Check out these recent additions to our catalog from debut and diverse authors.
The awoken : a novel
Katelyn Monroe Howes
2022
ISBN: 9780593185285
"A cinematic, speculative debut about a woman who undergoes cryogenic preservation at the time of her death and wakes up a century later in a world where her very life is a crime. When Alabine Rivers, a politically active young woman with a bright career and romance ahead of her, finds out the devastating news that she has terminal cancer, the only thing that gives her solace is the possibility of a second life through the emerging field of cryogenics. A century later, scientists have indeed discovered how to bring back the dead from preservation, but humanity has been locked in a philosophical battle over the ethics of this new Godlike power, a battle that has turned violent: those who are resurrected, the Awoken, have been declared illegal and are to be shot on sight. This is the world Alabine is brought into by the Resurrectionists, an underground militia fighting for the rights of the Awoken. Finding herself in a completely unfamiliar world, and one where she is an outsider for the first time in her life, Alabine must figure out how to survive and determine her place in this new world, all the while being haunted by lucid memories of her previous life and the man she loved. The Awoken is a gripping, action-packed story full of plot twists and high emotion. It's a look at prejudice, complicity, the fears that tear us apart, and the hope that can bring us together"-- Provided by publisher.
Big girl : a novel
Mecca Jamilah Sullivan
2022
ISBN: 9781324091417
"Exquisitely compassionate and witty, Big Girl traces the intergenerational hungers and desires of Black womanhood, as told through the unforgettable voice of Malaya Clondon. In her highly anticipated debut novel, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan explores the perils--and undeniable beauty--of insatiable longing. Growing up in a rapidly changing Harlem, eight-year-old Malaya hates when her mother drags her to Weight Watchers meetings; she'd rather paint alone in her bedroom or enjoy forbidden street foods with her father. For Malaya, the pressures of her predominantly white Upper East Side prep school are relentless, as are the expectations passed down from her painfully proper mother and sharp-tongued grandmother. As she comes of age in the 1990s, she finds solace in the music of Biggie Smalls and Aaliyah, but her weight continues to climb--until a family tragedy forces her to face the source of her hunger, ultimately shattering her inherited stigmas surrounding women's bodies, and embracing her own desire. Written with vibrant lyricism shot through with tenderness, Big Girl announces Sullivan as an urgent and vital voice in contemporary fiction"-- Provided by publisher.
Brother alive : a novel
Zain Khalid
2022
ISBN: 9780802159762
"In 1990, three boys are born, unrelated but intertwined by circumstance: Dayo, Iseul, and Youssef. They are adopted as infants and live in a shared bedroom perched atop a mosque in one of Staten Island's most diverse and precarious neighborhoods, Coolidge. The three boys are an inseparable if conspicuous trio: Dayo is of Nigerian origin, Iseul is Korean, and Youssef indeterminately Middle Eastern. Nevertheless, Youssef is keeping a secret: he sees a hallucinatory double, an imaginary friend who seems absolutely real, a shapeshifting familiar he calls Brother. The boys' adoptive father, Imam Salim, is known for his radical sermons, but at home he is often absent, spending long evenings in his study with whiskey-laced coffee, writing letters to his former compatriots back in Saudi Arabia. Like Youssef, he too has secrets, including the cause of his failing health and the truth about what happened to the boys' parents. When Imam Salim's path takes him back to Saudi Arabia, the boys will be forced to follow. There they will be captivated by an opulent, almost futuristic world, a linear city that seems to offer a more sustainable modernity than that of the West. But they will have to change if they want to survive in this new world, and the arrival of a creature as powerful as Brother will not go unnoticed. Stylistically brilliant and intellectually acute, Brother Alive is a remarkable novel of family, capitalism, power, sexuality, and the possibility of reunion for those who are broken"-- Provided by publisher.
Calling for a blanket dance : a novel
by Oscar Hokeah
2022
ISBN: 9781643751474
"A young Native American boy in a splintering family grasps for stability and love, making all the wrong choices until he finds a space of his own"-- Provided by publisher.
ISBN: 9780063218017
It's 1977, and Faun Novak is in love with rock 'n' roll. After her mother's death, Faun, a naïve college dropout, grabs her Polaroid and hops a Greyhound to Los Angeles. In the City of Angels, she reconnects with her charismatic childhood friend Josie, now an up-and-coming model and muse. To make their reunion even sweeter, Josie is now dating Cal Holiday, the frontman of the superstar rock band Holiday Sun, and Faun is positively mesmerized. Except it's not just the band she can't get enough of. It's also the proud groupies who support them in myriad ways. Among the groupies are: a doting high school girl at war with her mother; a drug-dealing wife and new mom who longs to be a star herself; and a cynical mover-and-shaker with a soft spot for Holiday Sun's bassist. Faun obsessively photographs every aspect of this dazzling new world, struggling to balance her artistic ambitions with the band's expectations. As her confidence grows for the first time in her life, her priorities shift. She becomes reckless with friendship, romance, her ethics, and her bank account. But just as everything is going great and her boring, old life is falling away, Faun realizes just how blind she has been to the darkest corners of this glamorous musical dreamland as the summer heats up and everything spirals out of control . . .
An honest living
Dwyer Murphy
2022
ISBN: 9780593489246
"A sharp and stylish debut from the editor-in-chief of CrimeReads in which an unwitting private eye gets caught up in a crime of obsession between a reclusive literary superstar and her bookseller husband, paying homage to the noir genre just as smartly as it reinvents it. After leaving behind the comforts and the shackles of a prestigious law firm, a restless attorney makes ends meet in mid-2000s Brooklyn by picking up odd jobs from a colorful assortment of clients. When a mysterious woman named Anna Reddick turns up at his apartment with ten thousand dollars in cash and asks him to track down her missing husband Newton, an antiquarian bookseller who she believes has been pilfering rare true crime volumes from her collection, he trusts it will be a quick and easy case. But when the real Anna Reddick--a magnetic but unpredictable literary prodigy--lands on his doorstep with a few bones to pick, he finds himself out of his depth, drawn into a series of deceptions involving Joseph Conrad novels, unscrupulous booksellers, aspiring flâneurs, and seedy real estate developers. Set against the backdrop of New York at the tail end of the analog era and immersed in the worlds of literature and bookselling, An Honest Living is a gripping story of artistic ambition, obsession, and the small crimes we commit against one another every day"-- Provided by publisher.
Honey and spice : a novel
Bolu Babalola
2022
ISBN: 9780063141483
"A young black British woman with a popular student radio show that dishes out relationship advice finds her show and her reputation on the line after she makes out with a man she publicly denounced"-- Provided by publisher
Keya Das's second act
by Sopan Deb
2022
ISBN: 9781982185473
"From a New York Times reporter and memoirist Sopan Deb comes a heartwarming and charmingly funny debut novel about a box in the attic that leads one Bengali-American family down a path toward rediscovering family love, even when splintered. Shantanu Das is living in the shadows of his past. In his 60s, he finds himself iced out of his traditional Bengali community after an uncouth divorce from his wife, Chaitali; he hasn't spoken to his eldest daughter Mitali in months; and most painfully, he lives each day with the regret that the Dases couldn't accept their youngest daughter Keya after coming out as gay. As the anniversary of Keya's death approaches, Shantanu wakes up one morning utterly alone in his suburban New Jersey home and realizes it's finally time to sell the place. That's when he discovers a tucked away box in his attic that could change everything. When Mitali Das gets a call from her estranged father asking her to come back to New Jersey and help him pack up the house, she does so out of pity. But then father and daughter find the manuscript of an unfinished play Keya and her girlfriend had been writing. It's a wild idea, but Shantanu has nothing left to lose: what if they were to stage the play? It could be an homage to Keya's memory, and a way to make amends. But first he'll need to convince Keya's girlfriend, Pamela, to give her blessing. Soon Shantanu has assembled a host of unlikely helpers-Kalpana, his traditional Bengali mother; Catherine, his dry witted girlfriend; his ex-wife Chaitali and her new husband, Jahar; and Neesh, Mitali's boyfriend who, with surprising revelations from his past, binds them all together. Set in the vibrant world of the Bengali New Jersey suburbs, Keya Das's Second Act is a warmly drawn homage to family, creativity, and second chances. In his debut novel, Sopan Deb has written a poignant and at turns surprisingly hilarious testament to the unexpected ways we build family and find love, old and new"-- Provided by publisher.