of course, she does. She plans everything. She designs everything. She fixes everything. She’s a domestic goddess who's never met a party she couldn't host or a charge she couldn't lead. The one with all the answers and the perfect vinaigrette for that summer salad. But none of her varied talents can save her when catastrophe strikes, and the life she built with the man who was supposed to be her forever, goes poof in a cloud of betrayal and disillusion.

But there is no time to pout or sulk, or even grieve the life she lost. She's too busy keeping a roof over her daughters' heads and food on the table. And in the process of saving them all, Soledad rediscovers herself. From the ashes of a life burned to the ground, something bold and new can rise.

But then an unlikely man enters the picture—the forbidden one, the one she shouldn't want but can't seem to resist. She's lost it all before and refuses to repeat her mistakes. Can she trust him? Can she trust herself?

- Genre: Romance

- Triggers: n/a

- Author: Kennedy Ryan

- Pages: 416

- Average Rating: 4.54

A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams

Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn’t one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she’s the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they’re long-stemmed roses, she’s a dandelion: an adorable bloom that’s actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her.

When regal nonagenarian, Ms. Della, invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning. She leaves behind her family, wealth, and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. And just beneath the surface of her new neighborhood, the music, stories and dazzling drama of the Harlem Renaissance still simmers.

One evening in February as the heady, curiously off-season scent of night-blooming jasmine fills the air, Ricki encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way.

Set against the backdrop of modern Harlem and Renaissance glamour, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is a swoon-worthy love story of two passionate artists drawn to the magic, romance, and opportunity of New York, and whose lives are uniquely and irreversibly linked.

- Genre: Romance, Historical Fiction

- Triggers: n/a

- Author: Tia Williams

- Pages: 352

- Average Rating: 4.16

Only for The Week by Natasha Bishop

You are cordially invited to the wedding of Amerie Cross and Arnold Hightower.

And now a toast from the maid of honor, Janelle Cross! Hi everyone, thank you for being here. Some of you may know me as the sister of the bride. Some of you may know me as the ex-girlfriend of the groom. But I'm willing to bet none of you know me as the woman secretly sleeping with the best man. 

I am. I know, I'm just as surprised as you. It was only supposed to be for the week; but every kiss, adventure, and stolen moment with Rome Martin feels like it could last forever. Oh well. What happens in Tulum stays in Tulum...Right?

- Genre: Romance

- Triggers: n/a

- Author: Natasha Bishop

- Pages: 244

- Average Rating: 4.51

Ours by Phillip B. Williams

In this ingenious, sweeping novel, Phillip B. Williams introduces us to an enigmatic woman named Saint, a fearsome conjuror who, in the 1830s, annihilates plantations all over Arkansas to rescue the people enslaved there. She brings those she has freed to a haven of her own a town just north of St. Louis, magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours.

It is in this miraculous place that Saint’s grand experiment—a truly secluded community where her people may flourish—takes root. But although Saint does her best to protect the inhabitants of Ours, over time, her conjuring and memories begin to betray her, leaving the town vulnerable to intrusions by newcomers with powers of their own. As the cracks in Saint’s creation are exposed, some begin to wonder whether the community’s safety might be yet another form of bondage.

Set over the course of four decades and steeped in a rich tradition of American literature informed by Black surrealism, mythology, and spirituality, Ours is a stunning exploration of the possibilities and limitations of love and freedom by a writer of capacious vision and talent.

- Genre: Fantast, Historical Fiction

- Triggers: Slavery

- Author: Phillip B. Williams

- Pages: 592

- Average Rating: 4.03

One Summer in Savannah by Terah Shelton Harris

It's been eight years since Sara Lancaster left her home in Savannah, Georgia. Eight years since her daughter, Alana, came into this world, following a terrifying sexual assault that left deep emotional wounds Sara would do anything to forget. But when Sara's father falls ill, she's forced to return home and face the ghosts of her past.

While caring for her father and running his bookstore, Sara is desperate to protect her curious, outgoing, genius daughter from the Wylers, the family of the man who assaulted her. Sara thinks she can succeed—her attacker is in prison, his identical twin brother, Jacob, left town years ago, and their mother are all unaware Alana exists. But she soon learns that Jacob has also just returned to Savannah to piece together the fragments of his once-great family. And when their two worlds collide—with the type of force Sara explores in her poetry and Jacob in his astrophysics—they are drawn together in unexpected ways.

- Genre: Romance

- Triggers: Sexual Assault

- Author: Terah Shelton Harris

- Pages: 464

- Average Rating: 4.16

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole

Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She’s a legend to her people and a nuisance to her neighbors.

When she’s forced to attend an international peace summit, Faron expects that she will perform tricks like a trained pet and then go home. She doesn’t expect her older sister, Elara, forming an unprecedented bond with an enemy dragon—or the gods claiming the only way to break that bond is to kill her sister.

As Faron’s desperation to find another solution takes her down a dark path, and Elara discovers the shocking secrets at the heart of the Langley Empire, both must make difficult choices that will shape each other’s lives, as well as the fate of their world.

- Genre: Fantasy, YA, LGBTQ+

- Triggers: n/a

- Author: Kamilah Cole

- Pages: 400

- Average Rating: 4.09

A Worthy Love by A.E. Valdez

Publicly humiliated, Marisa Banks is blindsided by the news that the man she’s been dating for months is married. Being called names she wouldn't wish on anyone in front of a room full of people by her boyfriend’s wife is enough to shake her identity to its foundations. In an attempt to rebuild, she makes a few questionable decisions.

Asher Blaine is one of them. He’s intelligent and sexy, but the pedestal he’s got himself up on is unshakeable. Or so he thinks. Marisa asks for the one thing he can’t deny her, even if it’s the craziest thing he’s ever done.

She wants one night, his best eight hours. And damn if he doesn’t deliver. The next morning, her bubble is shattered by his loud mouth, and Marisa retaliates with a stiletto and a remote. The best night of her life is over, and she's more than happy to walk away a free woman.

Asher’s job sends him to Marisa’s city, and when they cross paths again, it’s Asher’s turn to make an offer. And just like him, she can’t refuse.

Will her worst nightmare and his complicated past ruin what they’re building, or can they lean on one another to make it through?

- Genre: Romance

- Triggers: n/a

- Author: A.E. Valdez

- Pages: 500

- Average Rating: 4.63

Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed

And now a toast from the maid of honor, Janelle Cross! Hi everyone, thank you for being here. Some of you may know me as the sister of the bride. Some of you may know me as the ex-girlfriend of the groom. But I'm willing to bet none of you know me as the woman secretly sleeping with the best man. 

I am. I know, I'm just as surprised as you. It was only supposed to be for the week; but every kiss, adventure, and stolen moment with Rome Martin feels like it could last forever. Oh well. What happens in Tulum stays in Tulum...Right?

- Genre: Nonfiction, Self-Help

- Triggers: n/a

- Author: Cheryl Strayed

- Pages: 400

- Average Rating: 4.18

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighbourhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows.

As these characters' stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town's white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community-heaven and earth-that sustain us.

- Genre: Historical Fiction

- Triggers: Racism, Hurricane

- Author: James McBride

- Pages: 380

- Average Rating: 4.11

As The Wicked Watch by Tamron Hall

When crime reporter Jordan Manning leaves her hometown in Texas to take a job at a television station in Chicago, she's one step closer to her dream: a coveted anchor chair on a national network.

Jordan is smart and aggressive, with unabashed star-power, and often the only woman of color in the newsroom. Her signature? Arriving first on the scene—in impractical designer stilettos. Armed with a master's degree in forensic science and impeccable instincts, Jordan has been able to balance her dueling motivations: breaking every big story—and giving a voice to the voiceless.

From her time in Texas, she's covered the vilest of human behaviors but nothing has prepared her for Chicago. Jordan is that rare breed of a journalist who can navigate a crime scene as well as she can a newsroom—often noticing what others tend to miss. Again and again, she is called to cover the murders of Black women, many of them sexually assaulted, most brutalized, and all of them quickly forgotten.

All until Masey James—the story that Jordan just can't shake, despite all efforts. A 15-year-old girl whose body was found in an abandoned lot, Masey has come to represent for Jordan all of the frustration and anger that her job often forces her to repress. Putting the rest of her work and her fraying personal life aside, Jordan does everything she can to give the story the coverage it desperately requires, and that a missing Black child would so rarely get.

There's a serial killer on the loose, Jordan believes, and he's hiding in plain sight.

- Genre: Mystery, Thriller

- Triggers: n/a

- Author: Tamron Hall

- Pages: 400

- Average Rating: 3.51