Another Word For Love (2024) by Carvell Wallace is such a beautiful memoir that, after listening to it, I had to purchase it so I could browse its wisdom whenever I want. The author reads the audiobook himself, so I recommend that version if you do audiobooks. Wallace was raised by a single mother whoContinue reading “Another Word For Love”
Tag Archives: Black experience
Mazywood
Mazywood (publication day September 22, 2026) by Tananarive Due scared me so much one evening I had to stop reading it until daytime! With two timelines–beginning in the Golden Age of Hollywood, it follows Mazelle Washington, a child star when films were still silent, through her lifetime, and alternates with a present day timeline followingContinue reading “Mazywood”
Our Sister’s Keeper
Our Sister’s Keeper (publication day June 9, 2026) by historian Jasmine Holmes is a superb historical fantasy/ horror novel set in a fictional 1920s Mississippi town called East Cobb. East Cobb is the black sister to the white town of West Cobb, and it’s different than most–it’s thriving and everyone seems happy. Thea and herContinue reading “Our Sister’s Keeper”
Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler
Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler (2025) by Susana M. Morris is one of the best biographies that I’ve read, about one of the most amazing authors of speculative fiction that ever lived. Although I’ve not reviewed any of Butler’s work in this space (that’s changing next week with a reviewContinue reading “Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler”
The Reformatory
I just about have no words (with reverent awe) for The Reformatory (2023) by Tananarive Due, but since writing about books is the reason for this blog, I have to come up with some. First, this book is an example of my belief that white people need to read books written by black people (andContinue reading “The Reformatory”
Guide Me Home
I’ve only posted one review of Attica Locke’s books here (The Cutting Season (2012)) but I have assiduously read everything she publishes. So I was looking forward to the final installment of the Highway 59 trilogy, Guide Me Home (2024), which follows now-retired Texas Ranger Darren Matthews as he adjusts to life in retirement andContinue reading “Guide Me Home”
Lovely One: A Memoir
Lovely One: A Memoir (2024) by Ketanji Brown Jackson was a completely engrossing and inspiring American story. Justice Jackson credits many things for her success, but the first is the great good fortune of the timing of her birth–in 1970, just at the dawn of the post-civil rights era where the successes that eliminated JimContinue reading “Lovely One: A Memoir”
These Heathens
I was a big fan of Mia McKenzie’s 2021 Skye Falling, so I was thrilled to come across her newest, These Heathens, (publication day June 15, 2025), on NetGalley! Told from the perspective of Doris, a seventeen-year old pregnant Black girl in 1960 rural Georgia who had to leave school at fifteen to take careContinue reading “These Heathens”
All the Sinners Bleed
All the Sinners Bleed (2023) by Anthony award-winning S.A. Cosby was a gripping, frightening mystery/ thriller set in rural, coastal Virginia featuring former FBI agent, and the county’s first Black sheriff, Titus Crown. Racial tensions are coming to a head, with local white people wanting to parade in support of a Confederate statue and TitusContinue reading “All the Sinners Bleed”
One of Our Kind
One of Our Kind (2024) is bestselling YA author Nicola Yoon’s adult fiction debut, so I was very much looking forward to it, and I was not disappointed. That being said, a quick scan of some of the Goodreads reviews told me my opinion was in no way universal–many people did not like it atContinue reading “One of Our Kind”
