It is now officially the year of the horse, specifically the fire horse, which makes way for new beginnings, newfound energy for change, and a death of old patterns that no longer serve. Take a deep breath and welcome this newness after the reckoning that was 2025, the year of the snake. The year of the snake symbolizes a shedding of old versions of self, a deepening intuition that comes from intentional introspection, and a rebirth. But a rebirth is painful and starting the world fresh again means leading with softness and vulnerability, which is also difficult. The world can feel harsh on fresh and tender skin. I felt as if 2025 was the end of a series of reckoning years, in which confrontation of the self was inevitable to build a desired life. This kind of work is lonely; the internal questioning of self and processing of the past is loaded with grief and darkness. Now, there is disorientation navigating this newness of self while acclimating to this increasingly chaotic world. Throughout all of this, I also feel the immense importance of finding new ways to mother myself through this winding path and grapple with what motherhood means.
I have the wonderful job of looking through all the new literature in summer and fall of 2026 to highlight those written by women of color. I have deep gratitude and respect for R.O. Kwon who handed me the torch after being the arbiter of this list for years. When I first opened Yu & Me Books in 2021, the goal was always to fill shelves with stories written by writers of color, especially immigrant stories. Storytelling is sharing the aliveness in our complex perspectives and breathing life into the nuances of existence. Sharing stories is also the constant fight for visibility under systems of oppression. For me, it is vital to pay attention to the richness and range within these narratives. To witness the breadth and continuous growth of literature created by women of color gives me much needed hope. As I look through these incredible works coming out this year, I feel deeply inspired and revived. I remember why I created Yu & Me Books and am reminded of the necessity of carrying on.
Through diving into these upcoming books, I felt my shoulders relax as I began to feel far less alone. In these upcoming literary works, I notice major similarities in themes of rest, retreat, confrontation, grief, motherhood, and release. The cohesion of our inherent connectivity becomes clear. Reckoning returns in many of these books, fueling plots and characters to unflinchingly confront their pasts so that they can burn a new path forward. I am excited to delve into these worlds where women are willing to ask the existential questions and do the painful work of standing still instead of running from. This kind of work requires fighting against expectations, societal standards, and misogyny, all while living with ghosts of before. These books are subversive in so many forms. Between the surreal and very real, these women writers show the braveness required in vulnerability and the power necessary for revival. They show the beauty of slowing down to trust one’s intuition. These writers remind us that rest is required in resistance and resilience, and while the dark storms of living will continue, our endurance is rejuvenated by being close to those we love, which includes the self. I am so excited for you all to read these incredible books and to continue this reflective journey together.
June
The Typing Lady: And Other Fictions by Ruth Ozeki
Ruth Ozeki remains one of my favorite authors because she exhibits such a distinct voice and range. Her craft continues to expand with this short story collection that explores childhood ambition, youthful desire, midlife reinvention, and the unfolding clarity of old age. As with most of her work, this collection spans eras and geographies and encompasses the breadth of humanity’s relationship with the written word.
Muñeca by Cynthia Gómez
Taking place in Oakland, California during 1968, Nati Fuentes hears rumors about Violeta Miramontes, a beautiful, young heiress to Spanish colonial wealth, who has been paralyzed by a mysterious illness. Nati is determined to break this dark magic spell to earn a reward, but as romance grows between the two women, Nati must face her own demons. In this richly layered novel, Gómez asks how far is one willing to go to save the one they love even if that means losing their own power.
They All Fall in Love at the End by Haili Blassingame
For fans of Raven Leilani and Kiley Reid, this coming-of-age debut follows Cat St. Clair, who falls for her boyfriend’s best friend and his girlfriend while being in an open relationship, leading to disastrously chaotic results.
Sisters of a Halved Heart by Nayantara Roy
In this irresistible sophomore novel, Roy gives us two sisters who fall for the same man, which leads to the fracturing of their relationship. For those unafraid to dig into complicated sister relationships.
Pool House by Mary H.K. Choi
Mary H.K. Choi debuts her highly anticipated adult novel that looks directly into the complications of family enmeshment and its long tail effects on romance through the lens of an incredibly complicated (but extremely relatable) mother-daughter relationship. With Choi’s distinct voice and sharp language, Pool House is an unflinching novel that stays with you long after the summer days. Darkly funny, sexy, and visceral, this novel is one of the biggest splashes this summer.
Leave and Come Back by Lavanya Lakshmi
A charming and funny debut that asks what it means to be open to love and how to be present while honoring the past. Simran must return to her family home, which she’s been avoiding for the last seven years, to go to her cousin’s two-week long Indian wedding. Her new boyfriend crashes the engagement party and sends the entire wedding into chaos.
Blood Caste: A Devilish Killer by Shylashri Shankar
A historical crime thriller that takes place in Hyderabad, India during 1895. Chief Inspector Soobramania, known as Soob, is called on to investigate three mutilated bodies discovered bearing a striking resemblance to Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel victims. A richly textured backdrop of empire, classism, and the subversive fight against British imperialism create a unique tale that brings suspicion to those in power.
The Hyphenated Life: Bridging the In-Between Spaces of Intersectional Identities by Han Ren
For lovers of Permission to Come Home and Minor Feelings, Han Ren gives space and breadth to living in the in-between spaces to bring confidence for full self-expression within intersectional identities.
Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
Jeffers navigates the emotional and historical intersection of Black women’s public lives with her own journey from girlhood to womanhood. Sharp, insightful, and empathetic, Misbehaving at the Crossroads chronicles the crossroads of difficult truths and transcendence.
Names Have Been Changed by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow
This fast-paced debut follows Ophir, who experiences a petty crime spun out of control leading to the estrangement of her family and home in Singapore. She rotates through false identities and begins a confessional broadcast in an undisclosed location about her years on the run across the world. Her constant dislocation and consistent reexamination of identity show us the grueling complications of building a life and home.
July Sun: Stories by Aamina Ahmad
An exceptional debut that explores emotional intimacies of ordinary people within seven atmospheric stories. With deep compassion for the emotional nuances of each character, Ahmad finds the pockets of refuge between freedom and constraint.
The Summer of the Serpent by Cecilia Eudave, translated by Robin Myers
In the quiet, residential neighborhood of Guadalajara, Mexico in 1977, The Summer of the Serpent creates a kaleidoscopic portrait of the past within the blurriness of memory and myth. This beautifully fragmented novel twists the mesmerizing shape of combined truths during the moments when childhood innocence dissipates.
July
Daughter of the Mountains by Fatimah Asghar
A beautiful poetry collection that delves into the edges of existence when one is exiled from their ancestral homelands. In these meditative, humorous, and spiritual poems, Asghar intimately explores the multitudes of fulfillment, betrayal, love, loss, and longing.
Die for Me by Shirlene Obuobi
Shirlene Obuobi wrote one of my favorite romances, Between Friends & Lovers, and I am enthralled by the depth in which she writes her characters that gives them life beyond the page. Die for Me is a propulsive read that follows Sean, who spent the better part of her early 30s healing from an abusive relationship. Transfixed by Julian, she falls for this much-younger man with a deadly secret. Obuobi writes with so much richness regarding the friendships in her novel, and I’m thrilled to see this remains true with Sean’s relationship to her best friend in this upcoming novel.
The Intrigue by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
A noir about desire, danger, greed, and seduction in 1940s Mexico. Ulises is a handsome con artist that has just found his newest victim, Perla, but becomes enthralled by her niece who wants in on the scheme. His straightforward plan becomes precariously complicated as he also grapples with his own shaky belief in romance.
Not with a Bang by Temi Oh
For lovers of dystopian world-ending family dramas. As the rumblings of internal family strife threaten to burst open at the same time an extinction-level event tears the world apart on the morning of the eldest daughter’s wedding, the Mintons have no choice but to fight their way through safety and survival back to each other.
Hustle, Baby by Priya Guns
A sophomore novel that follows a family of Tamil refugees who fled the civil war in Sri Lanka to pursue a better life. Dilo, a teenager, is juggling school, caring for her baby cousin, and helping her family get by. She quickly realizes the system is rigged and is thrown into the schemes of a self-proclaimed day-trading savant, who chaotically turns their family’s world upside down.
Data Empire: The Power of Information to Organize, Control, and Dominate by Roopika Risam
This book reveals data as the seed of power through the technology of control that has continued to shape civilizations. With a sharply critical eye through a historical lens, Data Empire brings to light the power data holds above humanity while also giving us hope to imagine what resistance against it looks like.
Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler by Susana M. Morris
Octavia Butler is an absolute trailblazer. As the first black woman to consistently write and publish in science fiction, Butler used her stories to showcase the best and worst of humanity. Butler envisioned futures with tough, flawed, intelligent, empathetic, and complicated Black women at the center while constantly shifting the perceived landscape of our world. In this exceptional biography, Susana M. Morris contextualizes Butler’s personal story within the cultural, social, historical framework that shaped her life.
I Know the Ants by Lang Leav
In this novel, Leav does not shy away from the complications of long-term female friendships. Mei spirals out of control after discovering her childhood best friend, Soey, published a memoir discussing the tragic events of their shared upbringing. When they reconnect, a chaotic series of events unfolds culminating in a shocking death that puts Mei in the public eye as she confronts the collision of past and present.
August
Kitten by Stacey Yu
A magnetic debut about Katie, who is desperate to escape adulthood as she’s fresh out of college and recently estranged from her mother. She becomes fascinated with her boyfriend’s cat, Silver, who seems to live the life that Katie yearns for. As Katie’s devotion to Silver deepens, she begins to unravel and her inner desires seep through the cracks. Darkly humored and heartfelt, Yu asks us to confront what we truly want and what we are willing to risk for it.
The Seekers of Deer Creek by Thao Thai
This captivating sophomore novel from the author of Banyan Moon travels from Wisconsin, France, and Việt Nam to follow two estranged sisters searching for a lost painting by a Vietnamese painter named K.P. Lý, hoping that it will reveal familial truths from their fractured past.
Silencio by Clyo Mendoza, translated by Christina MacSweeney
Clyo Mendoza uses fantasy to express the atrocities that exist beyond the realm of language to tell the stories of women surviving femicide and destruction in Mexico. In chapters that alternate between the real and the imaginary, Águeda, a young woman mourning the death of her mother, relates to the world through the sounds she hears from inside of her walls of confinement. In her solitude, she mourns and loves, finding herself connected with all the other women who have disappeared in the landscape of her environment.
Appetite by P. Paramita
A heartfelt and original debut about Zarina, a young chef at a fancy New Haven restaurant, who cooks up modern spins on classic Bangladeshi dishes while enjoying her second passion: professional wrestling. As Zarina becomes closer to her wrestling idol, Sierra Myst, she must grapple with the joy of expansion while being thrust into a new power dynamic that makes her question her own priorities. Both unsettling and uplifting, Appetite makes all of us question where we are in the torture of discovering who we might become.
Take What You Can by Naima Coster
Friendships, class, motherhood, and independence are richly intertwined in Coster’s third novel. Best friends Val and Milly first bond in France over being the only Black students on a study abroad trip. After a decade apart, both are in their thirties and have decided to raise their daughters together in New York. With lives that have veered further down their own paths, each struggles to see where she fits in the other’s world, especially as an old, buried wound between them resurfaces.
Plant Lady by Minyoung Kang, translated by Shanna Tan
A translated South Korean psychological thriller about Yoohee, who owns a plant shop that is a sanctuary of peace during the day. At night, she offers a secret service to women who come to her about misogynistic men they hope might disappear from their lives. Written with tension and humor that puts the reader on the edge of their seat.
I Punched an Alien and Now We’re in Couples Therapy by Kimberly Lemming
This one’s for the enemies-to-lovers and Survivor fans (what a combo). Kimberly Lemming is a one-of-a-kind writer who expertly mixes the sexy, absurd, and hilarious. As part of the Cosmic Chaos series, this book follows a human woman stranded on a far-off planet and mated to the warlord alien king.
The Sleeping Sisters by Jennifer Givhan
Blending suspense, horror, Indigenous and Latina mythology, Givhan throws her unique spin on Pan’s Labyrinth through the lens of a threatened mother racing with a relentless detective to search for answers along the Río Grande.
Hello Baby by Kim Eui-Kyung, translated by Sora Kim-Russell
In a candid novel about the endurance of motherhood, the bonds of six women undergoing IVF are tested when one of them announces an unexpected birth. At a fertility clinic in Seoul, these very different women and their friendships with each other must undergo the envy and admiration of watching one of their own become a mother. With insightful humor and empathy, Kim Eui-Kyung lays out the range of lengths some may go to seek motherhood and creates an honest portrait of the modern woman.
Where Wilted Flowers Bloom by Johanna Rojas Vann
A sophomore novel from the author of An American Immigrant follows Sandra and her family’s move from NYC to East Nashville for a fresh start. She quickly finds that grief has moved with her and forms an unlikely friendship with her next-door neighbor, Mark, an elderly, widowed, retired pastor. This newfound friendship might just be the key to unlocking a path to healing.
September
Survivor by Octavia E. Butler
Returning to print after 50 years and the final book of the Patternist series, this new edition includes new history essays and a short story. The Patternist series spans from late 19th century Africa to the far future in outer space creating a complex, unique world with shifting power dynamics.
Mothersucker by Kim Bohyun, translated by Archana Madhavan
A thrilling international debut about women collectively plagued by visceral dreams of vengeance and a vampire who targets misogynistic men who have harmed women. An all-female task force is on the case to solve these chilling murders, bringing to surface the dark underbelly of gender-based violence in Korea.
The Bitch by Pilar Quintana, translated by Lisa Dillman
Damaris lives in a shack with her fisherman husband on a bluff overlooking Colombia’s Pacific coast. She takes in a motherless puppy as she is grappling with her own fallen dreams of motherhood and forms a bond that touches the tenderest portions of her heart. Quintana uses terse language to express the ever-connected tandem of the desire to nurture and be nurtured.
Tree: My Encounters with Trees by Aya Koda, translated by Charlotte Goff
Recently translated to English and for fans of the movie Perfect Days, this novel takes the reader on an introspective and wonderful journey through the trees of Japan.
Divine Oaths by Elizabeth Agyemang
This one is for the dark academia lovers. In a single day, Sianna loses her entire family while also gaining the power to see lifelines and witness other’s pasts and futures. She defers attending an elite academic institution called Westfield University in Virginia’s swampland to work through her grief. She then meets Kasem, a handsome heir to Westfield, and must work with him to piece together a haunted past to undo a curse that binds them.
The Golden Boy’s Guide to Bipolar by Sonido Reyes
Seventeen-year-old Cesar Flores has just come out to his Mami, his sister, Yami, and their friends while also getting his therapist’s blessing to win back his ex-boyfriend. But he is troubled by “The Thoughts,” the lingering Catholic guilt that is increasing in volume and threatening his self-confidence. Can he be vulnerable enough to ask for help from those he loves?
Taipei Story by R. F. Kuang
The highly anticipated coming-of-age novel from acclaimed writer R.F. Kuang grapples with grief, language, and culture. College freshman Lily Chen is spending the summer in Taipei in an intensive language program and feels split in her cultural identity where she expected to feel at home. She experiences the sudden loss of her grandfather, which throws her into unexpected self-discovery as she yearns and searches for connection through the tapestry of memories and stories. One of Kuang’s most personal novels yet and I cannot wait to read it soon.
The Art of Fighting: The Transformative Power of Conflict by Priya Parker
Community, teams, dynamic friend groups, and healthy relationships all require navigating conflict. Priya Parker reminds us that we cannot form long lasting relationships without a fight and guides us through understanding how to harness the power of healthy conflict.
Tías and Primas: On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us by Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, illustrated by Josie Del Castillo
From the author of For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts, Tías and Primas celebrates the many women that Mojica Rodríguez grew up with in her close-knit Nicaraguan family while fearlessly approaching the continuous, residual effects of intergenerational trauma.
Wicked Endeavors by Kamilah Cole
For those who are witchmaxxing and looking for a romantasy, this one’s for you. Caya is eighteen and wants to take revenge, so she slips into the witches’ world under a new identity. On top of wanting to destroy the witches from within, she finds herself in an alarming love triangle between an enemy prince and an estranged childhood friend.
Terrestrial by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Christina MacSweeney
In this genre-bending collection, Garza experiments with structure and time to expand the bounds of traveling to survive. These characters challenge themes of female freedom through capitalism and class struggle while tethering them with their inherent connection to earth on their Terrestrial hitchhiking journey.
Story Telling: A Writing Life by Isabel Allende
Allende explores her deeply personal relationship with writing and the magic of the craft that allows for understanding the chaos of existence. She weaves wisdom into her own stories while sharing her triumphs, mistakes, and lessons learned from her own lifelong love for writing.
Witch Daughter by Tanaz Bhathena
Welcome to peak witch season in Tanaz Bhathena’s adult debut about Tahmineh, a temptress and a witch, but most importantly, a woman trying her best to protect the ones she loves.
Before the Queen Falls Asleep by Huzama Habayeb
Each night, Jihad tells her daughter a story from her life when she grew up as a girl. As her daughter, Maleka, prepares to leave home for university, Jihad takes them both through a journey of her past revisiting their Palestinian family while exiled in Kuwait, tenderly weaving her complex experiences of love and loss. With affection, humor, and love, Huzama Habayeb follows Jihad and her family through Kuwait to Jordan to Dubai.
The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by Deesha Philyaw
Deesha Philyaw’s The Secret Lives of Church Ladies remains one of my favorite short story collections to this day and I’m so excited to see how she explores the longer form in this, her debut novel. Scharisse Freeman married a megachurch pastor fifteen years her senior and has built a business empire while living very, very well. As her new life creates distance from her community, she is suddenly given the opportunity for acceptance by the other pastors’ wives (the First Ladies) that she’s long waited for. Then, unexpectedly, her life implodes when a long-buried secret emerges into the public eye.
American Hagwon by Min Jin Lee
The highly anticipated novel from the one and only Min Jin Lee, American Hagwon is her sweeping, epic third novel. American Hagwon investigates the space between desire, satisfaction, success, and belonging in the quest to find meaning in this world. Set during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, John, Helen, and their three children strive to regain their footing by way of Seoul to Sydney and finally to Southern California. With a panoramic and sharp lens that is innate to Lee, this novel follows the perpetuating question encompassed in an unshakeable faith that education will lead the next generation to success and security. How far will a parent go to provide for their children’s futures when the future continues to be opaquely unknown?
Our Arab: On Longing, Belonging, and Hope by Zaina Arafat
As a bisexual, You Exist Too Much is one of my favorite bisexual novels to recommend to people as a bookseller. Zaina Arafat writes with a prose that sucks you immediately into the interior world of her strong voiced characters. I cannot wait to see her prose transform in this moving, luminous essay collection on longing and hope living as a Palestinian today.
End Emotional Outsourcing: How to Overcome Your Codependent, Perfectionist, and People-Pleasing Habits by Beatriz Victoria Albina
People-pleasing continues to be one of the hardest things I have worked through, and I wished I had more tools like this book during that tumultuous period in my life. This book explores the thousands of people, especially women, who have struggled with anxiety, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome that creates layers of distance between them and their true selves. With many tools to regulate the nervous system and reframing habitual thoughts to improve relationships with loved ones, this grounding, healing book will investigate our current definition of codependency by helping women step into their power.
October
We Radiant Things: Notes on Being Alien and Becoming Cyborg by Franny Choi
Franny Choi’s poetry is the kind that seeps deep into your soul such that years later, when you’re walking down the street and see sunlight hit the pavement in a particular way, you’re transported back into the specificity of a core feeling she’s described in her lyrical prose. We Radiant Things is her debut essay collection exploring humanity’s obsession with cyborgs while delving into the deeper themes of race, gender, sexuality, disability, and language in science fiction representations of Asian femmes.
The Little Stone Buddha by Grace Lin
The prolifically talented author-illustrator Grace Lin creates another beautiful picture book about a community coming together and the small actions that accumulate to change everything. Inspired by a true story.
Every Story Is a Love Story by Imbolo Mbue
Three years ago, Wolo lost the love of his life in a tragic car accident, destroying their beautiful, shared, promised future. Navigating the horrors of deep grief, he begins to slowly rebuild his life until he receives a letter one day from Victoria, the woman behind the wheel. When he meets her, he is immersed in deep compassion and remorse that unimaginably unfurls his life as he tries to understand if forgiveness can truly ease suffering.
We (Wé) by Layli Long Soldier
In this visionary collection, Layli Long Soldier uses the multimedia form of visual art, essays, and poetry to examine the true meaning of community through the context of family, nation, history, and language.
Friends and Family by Natalie Baszile
Babs and Nora became best friends because of their kids and have spent decades together. After the cops are called on their kids while they’re home alone, their loyalty is tested as they uncover their inherent differences in beliefs on race, identity, and allyship.
My Name Means Fire: A Memoir by Atash Yaghmaian
Set against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime, and the 8-year Iran-Iraq War, My Name Means Fire is a stunning, bold debut memoir about reckoning with what it takes to survive tragedy. With alternating chapters between inner and outer worlds, Atash Yaghmaian gives us a glimpse into the kaleidoscopic and colorful consciousness of dissociative identity disorder. There are nine beings that are the unique parts of Atash, each one integral to her survival of the horrors that surround her.
Foreign: A Novel of Land and Longing by Sonora Jha
This engrossing page-turner follows a mother who travels back to her home country in India to bring back her runaway son, all the while discovering the complicated surprises of her once home.
Another Name for Red by Amber Blaeser-Wardzala
A memorable debut about a young Anishinaabe woman who vanishes and her sister (Middle Sister) who tries her best to reconcile in the aftermath of her broken family. But as she continues to investigate the disappearance of her sister, it leads her through a dangerous route that puts her at risk of suffering the same fate.
To God by Esther Yi
Yi’s innovative sophomore novel, To God, is filled with the pulsing rhythms of the imbalanced social structures of late-stage capitalism. Within a single street in a contemporary metropolis, Yi interrogates the prismatic constructs of parasocial structure, internet voyeurism, and deep longing in its cast of characters.
Stellar Smoke by Tanaïs
In this uniquely speculative novel, Qamar is a musician living in New York City who decides to return to the island of her childhood, attempting to settle her relationship with her estranged mother. When she returns, she cannot find her mother but finds a machine consciousness that her mother made in the image of herself. Her interaction with this technology makes Qamar rethink everything she understood about herself, her family, and the future.
November
The Courage to Be Yourself by Fumitake Koga, illustrated by Narano
By the same co-author of The Courage to Be Disliked, this supportive and inspiring guide full of rich illustrations by Narano uses vivid storytelling to bring us through the philosophy of accepting and supporting ourselves while expressing our truth.
The Waiter by Kwan Ann Tan
As a lover of a good “Choose Your Own Adventure” book, I am quivering with excitement for this one. The reader enters this world as an unnamed Waiter navigating a society on the brink of collapse, where you must select your jobs carefully or risk losing work credits while also trying not to lose your humanity. There are eleven different endings and a plethora of pathways towards them as this literary experience makes us all grapple with our agency and desires in a world that’s falling apart.
Weavingshaw by Heba Al-Wasity
In this slow-burn gothic fantasy, Leena is haunted by a secret that she’s had since she was seventeen: that she can see the dead. The Saint of Silence trades coins for divulgences and the darker the secret, the higher the price. To save her brother who has fallen ill, she makes a deal to find the ghost the Saint has been searching for, ultimately leading her to Weavingshaw, a cursed estate on the moors.
How to Be Less Useful: The Joy of Inefficiency by Priyanka Mattoo
Written with insightful wit and honest self-reflection, Mattoo shares her own journey towards being a less useful person and the cost of pleasure in a capitalistic society. She looks at pleasure suppression and the path towards welcoming all that gives us pleasure back into our lives to ultimately become engaged once again with living.
Enter World by Dalia Taha, translated by Sara Elkamel
Taha uses beautiful lyricism to reflect on justice and humanity while writing from Ramallah, capturing her proximity to the Gaza genocide and its unfathomable loss. This collection uses poetry to create empty spaces for landscape to form, materializing worlds from olive trees to prison cells, and declaring the intimate resilience found in the search of beauty amid terror.
The Squatters by Saba Brelvi
This electric debut delves into the collision of two families navigating motherhood, migration, and selfhood. A simple act of kindness turns into a treacherous unfolding that begs the question, how much are you willing to risk for a woman who has already lost everything? Brelvi writes with an unflinching lens that looks directly into defining conviction and the idea of belonging.
Two Can Play That Game by Zakiya N. Jamal
The time has finally come. A WNBA sapphic romance that will make all Liberty fans squeal with delight. Chelsea is invited to sit courtside at a New York Rebels game when she catches the smile of Adrienne, a six-foot-four player who retrieves a basketball that almost hits her in the face. In a strategic PR move, Chelsea is suddenly in a fake relationship with Adrienne to strengthen both of their public images. As their connection deepens, Chelsea’s on shaky ground when she finds herself actually falling for Adrienne.
Mona: An Immodest Memoir of Race and Rebellion by Azra Liaqat Khan
In a laugh-out-loud comedic memoir about a double life as both a pious academic daughter and a stripper in New York City. Mona is an original journey of self-discovery that navigates through racism, misogyny, and capitalism to explore the multitudes of self.
Love, Witches, and Wahala by Christine Cowan
In the cold November season, this debut cozy romantic fantasy will definitely keep you warm. Nneka is a witch fighting against an ancient family curse: finding her soulmate or having all the witches of Kamalu Lane lose their powers forever.
We Were Here: A History of Black People and Alternative Music by Stephanie Phillips
Stephanie Phillips is a Black punk and alternative music journalist writing a revised history of rock ‘n’ roll and alternative music, now including the Black artists and influential figures who deeply influenced these genres while paying homage to their legacies.
December
The Empire Burns at Dawn by Fatima Al-Shemary
Dunya and Shayda are sisters that are both constricted under the reign of their father who has been scheming for years to seize the throne and isn’t afraid to use his daughters to do it. As they are sent on separate missions to help their father obtain power, they discover newfound dark magic spreading quickly across the land. Both are forced to fight their enemies, their circumstances, and their hearts to break free.
Don’t forget to check out the following titles, published January through May 2026!
January
Birthstones in the Province of Mercy: Poems by Bo Hee Moon
From the perspective of a South Korean adoptee, Bo Hee Moon explores the blurriness of memory and the longing for a home when the definition of home remains unclear. Matthew Zapruder, author of I Love Hearing Your Dreams, says “each poem is a whole world, magically conjured from the American vernacular, often enriched by Korean hangul. This is the hopeful, sad, elegiac, and important work of an original poet of great talent and truth.”
The Moon Without Stars by Chanel Miller
I love Chanel Miller as a writer and am always interested in her wide range of artistic abilities. I am such a big fan of her other middle grade novel, Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All, because of the depth, earnestness, and reality of the complexity of being that age. Reading her middle grade books deeply heal the inner child within me by seeing the breadth of all we hold as children and how that parallels all we hold as adults. The Moon Without Stars follows Luna in seventh grade who loves writing and making zines with her bff, Scott. But when one of their zines takes off and Luna is thrust into popularity, she must grapple with compromising who she is to be well liked while navigating understanding who she is. Deeply personal, funny, and vulnerable.
The Old Fire by Elisa Shua Dusapin, translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins
For those who want a book to inhale in one sitting, Elisa Shua Dusapin is a master at that. For lovers of Katie Kitamura, Elena Ferrante, and Joachim Trier, The Old Fire follows Agathe who leaves New York to return to her home in the French countryside fifteen years after she left. A haunting, tender, and tense tale told anachronistically through the various versions of self, home, and family.
Sheer by Vanessa Lawrence
Vanessa Lawrence’s second novel, Sheer takes place over just nine days where Maxine Thomas, the founder of a cult makeup company, is suspended by her own board for a scandal. An investigation to the female gaze, queerness, shifting beauty standards, and the shaky line between empowerment and abuse of power.
Discipline by Larissa Pham
Larissa Pham’s debut novel following her collection of essays, Pop Song, explores a woman forced to confront unsettling truths about herself, her past, her present, and her future as she recovers from a destructive affair with her former mentor. The New York Times writes that “while Discipline sounds like a thriller, Pham makes room for terse reflections on ambition, envy, creative exhaustion and the paintings of Vija Celmins.”
A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing by Alice Evelyn Yang
A debut novel full of magical realism that doesn’t shy from the darkness that comes from digging into family history. With folklore and atmospheric prose, Yang brings the reader through the long tail of intergenerational trauma and legacy of colonialism. The narrative moves through the Japanese occupation of Manchuria and the Cultural Revolution to unravel the tight intertwinement of fate, family, and forgiveness.
The Hour of the Wolf: A Memoir by Fatima Bhutto
A kaleidoscopic memoir of finding oneself after the harsh aftermath of a manipulative relationship while still navigating the long tail of grief after the death of Fatima’s father. She is accompanied during the pandemic by her dog, Coco, as she begins to question everything about her life. Fatima is forced to confront the messy and harsh pains of her own experience. A heartbreaking and hopeful read to navigate loss, questioning motherhood, resilience, healing, and a desire for family through art, literature, cinema, nature, and friendship.
On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah Yah Scholfield
For fans of Victor LaValle and River Solomon, Yah Yah Scholfield writes a sinister and surreal Southern Gothic about Jude, a woman who escapes her abusive childhood home to the forests of Northern Georgia without a plan or destination. Jude soon finds shelter in an eccentric and dilapidated home haunted by a violent history that mirrors the horrors of her own.
Missing Sam by Thrity Umrigar
A thriller following a woman who goes missing on a morning run and her wife’s determination to both find her and clear her own name while navigating the societal dangers of being brown and queer in America. The Washington Post describes it as “both propulsive and provocative, as the initial focus on Sam’s disappearance broadens to consider the far-reaching effects of prejudice and pressures to conform.”
The Seven Daughters of Dupree by Nikesha Elise Williams
For lovers of Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, The Seven Daughters of Dupree follows fourteen-year-old Tati who uncovers a legacy of family secrets, leading her on a search for answers through seven generations of Dupree women. In this multi-generational epic, Williams writes with power about the legacy of generational resilience and the complexity of unbreakable family bonds.
I Identify as Blind: A Brazen Celebration of Disability Culture, Identity, and Power by Lachi, with Tim Vandehey
In our increasingly ableist society, it’s more important than ever to be advocating for an inclusive world prioritizing innovation created for people with disabilities. When society values disabled people as the leaders, role models, and key innovators they truly are, everybody benefits. Lachi writes with humor and inspiration to shed more light on all the wisdom inherent in the disability experience.
February
Language as Liberation: Reflections on the American Canon by Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison cracks open the American conception of race through the investigation of Black characters in the American literary canon. Morrison examines the white writers who created fictional Black characters and draws parallels to the commodification of Black bodies that built this country while examining the role of fiction in American racial identity. With energetic wit, Language as Liberation interrogates the seeds of language in America’s most famous works and its long-term effects on the skewed perspective of this nation’s subconscious. This work shows the brilliant teacher that Morrison is and redefines our literary landscape as we know it.
black frag/ments: Poems by Lolita Stewart-White
Poems both tender and burning hold the fragmentation of blackness, family, and community while navigating the necessity of pulsing love in the face of grief. Read if you’re looking for language to navigate the tumultuous frequencies of everyday life. Terrance Hayes calls it “a vision of recovery, witness and love.”
The World After Rain: Anne’s Poem by Canisia Lubrin
Canisia Lubrin brings us on a journey through this long-form poetic tribute to her mother. Dreaminess and pain in the ambiguity that grief are the foundation of Lubrin’s decisive and lyrical prose meditating on love, time, and loss through the tumult of living. Booklist writes how “the poet renders time atmospheric, with interiors and exteriors, personal and political, overlapping as Lubrin observes ‘how we are astonished.’”
Simple Heart by Cho Haejin, translated by Jamie Chang
Nana is a Korean playwright who was adopted as a child by a French couple. A Korean filmmaker wishes to make a documentary about her life, and she heads to Seoul where her memory unravels as she learns about her past. For fans of movies Return to Seoul and Past Lives, as well as Kyung-Sook Shin’s Please Look After Mom.
Superfan by Jenny Tinghui Zhang
Jenny Tinghui Zhang first novel, Four Treasures of the Sky, still sticks with me. Her writing brings you into the complex characters and worlds she creates and I’m thrilled about her sophomore novel, Superfan, where she explores the horrors and magic of fandom during a shared time of loneliness.
Every Happiness by Reena Shah
For those who love complex and lifelong female friendships despite classism and family. Elizabeth McCracken says “I don’t think I have ever missed a set of novel characters more: astonishingly alive, lovable, aggravating, real. Shah writes beautifully about every sort of love: filial, parental, marital, and above all the longing and vivid pettiness and durable, complicated love between women over decades.”
Autobiography of Cotton by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney
Weaving archival research and personal narrative, Rivera Garza examines the borderlands of cotton cultivation and cycles of generational deprivation through the brittle land between Mexico and the U.S. She writes of her grandparents’ journey to these cotton fields and expertly expands from the deeply personal to the larger context of ecocide, colonization, labor activism, and migration.
With the Heart of a Ghost: Stories by Lim Sunwoo, translated by Chi-Young Kim
A debut collection of eight stories that look unflinchingly into the complexity of exploring strange possibilities and desires in life and death. Written with humor and empathy for all the unseen and unexplored feelings that arise between this world and others. Full of love, whimsy, grief, and openness.
Love Story by Afsana Mousavi
A dreamy debut that follows a young transsexual’s feverish passage through her initiation into New York City’s underground nightlife as she attempts to reconcile its predatory yet deeply salvational euphorias. Afsana delves into the blurring lines between transition and cultural capital and the currency of femininity.
Dark Laboratory: On Columbus, the Caribbean, and the Origins of the Climate Crisis by Tao Leigh Goffe
Through the lens of the Caribbean and braiding together family history, cultural reportage, and social studies, Goffe radically transforms how we conceive Blackness, the natural world, colonialism, and the climate crisis. Dark Laboratory forces a reckoning with received forms of knowledge that have led us astray and dismantles the many layers of entrenched imperialist thinking that shroud our established understanding of the human and environmental conditions to reveal the cause and effect of a global catastrophe.
The Midnight Taxi by Yosha Gunasekera
In this debut mystery novel, a Sri Lankan American taxi driver in New York City discovers one of her passengers murdered in the backseat. Siriwathi, the protagonist, becomes the primary and obvious suspect of the murder. She only has five days to chase through New York to find out who really killed the midnight passenger, or her own life will be over. Yosha Gunasekera is also an attorney at the Innocence Project fighting for the wrongfully convicted and I cannot wait to read her book.
Everyday Movement by Gigi L. Leung, translated by Jennifer Feeley
This powerful novel follows the lives of two women through the crumbling of democracy in Hong Kong. Both have been chased and tear-gassed in the streets of their city after joining tens of thousands of others to protest a national security law that would effectively end democracy. Leung’s writing shows the existential dichotomy of everyday living against the backdrop of a shattering reality.
Bad Asians by Lillian Li
From the writer of Number One Chinese Restaurant, Lillian Li writes about a group of friends grappling with the challenges of perception, stereotyping, and the American dream while growing up Asian American during the rise of the internet. Kirkus Reviews writes that “the novel beautifully explores Asian American identity; economic instability; relationships as both anchor and buoy; the malleability of success; and the ways that ambition manifests itself for better or worse.”
On Morrison by Namwali Serpell
Namwali Serpell uses her unique experience as both a writer and professor teaching a course on Toni Morrison to give breadth to her wide range of complex, masterful, and innovative experiments with literary form. With close readings and contextual guidance, On Morrison brings the reader on new journeys through her famous fiction and her lesser-known plays and poetry. Serpell will make you want to read literature with fresh eyes and rediscover a love for reading.
Daughter of Mother-of-Pearl by Mandy-Suzanne Wong
For lovers of Sabrina Imbler’s How Far the Light Reaches and Lulu Miller’s Why Fish Don’t Exist, jump into this collection of essays radically reimagining the ideal of “the self” through coexistence with other species. She teaches us to cherish the many other life forms while knowing we will never fully understand them.
Cleopatra by Saara El-Arifi
In a subversive, evocative, and sensuous historical epic, Cleopatra tells her own story. Saara El-Arifi builds a deeply lush world that pulls you in with her prose. R.F. Kuang describes the book as “enchanting, smart, and subversive” and Kat Dunn calls it “vividly realized and skillfully unraveled . . . as insightful as it is engrossing.”
Maybe the Body: Poems by Asa Drake
A beautiful debut poetry collection that dives into the conflicts between art and patriotism, labor and longing. With rich imagery and deeply expressive prose, Asa Drake traces multi-generational lineage shaped by economic, ecological, and political dissonance through the Philippines and the American South.
Kin by Tayari Jones
I love the way Tayari Jones writes and am a huge fan of An American Marriage. Kin is full of wit and emotion following two lifelong friends whose worlds converse after many years apart in the face of devastating tragedy. Ann Patchett calls Kin “the kind of all-encompassing reading experience I’m always hoping to find: smart and funny and deftly profound.”
March
Let the Poets Govern: A Declaration of Freedom by Camonghne Felix
Throughout Camonghne Felix’s experience at the center of American politics, she has maintained her unwavering belief in language’s foundational revolutionary potential, outside of its deployment for legislative and political ends. In this groundbreaking work of nonfiction, she argues that Black radical poetic traditions model an ethical code and overcome engrained patriarchal and reductive structures.
The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts by Kim Fu
Kim Fu writes an eerie psychological horror about Eleanor, reckoning with the decisions she’s made in her life as grief haunts her into blurring the real and imagined. Eleanor lives in the aftermath of her mother’s death and tries to grapple with her own life under the ghost of her mother’s expectations.
Whidbey by T Kira Madden
T Kira Madden blew me away with her stunning memoir, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, and I’m so excited to read her debut novel. Whidbey is an explosive and perceptive thriller that follows three women connected through one man in the aftermath of his murder. In page turning pace, Madden follows the intertwinement of these women to raise questions about the pursuit of justice and the power of the storyteller.
Songs for Darkness by Iman Humaydan Yunis
The voices of four generations of women from one family in Mount Lebanon echo a scarred history starting from the eve of the WWI to the 1982 Lebanon War. Iman Humaydan Yunis honors the lives of these women through songs that are the heartbeat of the required tenacity, generosity, and sacrifice necessary in dark times.
Strange Girls by Sarvat Hasin
Sarvat Hasin makes her US debut with a novel about navigating the nuances of a fraught friendship that has lasted for years. Traveling between the past and present, Hasin shows how deeply friends influence each other, propel each other’s art, and break each other’s hearts. Kiran Millwood Hargrave calls it “Simply sublime—about that feverish, feral first finding of true friendship that becomes all-encompassing and reforms who you are.”
Light and Thread by Han Kang, translated by Maya West, e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris
The power of Han Kang as a writer is her ability to peer into the hazy grays of existence and build new bridges between internal and external worlds. She sees daily living with a distinctly sharp and perceptive eye such that the reader has no choice but to breath expansively and recognize the additional space available in life. For lovers of The White Book, Han Kang once again masters a cross-genre work full of poems, essays, photographs, diary entries, and reflections in Light and Thread. Through the thread of language, Han Kang’s newly translated work will shorten the distance between the writer and reader and force the heart to beat with aliveness.
On the Prairies We Will Live Forever: Poems by Erica Violet Lee
Erica Violet Lee’s exquisite debut poetry collection explores community love as a pathway towards freedom. She imagines thriving lives for Native girls where there is abundance in the inner-city, which is and has always been home on Native Land. David Chariandy describes On the Prairies We Will Live Forever as “a book of urgent aliveness, a love letter to the author’s most intimate relations and a beacon for all who yearn for a liveable future.”
Python’s Kiss by Louise Erdrich
Louise Erdrich dives into the wisdom and sorrow inherent in the extremes of existence itself in this short story collection written over two decades. Her range of characters speak to her unparalleled imagination. This collection is done in creative collaboration with visual artwork by her daughter, Aza Erdrich Abe.
Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories by Amal El-Mohtar
In Amal El-Mohtar’s short story collection, she creates exquisite worlds through folk tales, letters, diary entries with beautiful lyricism. Booklist writes that “El-Mohtar brings genuine storytelling talent paired with lush poetic language to deliver the kind of narratives her devotees have grown to love.”
American Han by Lisa Lee
Lisa Lee’s debut novel challenges the assumptions about the immigrant experience with prose both serious and hilarious. Jane and her brother, Kevin, have “successfully” performed all the requirements to make their family proud. Both are athletically and academically gifted until they become distant from their careers and each other. When Kevin goes missing, their family’s dedication to achieving ideals of the ever-elusive American Dream starts to crack and they are forced to confront the past and present. Their family erupts, undoing of the façade of ideals that may be far from real.
Night Owl: Poems by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
In Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s fifth poetry collection, she explores magic, love, and nature that bloom in the dark hours of the night. She uses the transformative nature of night to shift our perspective on interconnectivity and blurs the borders between us and the surrounding world. Night Owl doesn’t shy away from the noises or silences of the dark and uses them to shine light on the love in revolutionary connection.
April
Honey in the Wound by Jiyoung Han
Magical realism, mythology, hope, and courage are the heartbeat of this debut novel by Jiyoung Han. Honey in the Wound follows Young-Ja through decades, a girl who infuses food with her emotions. The narrative delves into the lives of a sister who disappears and returns as a tiger, a mother whose voice compels the truth, and a granddaughter who divines secrets in others’ dreams. These women are all of part of one Korean family split across decades and borders by Japanese imperialism.
The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
As a science nerd and a lover of poetry, I could not dream up a better combination than this fantastical and existential intersection of physics, Black feminism, queerness, and pop culture. This debut spans space and time and forces us to reckon with what we truly know about the world and ourselves.
My Dear You: Stories by Rachel Khong
At the core of these stories, Rachel Khong writes tales of love in its many forms: being in love, not being in love, yearning to be in love, in the throes of unexpected yet wonderful lifelong friendships, and the intimate intertwining of love and grief. Read if you’re down to be existential.
Inheritance by Jane Park
A debut novel following Anne, a lawyer in New York, who has a “successful” life contingent on the ignorance of her own past. She starts to unravel her family’s past after her father passes away and she returns home to Edmonton to discover he was from North Korea. Anne is transported back to her own childhood and her parents’ lives as she reads the undelivered letters her father wrote to his brother, who was left behind.
Tailbone by Che Yeun
A fierce debut set in Seoul in 2008 following an unnamed teenage girl escaping an abusive home to live in a women’s boarding house during the global financial crisis. T Kira Madden describes it as “a gripping coming of age tale as savage as it is astounding, Tailbone seduces one first with voice, then swells and electrifies from within the storied walls of the Seoul boarding house in which anything is possible. Tailbone introduces Che Yeun as one of the absolute greats, an extraordinary stylist and singular storyteller of our time.”
Nasty Work: Resist Systems, Explore Desire, and Liberate Yourself by Ericka Hart
Ericka Hart believes that sex ed done right can be a tool for liberation. Through Nasty Work, Ericka takes down society’s deeply entrenched colonial views on sex and gender throughout history in this accessible, candid, and revolutionary exploration of how we can—and should—reclaim our minds and bodies for a more pleasurable existence for all.
Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead by Mai Nguyen
From the author of Sunshine Nails, Mai Nguyen gives us her second novel with her signature style of honesty, hilarity, and vulnerability. Nguyen uses dark humor to dive into Cleo Dang’s raw emotional turmoil following the loss of her child. She starts to work at a funeral home after self-isolating from grief and must navigate seeing her best friend live out a life of motherhood she desperately wanted for herself.
The Killing Spell by Shay Kauwe
A debut fantasy novel set in the future where language magic reigns. A young Hawaiian woman, Kea Petrova, must solve a murder to save herself, her clan, and her Hawaiian homeland. Magical and mystical, Shay Kauwe is deeply imaginative in this spellbinding debut.
The Take by Kelly Yang
I am so excited to see Kelly Yang’s first adult fiction novel, especially from someone who is so brilliantly prolific in the children and YA literature realm. The Take is a fast-paced speculative story about two women clinging to their youth and relevancy when their lives intertwine through an age reversal treatment.
Leave Your Mess at Home by Tolani Akinola
A stunning debut that does not shy away from the messiness of young adulthood and the chaos of discovering who you are. It balances the complexity of navigating a question that haunts most children of immigrants: what do we owe to our families and what do we owe to ourselves?
Don’t Tell Me How It Ends by Adrienne Thurman
For those who find themselves waning on romance and want real, relatable, and layered characters who also prioritize the important and complex love found in deep friendship, sisters, and family in addition to romantic love. Nikki Payne calls it “a sharp, funny, feel-good love story about bad dates, big feelings, and one deliciously slow-burning love that captures the serious mess of modern womanhood and manages to be hilarious at the same time.”
Livonia Chow Mein by Abigail Savitch-Lew
An epic that spans a century, this ambitious debut novel follows a multi-generational restaurant owning family living in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Abigail Savitch-Lew unfolds the richness of Brooklyn and the merging of cultures integral to a New York landscape. This book will challenge our perception of what is required to live in true harmony.
The Language of Liars by S. L. Huang
For lovers of Babel, The Language of Liars is a sci-fi with an engaging world full of linguistics. It poses the question, “What does it mean to understand another species and does that understanding cause destruction?”
The Memory Museum by M Lin
In this sharp and lyrical debut, M Lin takes us from present day to the near future following the complexities of home, memory, culture, and survival in China’s One-Child Generation. She stares deeply into the fogginess of existence between memory and future.
Last Night in Brooklyn by Xochitl Gonzalez
I inhaled Xochitl Gonzalez’s debut, Olga Dies Dreaming, and I’m very eager to read her sophomore novel about a 26-year-old woman who feels smothered by her future while obsessing over her glamorous neighbor. This novel challenges the life that money can buy and the compromises of fiscal assimilation for people of color chasing the “American Dream.”
If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light by Kim Choyeop, translated by Anton Hur
For lovers of Ted Chiang and speculative sci-fi, If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light travels far and wide to expand our imaginations of the unfamiliar. Kim Choyeop is unafraid to live in a sharp but ethereal space to look beyond our world to get a closer look at our shared disorienting and relatable humanity. Incredibly inventive and translated by the prolifically talented Anton Hur.
Molka by Monika Kim
Monika Kim is a queen of horror. Molka is an abbreviation of molrae-kamera, a “sneaky camera” hidden to capture covert images and videos for voyeurs. This novel is a provocative delve into voyeurism, female rage, vengeance, and reckoning.
Boring Asian Female by Canwen Xu
For those who love an unraveling woman protagonist (me included, obviously), then get ready for this addictive debut novel. Elizabeth Zhang is used to measuring herself by numbers, statistics, and productivity while also achieving these exceedingly high standards before rejection knocks her down from her expectations. She gets obsessive chasing her vision of success in this subversive and satirical novel.
Dreamt I Found You by Jimin Han
A contemporary retelling of Korea’s Romeo & Juliet. Full of Korean folklore and magic, Dreamt I Found You shows the power of premonition when the cousin of the star-crossed lovers helps them avoid a tragic fate within a rigid class system.
Questions 27 & 28 by Karen Tei Yamashita
To be considered for release from the West Coast concentration camps, Japanese Americans were required to answer the so-called loyalty questionnaire. Question 27 asked, to those who had been imprisoned without cause by the US military, whether they were willing to serve in combat for the US military. Question 28 asked them—many of whom American citizens who had never visited Japan—to renounce allegiance to the Japanese emperor. Karen Tei Yamashita writes a genre bending novel that chronicles three generations of laborers, artists, scholars, informants, and activists.
May
Honey by Imani Thompson
An adrenaline filled and dark humored novel about Yrsa, who gains a hunger for murder in the name of feminism. Through murdering misogynistic men, she rides a new high that gives her a greater sense of meaning from her PhD research on Afropessimism. The question is how long this rage can sustain her from her own buried family secrets?
The Young Will Remember by Eve J. Chung
Eve J. Chung’s sophomore novel takes place in 1950 and follows 28-year-old Chinese American journalist, Ellie Chang, who is trapped behind enemy lines during the Korean war. This sweeping novel follows her and the women who help her find her way home, not letting us forget about the resilience of love.
One Leg on Earth by ‘Pemi Aguda
In Aguda’s debut novel after her 2024 short story collection, Ghostroots, she uses beautiful prose to portray the haunting changes (both internal and external) of newfound motherhood. Yosoye is the daughter of a distant mother who discovers she is pregnant. She fights for hope of new life while being haunted by strains of being a mother in an unforgiving world. She must also find her own way to navigate the tumultuous landscape of a rapidly changing Lagos.
Coyoteland by Vanessa Hua
Set in El Nido, an affluent Bay Area suburb, Coyoteland follows Jin Chang who hopes his new move into the neighborhood with his family will help him achieve social status and end his string of bad luck. In the wake of a coyote attack during the escalation of fire season, chaos exposes the town hypocrisies and family scandals that will forever change the fate El Nido and its residents. Written with wit, empathy, and heart, Vanessa Hua gives us a rich suburban drama that forces us to untangle the details of our current world.
Distant Water: Poems by Beth Piatote
Beth Piatote is a scholar of Native American literature and focuses on the endangerment of Indigenous languages. In this debut poetry collection, she reminds us the integrated connectivity of our sonic world governed by ancestral knowledge with her inventive and playful prose through the wisdom of the Nez Perce language.
On Witness and Respair: Essays by Jesmyn Ward
I deeply admire the fantastic lyricism of Jesmyn Ward’s writing and am thrilled to read this collection of her essays. She writes with keen wisdom in this collection that starts from her upbringing in a multigenerational household in rural Mississippi and moves through the titular essay telling the story of her partner’s sudden death on the eve of the COVID-19 epidemic. Ward shows the mirrors, windows, and doors of her life that she finds in writers she loves like Octavia Butler, Richard Wright, and Toni Morrison. She reminds us of the healing that comes from writing and shows us hope and beauty in resilience.
Troubled Waters by Ichiyo Higuchi, translated by Bryan Karetnyk
A new translation of five remarkable stories from Japan’s first professional woman writer, Ichiyo Higuchi. Higuchi passed away at 24 in 1896 from tuberculosis and was a major figure in Meiji-era literature shining a light on the lives of Tokyo’s poor and broke a path for women writers.
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