In this intimate portrait of two generations, a granddaughter and a grandmother come to terms with what it means to be family, Black women, and alive in a world on fire.
Archives
SWIFT RIVER
It’s the summer of 1987 in Swift River, and Diamond Newberry is learning how to drive. Ever since her Pop disappeared seven years ago, she and her mother hitchhike everywhere they go. But that’s not the only reason Diamond stands out: she’s teased relentlessly about her weight, and the fact that since Pop’s been gone, she is the only Black person in all of Swift River. This summer, Ma is determined to declare Pop legally dead so that they can collect his life insurance money, get their house back from the bank, and finally move on. But when Diamond receives a letter from a relative she’s never met, key elements of Pop’s life are uncovered, and she is introduced to two generations of African American Newberry women, spanning the 20th century and revealing a much larger picture of prejudice and abandonment, of love and devotion. As pieces of their shared past become clearer, Diamond gains a sense of her place in the world and in her family. But how will what she’s learned of the past change her future? A story of first friendships, family secrets, and finding the courage to let go, Swift River is a sensational debut about how history shapes us that heralds the arrival of a major new literary talent.
DAUGHTERS OF SHANDONG
A propulsive, extraordinary novel about a mother and her daughters’ harrowing escape to Taiwan as the Communist revolution sweeps through China, by debut author Eve J. Chung, based on her family story
Daughters are the Ang family’s curse.
In 1948, civil war ravages the Chinese countryside, but in rural Shandong, the wealthy, landowning Angs are more concerned with their lack of an heir. Hai is the eldest of four girls and spends her days looking after her sisters. Headstrong Di, who is just a year younger, learns to hide in plain sight, and their mother—abused by the family for failing to birth a boy—finds her own small acts of rebellion in the kitchen. As the Communist army closes in on their town, the rest of the prosperous household flees, leaving behind the girls and their mother because they view them as useless mouths to feed.
Without an Ang male to punish, the land-seizing cadres choose Hai, as the eldest child, to stand trial for her family’s crimes. She barely survives their brutality. Realizing the worst is yet to come, the women plan their escape. Starving and penniless but resourceful, they forge travel permits and embark on a thousand-mile journey to confront the family that abandoned them.
From the countryside to the bustling city of Qingdao, and onward to British Hong Kong and eventually Taiwan, they witness the changing tide of a nation and the plight of multitudes caught in the wake of revolution. But with the loss of their home and the life they’ve known also comes new freedom—to take hold of their fate, to shake free of the bonds of their gender, and to claim their own story.
Told in assured, evocative prose, with impeccably drawn characters, Daughters of Shandong is a hopeful, powerful story about the resilience of women in war; the enduring love between mothers, daughters, and sisters; and the sacrifices made to lift up future generations.
JUST SOME STUPID LOVE STORY
For fans of Emily Henry, a debut about a rom-com screenwriter who doesn’t believe in love and a divorce attorney who does, forced together at their high school reunion fifteen years after their breakup
MALAS
A story full of passion and revenge, following one family living on the Texas Mexico border and a curse that reverberates across generations—“Fuentes has achieved something rare and indelible with this story of complex women.” (Erika L. Sanchez)
HONEY
Isabel Banta’s debut novel redefines the narratives of some of the most famous pop icons of the ‘90s and 2000s. It reimagines the superstars we idolized and hated, oversexualized and underestimated, and gives them the fresh, multifaceted story they deserve.
THE DEADING
Under The Dome by way of The Last of Us, as told around a beach bonfire with Stephen Graham Jones, Nicholas Belardes’s debut novel is an eco-horror book for our modern day. In a small, seaside town, what starts as a simple social media phenomenon gives way to a horrifying truth. People are not just, “deading,” aka taking disturbing pretend photos of their corpses: they are actually dying and returning. . . different with an agenda all their own. As the surrounding wildlife is strangely transformed by an unnatural contagion and the town comes under quarantine, those few who have not been infected and changed must find a way to survive, escape, or die trying. At points claustrophobic and haunting, soulful and melancholic, The Deading lyrically explores the disintegration of society, the horror of survival and adaptation, and the unexpected solace found through connections in nature and between humans.
HEADSHOT
An electrifying debut novel from an “unusually gifted writer” (Lorrie Moore) about the radical intimacy of physical competition.
A PAIR OF WINGS
A riveting, adventurous novel inspired by the life of pioneer aviatrix Bessie Coleman, a Black woman who learned to fly at the dawn of aviation, and found freedom in the air. A few years after the Wright Brothers’ first flight, Bessie was working the Texas cotton fields when an airplane flew right over their heads. Without even thinking, she spread her arms out and pretended she was flying. She knew there was freedom in those wings. The daughter of a woman born into slavery, Bessie answers the call of the great migration, moving to Chicago as a single woman. But in 1920, no one in the U.S. will train a Black woman to fly, so 26-year-old Bessie learns to speak French and bets it all on an epic journey to Europe as she begins a quest to defy the odds and gravity itself. Two years ahead of Amelia Earhart, Bessie is molded by battle-hardened French and German combat pilots, who teach her death-defying stunts. Bessie’s signature majestic loops, spiky barrel rolls, and hairpin turns, just like her hardscrabble journey, are spellbinding. While she finds there is no prejudice in the air, Bessie must wrestle with many challenges: She nearly dies in a plane crash, one of her brothers seems to be crumbling under the weight of Jim Crow, and as she grapples with tough truths about Binga, Bessie begins to wonder if the freedom she finds is the air means she must otherwise fly solo.
THE EYES ARE THE BEST PART
My Sister, The Serial Killer meets Crying in H-Mart in this debut psychological horror novel by Korean-American author, Monika Kim. Ji-Won’s life falls apart in the wake of her Appa’s affair and subsequent departure from the family. When the obnoxious, womanizing George enters her life, courting her Umma and pushing into the family, Ji-Won begins to dream of eyes, brilliant blue eyes, eyes just like his. And along with those eyes, a terrible hunger. A brilliantly inventive, subversively feminist novel about a young woman unraveling, Monika Kim’s The Eyes Are the Best Part is a story of a family falling apart and trying to find their way back to each other, marking a bold new voice in horror that will leave readers mesmerized and craving more.