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 Under the RadarJune 2025 |
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The Accidentals : Stories
by Guadalupe Nettel
From the International Booker Shortlisted author of Still Born, a powerful collection of stories about characters coping with estrangement, isolation, and the unknown.
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Big chief
by Jon Hickey
"There, There meets The Night Watchman in this gripping literary debut about power and corruption, family, and facing the ghosts of the past. Mitch Caddo, a young law school graduate and aspiring political fixer, is an outsider in the homeland of his Anishinaabe ancestors. But alongside his childhood friend, Tribal President Mack Beck, he runs the government of the Passage Rouge Nation, and with it, the tribe's Golden Eagle Casino and Hotel. On the eve of Mack's reelection, their tenuous grip on power isthreatened by a nationally known activist and politician, Gloria Hawkins, and her young aide, Layla Beck, none other than Mack's estranged sister and Mitch's former love. In their struggle for control over Passage Rouge, the campaigns resort to bare-knuckle political gamesmanship, testing the limits of how far they will go-and what they will sacrifice-to win it all. But when an accident claims the life of Mitch's mentor, a power broker in the reservation's political scene, the election slides into chaos and pits Mitch against the only family he has. As relationships strain to their breaking points and a peaceful protest threatens to become an all-consuming riot, Mitch and Layla must work together to stop the reservation's descent into violence. Thrillingand timely, Big Chief is an unforgettable story about the search for belonging-to an ancestral and spiritual home, to a family, and to a sovereign people at a moment of great historical importance"
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The ephemera collector : a novel
by Stacy Nathaniel Jackson
In near-future Los Angeles, archivist Xandria Brown, battling long COVID but aided by adaptive AI, must navigate a sudden lockdown and protect the Diwata Collection, a vital archive of African-American history and culture, from a violent plot. Illustrations.
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The fantasies of future things
by Doug Jones
"In this powerful debut reminiscent of Barry Jenkins's Moonlight, two men in Atlanta reconcile their human dignity against the price of their professional ambitions working for a real estate development company displacing Black residents in preparation for the 1996 Olympics. Daily interactions between Jacob and Daniel are a powder keg of sexual tension and uncertainty. A recent Morehouse graduate and Brooklyn transplant, Jacob fears that accepting the truth of his sexuality will disappoint the hopes his parents have for him to lead a respectable life. Grieving the death of his mother while searching for answers about a father he has never known, Daniel, an Atlanta native, has resigned himself to the reality that men who love men don't have happy endings.When Jacob meets Sherman, a social worker fighting for one of the families being displaced by the project, he must decide if rejecting security is worth the risk of embracing the unknown. In the midst of navigating his grief, and volatile relationship with Jacob, Daniel learns of his father's identity. Though meeting his father could provide Daniel with the closure he has always sought, the distance between what Daniel wants and what he's willing to do for it remains a question only he can answer"
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Happy land
by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
When Nikki visits her estranged grandmother in North Carolina, she uncovers a hidden legacy tied to a forgotten kingdom of freed people, unraveling her family's secrets and her own identity while fighting to protect their endangered heritage.
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Sky daddy : a novel
by Kate Folk
Linda is sexually attracted to planes, and a round-trip flight from San Francisco makes her feel like no human lover could—but when coworker Karina invites her to brunch and Linda's life becomes unbalanced, she must choose normalcy or her dream of“marrying” a suitor by dying in a plane crash.
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Sleeping children : a novel
by Anthony Passeron
"An intimate, captivating, and prizewinning first novel that tells the story of a family in southern France whose lives are intertwined with the history of the AIDS crisis"
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When the harvest comes : a novel
by Denne Michele Norris
On the eve of his wedding, Davis Freeman's joy is shattered by news of his estranged father's death, forcing him to confront buried trauma and the fragile balance of love and inheritance in his new life with Everett.
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When the tides held the moon
by Venessa Vida Kelley
"Benigno "Benny" Caldera knows an orphaned Boricua blacksmith in 1910s New York City can't call himself an artist. But the ironwork tank he creates for famed Coney Island playground, Luna Park, astounds everyone, especially the eccentric side-show proprietor who commissioned it. Benny's work earns him an invitation to join the show's eclectic crew of performers--his first welcome in the city--and share in their astonishing secret: the tank Benny built is a cage for their newest exhibit, a living, breathing, in-the-flesh merman stolen from the banks of the East River under a gleaming full moon. The merman is more than a mythic marvel, though. Benny comes to know Râio as a clever philosopher, an observant traveler, and a kindred spirit more beautiful and compassionate than any human he's ever met. Despite their different worlds, what begins as a friendship of necessity deepens to love, leading Benny's heart into uncharted waters where he can no longer ignore the agonizing truth of Râio's captivity--and hisown. A cage is no place for a merman to survive. Though releasing Râio means betraying his new family, bankrupting their home, and losing his soulmate forever, Benny must look within for the courage to do what's right, and find a love strong enough to free them both"
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Zeal : a novel
by Morgan Jerkins
"Harlem, 2019. Ardelia and Oliver are hosting their engagement party. As the guests get ready to leave, he hands her a love letter on a yellowing, crumbling piece of paper... Natchez, 1865. Discharged from the Union Army as a free man after the war's end, Harrison returns to Mississippi to reunite with the woman he loves, Tirzah. Upon his arrival at the Freedmen's Bureau, though, he catches the eye of a woman working there, who's determined to thwart his efforts to find his beloved. After tragedy strikes, Harrison resigns himself to a life with her. Meanwhile in Louisiana, the newly free Tirzah is teaching at a freedmen's school, and discovers an advertisement in the local paper looking for her. Though she knows Harrison must have placed it, and longs tofind him, the risks of fleeing are too great, and Tirzah chooses the life of seeming security right in front of her. Spanning over a hundred and fifty years, Morgan Jerkins's extraordinary novel intertwines the stories of these star-crossed lovers and their descendants. As Tirzah's family moves across the country during the Great Migration, they challenge authority with devastating consequences, while of the legacy of heartbreak and loss continues on in the lives of Harrison's progeny. When Ardelia meetsOliver, she finds his family's history is as full of secrets and omissions as her own. Could their connection be a cosmic reconciliation satisfying the unfulfilled desires of their ancestors, or will the weight of the past, present and future tear them apart?"
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