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Recent Reviews
Nikki May
Positive The Los Angeles Times Deft ... It’s in this dissection of the consequences of family privilege and toxic personal grievance that the novel gains traction. Nikki May’s second novel excels at portraying the intricate cuts and scarring caused by family conflict and status obsession on an interpersonal level. Race complicates things, but not in a particularly political way ... Melodramatic but satisfying.
Danzy Senna
Rave NPR Funny, awkward and discomfiting ... With lacerating humor and a multitude of similarly revealing moments, Colored Television illuminates the axes around which its novelist protagonist Jane\'s life teeters ... An exhilarating yet poignant riff on the struggling artist as a wannabe middle-aged sellout ... Throughout Colored Television, what stands out is the virtuosity of Senna’s writing, which is endlessly quotable and intensely, meaningfully provocative, wielding language and metaphor.
Mateo Askaripour
Positive The Boston Globe Speculative but all too real ... The world building is complex, convincing and specific ... A masterful mashup of two time-tested literary genres: the quest to return to family and home and a propulsive, pulse-pounding, twisty political thriller. In both of these dimensions, Askaripour soars. At times, the parallels may be a bit too explicit.
Emily Nussbaum
Positive NPR While many critics have painted reality TV in broad strokes, Nussbaum captures fascinating complexity and nuance ... Despite the book’s strengths, at crucial times the accounts of insiders prove insufficient; context and a critical counterpoint are needed. But in its commitment to handing the mic to the makers, the book eschews outside perspectives ... Despite that blind spot, overall Cue the Sun! is both entertaining and enlightening — full of eye-popping insight and rollicking prose.
Akwaeke Emezi
Mixed The Los Angeles Times Resists easy categorization. It has the dark twists and pace of a thriller, the ambitious scope of literary fiction, the language of poetry and the yearning of romance ... For all its merits, veers toward cynicism.
Nicola Yoon
Positive BookPage Lacks the humor of racial satires like Jordan Peele’s Get Out or Percival Everett’s Erasure, Yoon’s observations are bold and razor sharp even when she’s immersed in her characters’ failings.
Essie Chambers
Rave The Washington Post Absorbing ... This merging of sitcoms, sadness and generational trauma is emblematic of how Chambers weaves irony and gut-punch emotion throughout this gorgeous debut. With the smart and curious Diamond at its vibrant center, Swift River has a real sense of humor. Absurdity and loss sit side by side in her mental gymnastics ... The book brims with gemlike sentences, striking imagery, metaphors and juxtapositions ... Shimmers and shines with acute observations and carefully crafted lines like these. It’s easy to get lost in the artistry and sheer volume of those mental images and similes; like poetry, they take time to process.
Kellye Garrett
Positive The Boston Globe With humor and pathos, Garrett’s writing exposes the dynamics of race as media narratives careen out of control. The mystery is intriguing, but slower to unfold, with provocative twists that I wished I had encountered earlier ... Garrett’s mastery of character and wry social observation shine bright in the eye of this storm, even if her protagonist is both sympathetic and deeply frustrating.
Julia Alvarez
Rave BookPage A powerful and lyrical allegory ... Alvarez has a wonderful way of being both lyrical and precisely concrete at the same time. The specificity of her writing is reflected in myriad ways on every page ... Magical and multifaceted, this meditation on creativity, culture and aging is a triumph.
Percival Everett
Rave NPR \"The result is strangely new and familiar – an adrenaline-spiking adventure with absurdity and tragedy blended together ... Re-imaginings of classic literature are challenging, often unnecessary endeavors. This one is different, a startling homage and a new classic in its own right. Readers may be surprised by how much of the original scaffolding remains and how well the turnabout works, swapping a young man\'s moral awakening for something even more fraught ... Everett provides what Twain could not: Jim\'s deep interior life. The entire story is narrated in his voice. Getting inside James\'s head is a remarkable experience. Though they\'re sometimes parted, James (as he prefers to be called in Everett\'s novel) and Huck somehow always find each other again, and that creates a sense of surreality ... Again and again. In true Everett fashion, the intertwined artifice of race and language is stretched to self-reflexive absurdity ... Like James and Norman\'s encounter, the novel is exquisitely multilayered. A brilliant, sometimes shocking mashup of various literary forms, James has the arc of an odyssey, with the quest for home, and an abundance of absurdly comical humor.\
Xochitl Gonzalez
Rave NPR Gonzalez\'s depiction of the racial and economic dynamics of Raquel\'s boastfully liberal yet starkly socially stratified Ivy League college is scalpel sharp and painfully accurate ... The questions the text raises are abundant ... Elegantly written and constructed, Gonzalez\'s second novel brilliantly surpasses the promise of her popular debut.
Kiley Reid
Mixed The Boston Globe \"As a chronicler of college life, Reid is on shakier ground. The setup, though, is immaculate ... Given this arch school scenario, the book’s satire is surprisingly tepid. Reid gets the economics and anxieties of university life right; the trouble is that on the heels of a raft of memorable academic set novels and media — among them Rooney’s Normal People and Brandon Taylor’s Real Life — accuracy is not enough. The subject begs for precision and depth. The intersection of class and race, and the fact that white college girls in a theoretically progressive generation weaponize pejorative, racist terms like \'ghetto\' are hardly revelations ... In writing that is clever, repetitive, and glib, aggressions micro and macro abound ... the novel’s satirical lens is blurred and flickering. Reid’s focus is trained on patterns and group identities — money, race, and class distinctions — and intergroup dynamics. But her observations are too slight for the wind-up — enough to fill the magazine profiles Agatha writes but not to carry a nearly 400-page novel with sluggish momentum. We need smart campus novels that bravely take on economic precarity and the vagaries of sex, race, and class, but I wanted more from this one. To read Come and Get It is to crave for something more to happen.\
Tananarive Due
Rave BookPage Fantastical, elegant, and miraculous ... A horror masterpiece that derives its power from both the magical and the mundane.
Naoise Dolan
Rave BookPage Addictive ... Dolan’s challenging and well-crafted rewriting of the marriage plot has much to reveal about love and perspective.
Safiya Sinclair
Rave The Washington Post Lushly observed and keenly reflective ... I read How to Say Babylon with particular interest, unsure I would recognize my homeland in what she captures. Yet the spark of recognition burned in every chapter. That is a testament to a distinctive national character, but even more to Sinclair’s kaleidoscopic writing. I’ve never learned more from a book about my native country ... [A] brilliant memoir ... The book grabs the reader because of the beauty of its words, but it sticks because of the thorniness and complexity of its ideas ... Unrelenting and incisive.
Mick Herron
Rave BookPage Slow burning, artfully told and explosive ... Sly and suspenseful, The Secret Hours is both a marvelous standalone novel and a stunning companion to Herron’s Slough House series.
James Ellroy
Rave The Washington Post The plot of The Enchanters is sprawling yet intricate, a riveting series of events made all the more vivid by the precision of the details — the heavy wiretap surveillance opens up a prominent peripheral cast of hangers on, psychiatrists, pornographers and other petty criminals that swirl around the edges of the scene. Ellroy’s writing matches its sensational subject ... The novel’s style also fits its mood — jumpy and nervy ... The dramatis personae and glossary are not quite enough to render all of it lucid. Mostly, though, the effect is carnivalesque — literary roller coaster meets Tilt-A-Whirl.
Zadie Smith
Positive The Boston Globe Typically dry and insightful ... Solipsistic and vain, these Ainsworths are vivid, amusing creations. While the specter of Dickens hangs over the proceedings, there’s something reminiscent of Trollope in The Fraud in how it strives to deeply blend the political and the domestic ... Along with Smith’s signature wry wit and the beautiful originality of her sentences, The Fraud’s strength lies in how it portrays Eliza’s awakening to the realities of race in 19th-century Britain ... While not an unmitigated success, The Fraud is absorbing, resonant and relevant. Grandly ambitious, it illuminates the social and political landscape of an era, though in privileging social commentary over characters and plot, it loses momentum.
James McBride
Rave BookPage Gorgeous ... McBride is a lyricist and musician, and there’s a rhythmic quality to this unique novel ... Heart-rendering and hopeful.
Colson Whitehead
Rave BookPage \"Colson Whitehead’s elegant and pulse-pounding sequel to his tour-de-force heist novel, Harlem Shuffle, may exceed the original ... Whitehead’s acerbic, stylized and rhythmic storytelling voice is stronger than ever, but it’s his precise evocation of a fraying 1970s New York City that really makes Ray’s story compelling ... With that knockout interplay between context and character, Crook Manifesto more than matches the finely hewn psychological tensions that haunted its (anti) hero in Harlem Shuffle. The combination makes this sequel soar.\
S. A. Cosby
Positive The Washington Post \"What elevates this book is how Cosby depicts politically charged issues — race, religion, policing — through the prism of a serial murder investigation and the perspective of one of the most memorable heroes in contemporary crime fiction ... This commanding, complex hero, forged in the crucible of Southern culture and politics, is the novel’s greatest strength. While most other characters are thinly drawn in comparison, Cosby gives us invaluable insight into the thoughts and experience that haunt his uncommon hero ... While not as exhilarating as Razorblade Tears, All the Sinners Bleed is deeply moving and memorable.\
Breanne Mc Ivor
Rave NPR Vibrant ... The vivid narration shifts between her diaries and his fierce, idiomatic first person narration. Both narrators regularly dissect the complex social dynamics of modern Trinidad\'s still highly stratified society, the challenges of social change, and where ideas about beauty and Carnival fit within the mix ... Incisive ... The gradually revealed inner lives and motivations of both characters are equally compelling ... A vibrant, nuanced, and entertaining view of Caribbean culture, a perspective that transcends both trauma and pure escapism.
Anissa Gray
Positive The New York Times Book Review Life and Other Love Songs is a precisely observed, often beautiful book about family, love, loss and the hidden history that shapes lives. Shifts in time and narrator nod at a greater theme: To understand a family’s present, you have to trace its past in multiple directions ... The prose is beautiful and poignant, and the characters indelible ... Still, crucial moments also expose something missing. While Trinity and Deborah’s experiences are told in the first person, Oz’s point of view is relayed from an evocative but external perspective, even though he’s inevitably the most striking and haunted character of them all ... It seems a curious contrast since Oz is the novel’s reflective, regretful heart and yet he doesn’t quite get to have his own voice. Something is lost in that choice, even if what’s left is unforgettable.
Sadeqa Johnson
Positive The Washington Post An affecting and arresting exploration of young Black womanhood and motherhood in the mid-20th century ... Johnson’s talents are in full bloom in this layered story with two distinctive and compelling young Black women at the center ... Johnson effectively attends to Ruby’s and Eleanor’s interior lives as well as their circumstances. The one drawback as a reader is the gap between the quality of the social and psychological observation, world building, and ideas Johnson tackles regarding women’s lives and social hierarchies and the writing, which doesn’t rise to the same heights. At times, lines that are meant to be conversational or colloquial feel rote or cliched. And yet, such issues are relatively small. The novel’s great beauty lies in the truth it depicts.
Lynn Steger Strong
Positive BookPage Taut ... Every sibling and spouse in Flight is nuanced and multidimensional ... A significant side plot involving one of Alice’s more troubled clients provides a key rallying point for the family as well as some much-needed breathing room. But of course, the myriad fissures, fractures and worries are what make this family drama feel utterly real.
Percival Everett
Rave NPR A delightfully escapist romp as well as an incisive sendup of espionage fiction. Everett makes a myriad of compelling creative choices in crafting this satire, but a few crucial choices really elevate the game ... I found the style of storytelling the book\'s most interesting trait. In contrast with the gravitas and dark gallows humor of Everett\'s previous novel The Trees, Dr. No has a light touch ... In combination these elements add up to a master class in satirical style.
Celeste Ng
Rave Oprah Daily ... a dark landscape on which anti-Asian hate, book bannings, family separation, and other forms of oppression rage. But the tale is also shot through with vivid color and rising hope, an unflinching yet life-affirming drama about the power of art and love to push back in dangerous times ... Ng’s brilliance lies in leaving the reader with an unshakable belief that against all odds, people will find the courage to resist, revolt, and defend. Like many before her, Margaret is a reluctant but spectacular revolutionary. How her journey unfolds, and how that affects both Ethan and Bird, is at the beating heart of this remarkable novel, one that is as much paean to art and family as it is chilling cautionary tale.
Bolu Babalola
Rave New York Times Book Review If she weren’t a writer, Bolu Babalola could be a great cultural anthropologist. Her work is rife with observations that have the richness of field notes ... Those debates about relationships and gender are the heart of “Honey and Spice,” making it a novel of more sweetness than spice, more contemplation than action. As in Jane Austen’s novels, the narrative centers on the war between individual attraction and social constraints in a complex, contentiously hierarchical society. The true stars of Honey and Spice are characterization, banter and sharp social observation, all of which Babalola renders spectacularly. She soars in her rich depictions of intimacy and relationships, in all their grandeur. And Babalola blends the vernacular and rhythms of Black American music with Black British culture, and its fusion of Pan-African influences, making the text even richer ... Expectations for her first full-length novel are high. Sexy, messy and wry, Honey and Spice more than delivers.
Carter Bays
Rave BookPage ... a stylized, laugh-out-loud funny social satire with devastating aim ... Roxy is just one of the wonderful and absurd creations within Bays’ debut ... a conflagration of cringe, as Bays paints a slightly heightened and terrifying vision of life in our age of distraction. Similar to Patricia Lockwood’s 2021 novel, No One is Talking About This, Bays’ novel sometimes replicates the thought processes of a brain addled by the overstimulation of the internet and omnipresent media: run-on sentences, a litany of random bits of information hitting the reader from multiple sources and a narrative that bounces from one topic to another with abandon ... More than anything else though, the nearly 500-page novel explores people bumping into one another and deciding if they have what it takes to make it stick. And because the book is poised for laughs and broad humor, its painful, critical sections hit harder ... dwells at the corner of restless and randomness, displacement and dissatisfaction. The narrative is full of stray thoughts and chance encounters, everything fleeting and devastating. All told, it’s riveting.
Akwaeke Emezi
Rave BookPage ... a lush, high-stakes romance novel that diehard romance loyalists and genre newcomers alike will appreciate. Emezi’s literary range is legendary, having succeeded in memoir, poetry and literary fiction for both adult and young adult readers, but it’s still a wonder that they’ve pulled off one of the most sensational and taboo tropes in the romance genre: falling in love with the parent of your romantic partner ... For me, as for many readers, family boundaries are sacred—or, from another perspective, radioactive. Emezi conquers these reservations with palpable chemistry and gorgeous prose, offering an indelibly poignant portrait of a second chance at love for two people who have suffered searing loss ... Emezi’s novel is notable for respecting the conventions of the romance genre while imbuing Feyi and Alim’s story with a distinctly progressive sensibility. The lovers are finely drawn, modern and specific. Both are Black, queer and sexy, and descriptions of their beauty are worth the price of admission alone. Feyi’s artwork is experimental and edgy, with a secret ingredient I won’t spoil ... Another lovely element of the novel is Emezi’s departure from the implicit rule that a romance protagonist can’t hook up with anyone but their one true love. Feyi experiments sexually, makes a risky choice or two and isn’t punished for it. Her freedom and sex positivity shouldn’t be rare in romance novels, but it is ... The list of admirable qualities of You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty is long, but I’ll end with this: Emezi executes their first romance with creativity and deep respect. Come for the swoon; stay for the passion.
Emily Henry
Positive NPR Playful and clever ... Given how in sync and smart Charlie and Nora are, I had a hard time believing they couldn\'t figure out a way to be together while still supporting their family ... Nonetheless, the story is multilayered and the characters\' familial challenges are complex. By both playing to and overtly subverting romance tropes and archetypes like the high-powered big city woman who neglects her family and the life-affirming power of small-town life, this novel delivers an insightful comedic meditation on love, family and going your own way.
Monica Ali
Rave BookPage ... riveting ... The novel’s structure makes the most of these reckonings. Though Yasmin is the novel’s anchor, the multiple points of view allow a panoramic view of the unfolding events. Ali includes perhaps a few too many perspectives; some, like Harriet’s, only anchor one or two short chapters. But overall, Ali’s character treatments are multifaceted, humane and fluid in this multicultural family drama in which, like a multi-car pileup, individuals careen into and away from one another.
Beth O'Leary
Rave NPR Pay no attention to the pink illustrated cover. Though it delivers laughter and love, Beth O\'Leary\'s The No-Show is more romantic dramedy with a side of mystery than zany romcom ... I found The No-Show fascinating and worthy of more than one read. That said, structurally, this novel sometimes feels like a cheat. It\'s like a jigsaw puzzle with key pieces withheld for maximum effect. There are four main characters, but we only see the story through the eyes of the three women. Joseph\'s point of view is reserved for the end. Plus, like Pulp Fiction, the narrative is deconstructed, with events unfolding out of sequence. But there\'s no timestamp to guide the reader and no indication as to how these perspectives and timelines fit together until close to the end ... Given these narrative choices, to read The No-Show is to be bombarded with more questions than answers. I relished it and I cursed it at the same time. For readers looking for a romantic narrative that follows a linear progression or traditional path, this is not that book. The No-Show defies classification: It\'s romance, it\'s mystery; it\'s domestic and psychological drama. But O\'Leary is as generous as she is challenging. All four main characters experience true and lasting love (at least for a time) ... O\'Leary may not fit neatly into any of the usual categories, but she excels at what she does, which is to blend love and the darker realities of living – experiences like domestic violence and harassment— with humor and narrative experimentation. The No-Show is the culmination of these adventures in storytelling. As powerful and engaging as it is romantic, O\'Leary\'s new novel has the emotional resonance of her debut hit The Flatshare with greater complexity ... At its best, the tender and fragmented narrative feels like a metaphor for experience – how we only ever know part of the story of our lives and control even less. Since grief and trauma hold space alongside the laughter, it\'s best for readers who like to be put through their emotional paces before the happy ending.
Mia Sosa
Rave BookPage The Wedding Crasher is a winner—thoroughly delightful, modern and fun. The romance naturally flows from the close proximity that’s part and parcel of a fake relationship. And while the scenario is fun, Sosa’s novel is also thoughtful and emotionally resonant, in large part due to its two distinctive main characters and their sparky chemistry ... In contrast to Dean’s story, the origins of Solange’s angst aren’t quite as clear. Why does she think that her mother has made such an enormous mistake? While the emotions come through loud and clear, the reasoning behind them is frustratingly fuzzy ... Ultimately, however, this doesn’t preclude The Wedding Crasher from delivering what readers want most in a romantic comedy. It’s laugh-out-loud funny, tartly sweet and scorching hot—a delicate balance that only a writer of Sosa’s considerable talent can strike.
Grace D. Li
Positive BookPage An enticing and stimulating escape ... A cinematic heist thriller with a social conscience, Portrait of a Thief is immediately appealing. But as this vivid and precisely crafted novel goes on, readers will be fascinated with the characters and their relationships as well as impressed by Li’s multifaceted exploration of Chinese American identity ... Though they don’t overshadow Portrait of a Thief’s strengths, some weaknesses are also evident. The gang often contemplates their Chinese heritage, but the content of their contemplations rarely evolves, which can make these reflections feel repetitive. More importantly, for such smart people, their approach to the heist is a bit thick ... Fortunately, rooting for these underdogs is tremendous fun, and the novel has a great sense of humor ... Portrait of a Thief is an unlikely heist story made even richer through excellent writing, indelible characters and an engaging anti-colonialist message.
Bonnie Garmus
Rave BookPage ... devastating and funny ... Elizabeth and Calvin’s prickly, funny and odd love story leaps off the page. The two are truly soul mates, and their happiness should be ordained, but life and this novel are far more complicated than that ... becomes a witty and sharp dramedy about resilience and found families ... The scope of what this iconoclastic woman goes through is breathtaking ... Not one moment of Elizabeth’s story rings false; every detail is a well-documented component of the time period yet specific to her experience. Readers won’t be able to get enough of Elizabeth and her makeshift family. Lessons in Chemistry is a story to return to again and again.
Alex Segura
Rave NPR ... a masterful 1970s literary mystery featuring this artist fighting against the patriarchy and dodging bullets in the desperate, male-dominated world of comics ... Alex Segura is an award-winning writer of comic books and mysteries and it shows in this well-crafted and layered mystery-thriller that excels in multiple dimensions. For one thing, it\'s a brilliant homage to comics that comes with gorgeously rendered excerpts from The Legendary Lynx embedded in its pages ... also boasts a realistic and well-crafted plot that flows easily from the social history of the 1970s comic book industry and of New York. From the grimy yet vibrant atmosphere to the conflicts around gender inside and out of the workplace, the scene-setting is meticulous and vivid ... Well-steeped in cultural history, Segura draws his protagonist\'s life with subtlety and sensitivity ... Though the implications are clear, Segura wields these metaphors around shadows and secrets and the threat of unmasking (when one\'s secret identity is revealed) with a subtle hand. Plus, the darkness is well balanced with light in this scenario ... Segura effectively balances the realities of Carmen\'s personal and professional challenges with the joy of creativity and friendship in a novel that manages to be thought-provoking and fun. The last ace in this deck is the consistent pacing and intensity of the plot; it\'s full of twists but free of red herrings. Secret Identity is a satisfying choice for lovers of comics, twentieth century historical fiction and mysteries that make you think.
Rebecca Serle
Positive BookPage A sumptuous and sensuous feast of a book ... On a deeper level, Serle’s novel is a savvy meditation on the necessity of change and how roles shape what we see of each other ... One Italian Summer isn’t just about wild oats and adventure either—it’s about knowing yourself ... For readers open to moral complexities, One Italian Summer is a thoughtful, fun escape, blending contemplations of love and loss with a touch of adventure. It’s also a beautiful tribute to the pleasures of Italian culture.
Sara Gran
Rave BookPage ... sexy and captivating ... Lily is a sympathetic yet formidable figure. She’s dedicated but still human, alternating between numbness and mourning, loyalty and long-sublimated desire. Gran is uniquely talented at bringing such complex feelings to life. Her writing is effective, economical and moving, and while Lily’s hunt propels the story forward, it is Gran’s frequently exquisite prose that demands investment from its audience ... Readers will ache for Lily and Abel and envy what they once had. Brief but evocative moments reveal not just Lily’s lack but also her desire, and possibly what’s to come. These scenes are just one small part of what makes Gran’s thoughtful and erotically charged thriller so well worth reading.
Nikki May
Positive NPR ... sharply observed ... It\'s a striking setup: as if The Other Black Girl strolled into Sex and the City ... The characterization is sophisticated and culturally adept if slightly depressing. Unlike Bernardine Evaristo\'s Girl, Woman, Other, which navigated similarly tricky cultural waters, there\'s not as much love, support or joy among the Black British women in Wahala – just constant striving. And the white secondary cast lacks nuance. Martin and Didier, Simi and Boo\'s white husbands, are mostly supportive and perfect ciphers, loving foils to the missing or disappointing Nigerian men whose emotional absences haunt the story...But that\'s a relatively minor issue. Men are mostly a sideshow here ... Where things break down a bit, is in the gap between Wahala\'s framing and its delivery. The prologue certainly raises expectations that the novel will be a literary or domestic thriller or contain elements of suspense like Big LIttle Lies or The Other Black Girl, and part of the journey will be in finding out how their glossy lives took such a wrong turn. But the prologue promises one thing— opening on a scene of a woman in extreme distress— and the book delivers another almost until the very end. How the danger and fear are manifest is uneven at best. We toggle between the different women\'s stories in various chapters as they go about their daily lives. But we\'re rarely privy to the interior thoughts or perspective of one of the most important characters till the end when, as in a Lifetime movie, their dysfunction really jumps out. Until that point, the creepiness is pretty understated ... mainly a social novel crossed with a comedy of manners, with fabulous Anglo-Nigerians in the lead. Luckily, that\'s a compelling blend. May is a masterful chronicler of Black upper-middle-class life and ennui in Britain. Wahala is both great fun and extremely smart in how it captures some of the central issues in modern city living: women\'s evolving roles in home and work, interracial relationships and multicultural identity, the current of competition that runs through so many friendships and daily interactions and, most of all, how easily intimacy can morph into enmity.
Xochitl Gonzalez
Positive BookPage In Xochitl Gonzalez’s vibrant and raw debut, Olga Dies Dreaming, love and family drama crash into politics ... The real center of the story, which sometimes moves between the past (often in the form of letters) and the present, is Olga and Prieto’s reckoning with the tensions and contradictions that have made them who they are ... With so many different moving parts and conflicts, Gonzalez’s story sometimes seems overstuffed, with writing that isn’t quite as beautiful as the journey. But the characters and the issues they’re grappling with are deeply compelling. Olga Dies Dreaming delivers a roller coaster’s worth of beautiful highs and lows. All told, it’s an experience worth savoring.
Tamron Hall
Rave NPR ... a singular thriller that brings the vulnerability and systemic neglect of Black girls as victims of violent crime into vivid relief ... That\'s an ambitious agenda, and fiction is a distinctly different mode of storytelling from news reporting, even if taking big issues and making them personal is second nature for the Emmy Award-winner. But the novel\'s storyline proves perfectly tailored to Hall\'s experience and skill set ... Though Jordan\'s musings sometimes slow the action, Hall\'s story makes up in verisimilitude and insight what it lacks in pacing ... Along with larger social forces, she deftly illuminates the individual and group agendas that can surround a case like this — the police, politicians, the family, lawyers, spokespersons, community activists and justice advocates. The cohesiveness and sheer scope of the narrative Hall has woven together is impressive ... Hall has a knack for showing how different people think and how human behavior works in a wide variety of circumstances ... an impressive debut — a moving take on familiar but urgent problems and society\'s indifference.
Natashia Deón
Rave BookPage ... a dark, gritty and slow-burning mystery involving an immortal protagonist ... Deón’s writing is beautiful, with a rat-a-tat quality, like brutal poetry mixed with fierce prose. The noirish plot is sometimes hard to penetrate, but fans of challenging and ambitious speculative fiction should be pleased.
Gus Moreno
Positive BookPage In powerfully immersive first-person, stream-of-consciousness prose, Gus Moreno’s debut novel provides an inside view of a grief-stricken husband’s worst nightmare that may or may not be his own fault ... This Thing Between Us feels like a fever dream ... The most surprising and challenging aspect of This Thing Between Us is that it’s as emotionally taxing as it is terrifying—a novel of domestic conflict and suspense as well as horror. The first-person conversational style forces the reader to adopt Thiago’s perspective, as hallucinatory as it may be, and it’s easy to feel as overwhelmed in grief and confusion as he does.
Tiphanie Yanique
Mixed NPR \"Like an earnest suitor, [the book] declares its intentions from the start: in the epigraph that laments the challenge of being taken seriously when writing about love and in a prologue that explores the complex nature of romantic love. To varying degrees, it succeeds on both counts ... a surprisingly lean, three-part, multigenerational novel ... Each section is compelling in its own way ... threads converge when Stela and Fly meet. They are absolutely lovely, but ironically, this is where the story falters the most, allowing the barest glimpse of how they could be together ... Yanique deftly explores the role identity, religion and culture as well as family play in who and how we\'re able to love. Even though the primary love story was always going to come second to those connections, the climax and payoff of that transnational, multigenerational storytelling is still surprisingly brief and less rewarding than the journey ... a story that has been building to something great contracts, becoming darker and constrained by new external forces at the 11th hour. It\'s frustrating, as though the author is withholding her love, and what\'s offered in return can only skim the surface of these larger crises. \
Rachel Howzell Hall
Rave NPR Loved, nurtured and protected—as well as intelligent, impetuous, and nosy as hell, Mickie Lambert is the kind of brave and carefree Black girl we don\'t often see on the page or screen. She\'s the Black girl we want to see living her best life in a romcom by Issa Rae ... There\'s a cognitive dissonance to the experience of reading These Toxic Things. I know it\'s a thriller, so bad things will happen, but I also wanted/felt that I needed Mickie to stay that boldly carefree girl. She doesn\'t. And I wanted her many gifts to shield her from harm. They can\'t. But she does get to be the cool girl, and the \'final girl\' and her own unique creation. It\'s an intriguing, riveting pleasure to watch the action unfold and see how the pieces fit together.
Percival Everett
Rave NPR At a certain point, dark social satire bleeds into horror. That can be powerful, but it can also very easily miss its target. Percival Everett\'s new novel The Trees hits just the right mark. It\'s a racial allegory grounded in history, shrouded in mystery, and dripping with blood. An incendiary device you don\'t want to put down ... No work of art will ever right justice denied, but The Trees does a spectacular job of resurrection ... It\'s a novel of compelling contrasts: frank, pitiless prose leavened by dark humor; a setting that is simultaneously familiar and strange; a genre-defying, masterful blend of the sacred and the profane. The language is self-consciously old-fashioned in a modern, stylized way ... But dark wordplay and local color are ultimately a sideshow to the bigger project. Despite the absurdist touches, the novel is deadly serious and reverential in its explication of the legacy of lynching in all forms and places and devotes time and space to honoring the dead. Whether by coincidence or intent, The Trees is set in 2018, the same year that The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Alabama opened its doors. With a highwire combination of whodunnit, horror, humor and razor blade sharp insight The Trees is a fitting tribute of a novel: Hard to put down and impossible to forget.
Jai Chakrabarti
Positive BookPage Chakrabarti’s novel is realistic and tentative and breathtakingly poignant, with a payoff that’s more than worth the trip if you have the heart to withstand it.
Beth O'Leary
Rave BookPage O’Leary is a brilliant social observer and a fearless, diabolical plotter. She arranges nuances of character, class, personality and situation for maximum chaos ... It’s an intense romance with a wildly wicked sense of humor ... Providing an intimate view of all the emotional turmoil that entails, this brutal but addictive second-chance romance is the relational equivalent of a 365-degree tour of a five-car pileup ... O’Leary’s humor, insight and occasionally bonkers plot twists command attention all the way through, and the ending is miraculously, gloriously redeeming. The Road Trip is a romantic rollercoaster that you won’t be able to turn away from till it’s done.
Rémy Ngamije
Rave BookPage Rémy Ngamije’s sharp-witted and incisive debut, The Eternal Audience of One, paints a revealing portrait of its peripatetic protagonist and the many places he’s called home ... Ngamije vividly captures the life of a man ... Despite the cultural specificity, many readers will recognize the intergenerational conflicts and warring emotions at the center of this bildungsroman ... Ngamije brilliantly explores the irony in Séraphin’s identities ... Séraphin is an incisive, funny and keen social observer, so inside his head is a fine place to be ... Ngamije’s writing is beautiful, his observations original and precise, his sense of place unsurpassed. The plot is less developed, but flaws don’t detract from this gorgeously imperfect first novel ... striking.
Nalini Singh
Positive BookPage In a society obsessed with genetic perfection, any difference is a cause for concern. In the midst of a gorgeous love story about childhood friends reunited, Nalini Singh’s \'Last Guard beautifully depicts both the perils of that obsession and its alternative: a world in which difference can be strength ... The eventual reunion of these two souls would be more than enough to sustain any novel. But Singh also seamlessly intertwines wonderfully precise discussions of disability into Canto and Payal’s evolution from childhood friend to adult lovers. Ableism is not just challenged; it’s trounced as Canto and Payal talk candidly about the tools and adaptations they use to survive and thrive. Last Guard also goes deep on efforts to save the crumbling PsyNet, the psychic network in which Canto and Payal play an essential role, so while strongly recommended for its life-affirming love story, Last Guard is best enjoyed if readers are already fully immersed in Singh’s Psy-Changeling lore. For readers with a firm grounding in the previous books, however, slipping back into the Psy-Changeling world in Last Guard will feel like coming home.
Tahmima Anam
Rave BookPage ... funny and sharp ... brilliantly incisive ... is framed as a satirical novel about startup culture, but because Americans revere that culture, its foibles and failings are our failures, too ... While The Startup Wife is full of beautifully messy and enviable characters, Asha’s fierce feminism and candor stand out. Of course, she’s far from innocent. She’s a creative genius who wants her due, just as any man would. But it’s a delight to experience Asha’s first-person perspective of the world and her metamorphosis into a powerful, flawed woman ... Because The Startup Wife is sexy and funny and puts relationships at the forefront, it might be easy to overlook its depth and sophistication. But its priorities are right where they should be. When people create a community with their friends and lovers, it is inevitable that boundaries will dissolve and that friendship, love, ego and identity will become intertwined. The Startup Wife’s insights about modern relationships, gender politics, race, technology and culture are as excellent and vital as its storytelling.
Vanessa Riley
Rave The New York Times Riley’s commitment to restoring these unsung women to their rightful place in the popular imagination was a driving force behind her riveting and transformative new novel. Yet her chosen subject bears little resemblance to a pampered heiress like Miss Lambe; the contours of Dorothy Kirwan Thomas’s life have a much harsher bent ... It’s a powerful story, and Riley tells it well. The author’s most important creative decision is to put this remarkable yet very human woman not just at the center of the story, but in full control of it ... There’s a beautiful intimacy in Dorothy’s first-person narration, both in substance and expression: the candid ebb and flow of her complex long-term relationships with men, mutually beneficial yet unsatisfying arrangements; how she fought to find love in the wreckage of slavery; the children she births and nurtures; the business she builds; the relentless search for stability and security in a world that offers neither to women like her. By turns vibrant and bold, defiant and wise, Riley’s tone and words are well suited to her subject.
S.A. Cosby
Positive NPR Reading Razorblade Tears is a visceral full-body experience, a sharp jolt to the heart, and a treat for the senses. S. A. Cosby\'s moody southern thriller marries the skillful action and plotting of Lee Child with the atmosphere and insight of Attica Locke ... Cosby\'s characters are specific and vividly rendered, and he paints a determinedly bleak yet thoroughly compelling picture of their plight ... Cosby\'s sharp characterization and evocative prose make the tension between them as palpable as their grief ... With volatile tempers, guts full of guilt, and hearts full of regret, they rack up bodies as a matter of course. It\'s bloody. It\'s graphic. And it fits. Even though action is vital to this story, it doesn\'t take precedence. With writing that\'s as precise and emotionally engaging as it is cinematic, character and relationships reign supreme ... Still, some of Cosby\'s other choices render this novel something short of a triumph. Queer people are central to the investigation and the story, but not a one has a particularly strong, fully realized voice of their own. Two are dead, and another is deeply disappointing. Cosby also has straight people talking about LGBTQ marginalization in conversations that sometimes sound preachy rather than organic. It\'s an jarring juxtaposition — having straight characters gain this growing awareness of and sensitivity to discrimination when the queer characters are marginalized in the narrative ... These aspects of the story are discordant notes in an otherwise elegant composition. And yet even with those issues, Razorblade Tears is still addictive, arresting entertainment. S.A. Cosby might be a miracle worker. As uneasy as I was, he made me root for the redemption of two men with homophobia and bloody revenge in their hearts. Throughout, I was never anything less than absorbed and on their side. Cosby\'s high-octane drama cements his ascension as a prince of the literary action thriller.
Nathan Harris
Positive NPR Evocative and accessible, Nathan Harris\'s debut novel is a historical page-turner ... Harris asks a question Americans have yet to figure out: How does a community make peace in the wake of civil war? I\'m not sure the novel comes close to finding an answer. But posing the question and following through the work undertaken felt incredibly worthwhile nonetheless ... its question feels urgent and familiar, because politics now feels like war ... joins the national conversation on race and reckoning with history already in progress. In struggles over flags, monuments, textbooks, and university tenure, we\'re still fighting over how to frame this event in public memory, so those old wounds feel particularly fresh. Nathan Harris makes those extraordinary, still contested times comprehensible through an immersive, incredibly humane storytelling about the lives of ordinary people ... In small moments, Harris convincingly captures the thoughts and actions of ordinary people trying to push through extraordinary times. And even though the story focuses on hope and unexpected kinship, it doesn\'t diminish the horrors of slavery or the struggle in its wake...None of it is minimized. Like the brothers, Harris tries to train the focus elsewhere for a time ... As an act of pure storytelling, it soars. On a deeper level, however, some aspects of the novel feel unsettled and incomplete. /The Sweetness of Water taps into America\'s longstanding and profound thirst for fantasies of racial reconciliation — stories in which Black people and white people find salvation together, bonding in the face of the egregious extreme racism of others. As appealing as they are, these narratives tend to reproduce certain problematic patterns. First, while seeming to focus on crucial issues, these narratives actually highlight individual exceptions to systemic problems that need real examination. Second, even in stories where Black people should naturally be the focus they tend to marginalize Black characters in order to center and affirm the virtue of good whites. And third, they can provide easy absolution without deeper reflection ... I felt those tensions keenly reading this novel, but while it flirts with the edge, it doesn\'t quite fall into the abyss. The difference is that The Sweetness of Water isn\'t a story about what happened to the enslaved after slavery\'s end, coopted to focus on a white family. It\'s a soapy and riveting drama-filled exploration of a fracture and a healing. The focus on an interracial cast is an necessity, feature rather than a flaw ... I only wish the ensemble was a little more interested in the fullness of its Black characters ... left a lasting and multifaceted impression: It\'s warm and absorbing, thought provoking and humane. But ultimately uneven in its ideas — a book whose resonance ever so slightly exceeds its art.
Zakiya Dalila Harris
Rave BookPage Brilliantly positioned at the intersection of satire and social horror, The Other Black Girl incorporates subversively sharp and sly cultural commentary into an addictive and surprisingly dark tale of suspense ... Harris displays a distinctive style all her own. With a flair for metaphor and a carefully calibrated surrealist perspective, she stops just short of over-the-top ... Thoughtful, provocative and viscerally entertaining, The Other Black Girl is a genre-bending creative triumph.
Emily Henry
Rave BookPage ... inspired and achingly romantic ... gorgeously written, delightfully original ... a wonderful tribute that puts Henry firmly on the path to becoming the millennial Nora Ephron.
Stacey Abrams
Positive The Grio ... Abrams knows this terrain—legal, social, and political—inside and out. With that expertise, the issues at the center of the story are drawn with precision and insight, but her characters are the book’s greatest strength ... The story is anchored by two indelible outsiders who have little in common save the institution for which both work and their prickly personas. Stacey Abrams’s thriller is an intricate one with a diverse supporting cast of allies and adversaries and a Russian nesting doll of legal maneuvering, politics and technological intrigue. Much of it is riveting. There are also subplots and clever details strewn like Easter eggs throughout. Somewhere in the middle, the plot starts to feel overstuffed, and the myriad of moving parts slow forward momentum. But...there’s something deliciously rewarding about a thriller that realistically and unflinchingly reckons with how a young Black woman like Avery Keene gets treated when she answers the call to serve.
Laura Dave
Positive BookPage In this era of domestic thrillers, a novel about a functional, loving family can feel refreshing and downright unexpected ... The drama gets a little thin in spots ... Downplaying the conflict might be a trade-off for the novel’s greater focus on character development and relationships. Hannah’s insights and epiphanies about how to parent an untrusting teenager aren’t all that revelatory, but they certainly are reminders of what’s most important ... As a result, Dave pulls off something that feels both new and familiar: a novel of domestic suspense that unnerves, then reassures ... Dave has given readers what many people crave right now—a thoroughly engrossing yet comforting distraction.
Talia Hibbert
Rave BookPage Talia Hibbert has quickly become the go-to writer for those who like their romances to be heartwarming, thought-provoking and fun in equal measure. Building on the success of the first two novels in her Brown Sisters trilogy, Hibbert’s formula is burnished to perfection in Act Your Age, Eve Brown, a delightful comedic confection ... Though their romance is delightful, Jacob and Eve also face significant personal challenges and Hibbert handles these serious topics with finesse. They are both on the autism spectrum, and Hibbert sensitively portrays their perspectives while also exploring how their autism intersects with other facets of their lives ... Throughout Eve and Jacob’s story, Hibbert exhibits masterful control of plot and character. Act Your Age, Eve Brown is a wonderful blend of tropes and reality. It’s the kind of book that inspires myriad feelings: It will make you laugh, cry, sigh and swoon. But more than anything else, the experience of reading Act Your Age, Eve Brown is pure pleasure.
Lynsay Sands
Positive BookPage Lady Elysande de Valance finds love in the arms of a Highlander in Lynsay Sands’ suspenseful 14th-century romance, Highland Treasure ... Highland Treasure is a page-turning, propulsive and, at times, bloody historical romance.
Andrea Lee
Rave BookPage The ebb and flow of Shay’s marriage is just part of the story, as Red Island House contains vignettes about a fascinating array of characters and entanglements in the Naratrany society that surrounds though never quite embraces the couple. From the feuding female entrepreneurs whom Shay calls \'Sirens\' to the local éminence grise who may or may not have spiritual powers, it’s a complex and seductive tapestry ... Lee’s striking writing is layered and thick with evocative descriptions of people, landscapes, feelings and foreboding. Sociological and psychological, it’s prose with the abstract feel of poetry. The stories of Red Island House are vibrant and enchanting despite the current of dread that runs through the novel from the start.
Beverly Jenkins
Rave The New York Times Book Review For those who hesitate to delve into African-American historical romances for want of that visceral fantasy element, Beverly Jenkins’s novels — richly grounded in history and yet bristling with joy — are a revelation ... The signature elements of Jenkins’s work come together in spectacular form in Wild Rain, a boldly feminist narrative ... Garrett is the rarest of Black romantic heroes: the cinnamon roll. In historical romances, Black men are rarely afforded the space to be soft, sweet and supportive heroes who dote on their women and don’t mind when they take the reins (literally, in this case). But Garrett is all of those things and it never diminishes him. The way he cares for, loves and stands up for Spring while also knowing when to stand down only makes him more appealing ... Watching her lean into loving him and vice versa is pure pleasure, a powerful, indulgent treat ... showcases Jenkins’s talent for writing intriguing individual stories that illuminate bigger historical themes ... With so much going on, and a pace that propels the reader relentlessly forward, some things get short shrift. Love arrives rather quickly and abruptly for one of the characters. And, outside of a few long-running grudges, some of the conflicts resolve too easily. Still, if Wild Rain doesn’t quite rise to the heights of Beverly Jenkins masterworks like Indigo and Forbidden, it is incredibly satisfying in its own right.
Cherie Jones
Rave Bookpage In her engrossing and darkly lyrical debut novel, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House , Bajan author Cherie Jones unspools a discomfiting allegory of race, class and intergenerational trauma in a far from idyllic fictional Caribbean community ... Even as tragedies and indignities pile up, the murkiness surrounding the novel’s events will compel readers to continue reading. Questions arise about how a simple robbery went so wrong and how Baby died—but most importantly, why? What are the roots of these characters’ discontent and recklessness? A bleak and complex picture emerges through this ensemble story, with chapters that alternate between generations and time periods as well as individual points of view. Like the fearsome Wilma, author Cherie Jones is a powerful storyteller. Like the policeman, many readers will feel compelled to follow her into the dark even though there’s precious little joy or light to be found there.
Charles M Blow
Positive The Grio The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto renders an unflinching diagnosis of the ravages of white supremacy and a rousing prescription for Black Americans to eliminate its harms ... Building on the vivid, clear prose and bold arguments that are his stock in trade, The Devil You Know is a fast and persuasive piece of political rhetoric and rough American history ... [Blow\'s] narrative is compelling. His prescriptions are big and worthy of consideration. Some of the connective tissue — Blow’s presentation of history and some analysis of the political moment — don’t always have the necessary nuance. That is in part by design.This is daring work, accessible and easily digested by a wide audience. It is therefore relatively brief at 240 pages including footnotes. It’s argumentation.
Robert Jones Jr
Rave BookPage ... remarkable ... accomplishes the exceptional literary feat of being at once an intimate, poetic love story and a sweeping, detailed and excruciating portrait of life on a Mississippi plantation ... One of the most outstanding things about this novel is its artistry, both in its language and its use of multiple perspectives. Jones excels at ensemble storytelling, treating each character with compassion while also being brutally unsparing ... Jones grounds his story in history while making it remarkably relevant to life today ... observations about the intersection of race and gender within this brutal system will sound familiar to contemporary readers ... These disparate elements of history, myth making, social observation, criticism and storytelling don’t always fit together as well as the author may have intended. However, what is most notable about The Prophets is that, like James Baldwin or Toni Morrison, Jones gets to the root of some of our culture’s thorniest problems through specific, accurate storytelling, drawn with insight and great skill. Though this is his first book, Jones is already a master stylist, writing gorgeous, lyrical and readable prose about some of the ugliest things that human beings feel and do to one another. Sometimes the prose reads like scripture. At other times, it’s poetry ... This is a beautifully wrought, exceptionally accomplished queer love story about two men finding extraordinary connection in the most hostile and difficult of circumstances. This debut will be savored and remembered.
Catherine Hernandez
Mixed BookPage ... Hernandez’s sharp-eyed, queer dystopian fantasy is no gentle wake-up call. It is a blaring fire alarm and a call to arms against authoritarianism, white supremacy and transphobia ... At times, Hernandez’s prose style is gorgeously poetic. At other points, as when critiquing the authoritarian regime or the privilege of allies, the writing is openly didactic toward secondary characters who are little more than symbols and vehicles for argument. In these scenes, dialogue unfurls like political discourse rather than as urgent conversation about events happening around them. The subject absolutely merits impassioned appeal, but this aspect of the execution undermines its aim somewhat. Rhetorical appeals in fiction rely on two key things for effect: the reader’s absorption into the narrative and their identification with the protagonist. These phenomena encourage readers to let go of their defenses, effectively shutting down counterarguments, even when the story’s message conflicts with the reader’s prior beliefs. Kay is a brilliantly nuanced, fully formed character, both tender and brave, so identifying with him is easy. Where Crosshairs sometimes falls short, however, is in letting the reader fully engage and feel absorbed into the story. It’s hard not to see the forceful political appeal at work.
Susie Yang
Positive BookPage Rather than a traditional thriller, White Ivy is a slow-burning, intricate psychological character study and coming-of-age story full of family secrets and foreboding ... Despite the book’s inevitable ending, Yang allows her main character ambiguity. Ivy is strangely, uncomfortably relatable and ultimately unknowable. Her transgressions are mostly minor, yet her sometimes vicious inner monologue shows that she has the capacity for far harsher misdeeds. Perhaps that is the point—that the dividing line between ordinary wrongs and acts of true evil is razor thin. So when signs start to suggest that something very bad is about to happen, the violent act is all the more jarring ... Ivy brings to mind other desperate, liminal characters, such as Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley. Readers will find a lot to appreciate in this sharply observed psychological thriller.
Rebekah Weatherspoon
Rave BookPage [A] thoroughly modern Cinderella story about an aspiring screenwriter hesitantly falling for a sexy, celebrity, cinnamon-roll-sweet hero with swagger ... Weatherspoon deftly translates the classic rags to riches fairy tale’s core elements into a 21st-century context ... Weatherspoon creates vivid, specific characters and gives them wonderful interior lives and excellent banter ... their love story never feels didactic and the romance never gets weighed down. There’s warmth and lightness throughout this very contemporary, yet ultimately classically romantic retelling.
Olivia Dade
Rave BookPage ... a funny and poignant triumph that defies expectation ... That Spoiler Alert so effectively forces the reader to see the significance of the common ground between the scientist and the star is a testament to Dade’s skill as a storyteller. This romance also masterfully conveys both the fun and misery of fandom and social media, as only a text authored by someone who knows these worlds intimately can. It’s clear that Dade isn’t faking those geeky credentials ... On top of all that, Dade also gives weight to the challenges that many people must deal with closer to home ... The family scenes are powerful and unflinching; they might even make some readers cry, but they never overwhelm Marcus and April’s love story ... Despite the high level of difficulty involved in taking on these topics in combination, Spoiler Alert surpasses every mark. Even when the waters April and Marcus are navigating become choppy, it never feels like you’re drowning ... Dade has gifted readers with a thoughtful, swoonworthy and emotionally satisfying contemporary romance that has the added benefit of a realistic, multilayered and relatable portrayal of the digital world. If you’re into fan culture and practices, it will be an even greater pleasure. Loyal Olivia Dade fans and new readers alike will love it.
emily m. danforth
Rave BookPage There’s a fascinating interplay of past and present, and fiction and reality, in Plain Bad Heroines, Emily M. Danforth’s debut novel for adults ... smart, feminist and funny ... Danforth propels her story not with scary moments but with beautiful writing, indelible characters and complex relationships.
Alyssa Cole
Rave BookPage By now, many will have seen When No One Is Watching described as Rear Window meets Get Out. Those comparisons are shockingly apt. Alyssa Cole’s latest triumph incorporates elements of both psychological thriller and social horror. Its finale is a bit macabre, much like Get Out, and there is a romantic subplot as well, just as there was in Hitchcock’s masterpiece ... highly original ... Perhaps the best evidence of Cole’s skill in this regard is the remarkable correspondence between a fictional event in the book and a real-life incident that occurred just miles away from where the book is set ... Another element that distinguishes When No One Is Watching is its grounding in not just present-day politics but history.