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Black Culture Fiction September 2026 |
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Queenie Is Working on It
by Candice Carty-Williams
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER Candice Carty-Williams, internationally bestselling author of Queenie (now a television series on Hulu), reunites us with the iconic character nearly ten years on, facing new chaotic choices in life and love with cherished old friends and family in this highly anticipated sequel. Queenie Jenkins is moving on up. She's thirty-three, the editorial director for The Good Sis, a thriving media network amplifying the voices of Black women--a far cry from her former toxic workplace. With a great platform and a renewed sense of purpose, she's fighting the good fight. So when an appointment for research goes haywire and reveals startling truths about her own fertility, Queenie is confronted with a racing biological clock when she's not even sure she wants kids in the first place. She's sort of seeing someone, but it's not that serious (according to him), and her mom, grandma, and aunt Maggie all mean well, but they keep asking when she's going to settle down. Surrounded by loyal friends who seem to fall in love with their person and get pregnant at the drop of a hat and the reappearance of an old flame she never stopped loving while being pulled into a series of confusing situationships that really do NOT go anywhere means that for Queenie, time is running out in all parts of her life. She's determined to do what she thinks is best to get back on track, no matter how many mistakes it takes to get this right. Bigger. Not better. Older. Not wiser. The beloved and flawed Queenie Jenkins is scared, she is frustrated, she is confused...but she is working on it.
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The Disappearers
by Marlon James
From Marlon James, author of the Booker Prize-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings a propulsive novel about the murder of a gay man in 1980s Jamaica and its tragic consequences In 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin rehearsals for a play. The men are strangers to one another and each has a different reason for being involved. But they all share one inescapable truth: All of them are gaya battyman in Jamaican argotand all of them must contend with the dangers that such a truth lays bare. One night a mob savagely attacks them, killing one of the men. For the survivors, their recovery is as much emotional as it is physical. As their bodies heal, each man grapples with the violence, the hatred, and the rage that the attack made plain. Some try to ignore what the attack has unearthed, while others double down on retribution. In The Disappearers, Marlon James has written a riveting and deeply human story of men forced to make compromises to survive what the society they live in demands. It is both a dramatic page-turner and an unflinching exploration of queer life in Jamaica during the 1980s and 1990s.
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Laws of Solomon
by Eriq La Salle
An amazing read -- S.A. Cosby, New York Times bestselling authorLush and brutal, a poem hiding out as a novel. -- Rachel Howzell Hall, New York Times bestselling authorRedemption isn't given. It's fought for.After years of violence, Solomon leaves the brutal backdrop of New York and its underworld to find peace in California where he settles for the quiet life of a gardener defined by routine, restraint, and a fragile kind of peace that had alluded him. Having been a former child soldier, mercenary, and hit man, he is determined to put his past behind him. But as violence erupts on the grounds he tends, his hard-won tranquility shatters when he encounters a young boy named Gaby whose life is in danger.Protecting the child pulls Solomon back into a world he swore he'd buried. As they set out on an unexpected journey, hunted by men who will stop at nothing to get what they want, Solomon must confront not only the threat closing in but the darkness he carries within. Propulsive and deeply human, Laws of Solomon is a story of redemption, found family, and the cost of choosing compassion in a brutal world. In saving Gaby, Solomon may finally discover whether peace is something a man like him can earn--or something he must sacrifice everything to protect.
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By the Bootstraps
by Alexa Martin
Alexa Martin has crafted a cowboy romance keeper --Lyla Sage, #1 New York Times bestselling author AN INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER A cowboy romance enthusiast discovers that everything's bigger in Texas--even love--in this swoony novel from beloved author Alexa Martin. Fueled by a love of romance novels, Luna Starr was destined for a life with her head in the clouds. Her delusional tendencies serve her well...or at least they used to. When life throws her a curveball, she decides it's time to turn her cowboy fantasies into reality and purchases a tiny farm in Celestial, Texas. After all, don't all heroines try to outrun grief? Tate Jacobs hates cowboys, which is a small problem, considering his family happens to own the largest ranch in Celestial. Life might not have gone the way he wanted, but as head coach at his old high school and the town's best (and only) handyman, he's figured out how to stay busy and keep his head down--until the new girl in town shows up. Luna's new property is a bad accident waiting to happen unless someone helps her with her DIY home renovations. As Tate and Luna spend more time together fixing up her house, unexpected feelings and undeniable chemistry bubble to the surface. Luna might've moved to Celestial to make her cowboy dreams come true, but somewhere beneath the vast Texas skies, she discovers that love in the real world can be far better than she imagined.
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American Nightmare
by Kelly McWilliams
With its unflinching excavation of our dark past, American Nightmare is a page turner with a message.--Tayari Jones, New York Times bestselling author of Kin In this haunting historical novel, a light-skinned Black man goes undercover to investigate lynchings in the South, only to be confronted by the very evil that has pursued him since childhood... Clark Wendell White first encountered the Nightmare as a child during the Atlanta Race Riot of 1906, when he and his father stood guard over their family home. In the eyes of the mob surging through his neighborhood, Clark sensed this malevolent presence. It was then that the Nightmare took shape, burrowing deep into his mind and feeding on his fear. Years later, the same evil presence drives Clark to the NAACP's headquarters in New York City, where he answers an ad seeking light-skinned Black men for dangerous undercover work. As a spy for the NAACP, Clark investigates lynchings, impersonating the very Nightmare that once tormented him. As Clark descends deeper into this double life, another force rises: a new chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, finding a foothold in the storied streets of New York City. Among its eager recruits is Sam Cahill--the one man who can see past his disguise. Now Clark must outwit both the living and the dead, as he confronts a past that refuses to stay buried and a future where the act of passing exacts a soul-deep price. Inspired by the life of civil rights activist Walter White, who passed as a white man to expose the brutality of lynchings from the South to the Midwest, American Nightmare is a gripping historical thriller that reveals the most terrifying monsters aren't those that go bump in the night but those that walk among us.
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The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman
by Deesha Philyaw
Philyaw has created a heroine you can't help but root for, and a book you can't help but love. - Rufi Thorpe, author of Margo's Got Money TroublesSmart and juicy and compulsively readable. - Jasmine Guillory, New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Date and The ProposalThe wife of a popular and powerful megachurch pastor upends her charmed rags-to-Rolex life when her secret past comes roaring into the spotlight--in this funny and juicy and sexy and delicious peek behind the pulpit (Samantha Irby) from the acclaimed and beloved author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies.From the moment Scharisse Freeman ditched her humble roots and married a megachurch pastor fifteen years her senior, she's been labeled too brash and too of the world by church folks who grudgingly accepted her into their fold, and too holy by her estranged childhood bestie Petra. Schar doesn't have many allies, but that hasn't stopped her from building an enviable business empire spanning books to clothing to branded products, and living the comfortable life her husband's power affords her.On the eve of her 40th birthday, Schar gets the final bit of validation she's always dreamt of: a coveted invitation to participate in the First Lady USA pageant. This is her chance to be accepted by the other pastors' wives--First Ladies--who are like Jesus' disciples if they had been a group of mean girls. Finally, blissfully, the ice between Schar and the other First Ladies begins to thaw.But as the pageant nears, a sensational scandal breaks with Schar at its center, and her carefully curated life implodes. Schar faces down shame and terrible secrets from her childhood and is reminded that in the eyes of the church, optics can matter more than the truth.Unflinchingly funny, frank, and splendidly unruly, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman exults in the luscious, messy pleasure of finally feeling free.Deesha Philyaw has already established herself as one of the greatest short story writers, but in The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman she cements herself as the most soulfully entertaining writer of her era. - Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy and Long Division
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