With roots in Trinidad and Tobago, Harlem-based James is an award-winning author known for storytelling that centers identity, love and belonging across the African diaspora. In her latest offering, she gives us a captivating collection of stories about love beyond the honeymoon stage and delves into the sometimes complicated, confusing and always nuanced messiness of it all.

As a Black supermodel in the competitive and cutthroat fashion industry, Harlow knows confidence, tenacity and discipline intimately. In her debut picture book, she covers all three important themes for the 4–8-year-old set. Inspired by her own childhood, Harlow wins in her first picture book that includes wisdom from her grandma about the beauty of authenticity.

In this twisty thriller involving a popular beauty influencer, the head concierge at a luxury Chicago hotel and a determined police detective, drama and mystery unfolds and sheds light on the startling disappearance of African American women who mainstream media rarely cover and law enforcement too often dismisses. This novel is unapologetically Blackity Black, the characters are layered and their stories resonate.

Hampton University grad and New Jersey native Branch is an Emmy award winning director and producer, so he knows a thing or two about the power of great storytelling. He poured those storytelling talents into this vulnerable memoir that probes the intersection of complex father and son relationships, masculinity, Blackness and healing wounds as a pathway to freedom.

Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor is a history professor who teaches courses on race, slavery and her father, comedic and pop culture legend Richard Pryor. Part memoir, part exploration of the historical and contemporary use of the n-word, this hybrid book peels back the layers on the life of Papa Pryor and analyzes one of the most perplexing words in the English language, a word he actually helped popularize.

Is your teen searching for an action-packed mystery meets horror novel that blurs the lines between truth and perception? British young adult author Barrow has them (and you!) covered with this thriller that skillfully unpacks the politics of teenage girlhood, race and class.

A fascinating read that unpacks how and we perceive beauty, and what we in turn have been taught to do with that perception. Drawing from years of research in mental health, neuroscience, and culture, psychofuturist Allycin Powell-Hicks, PhD traces how beauty myths get programmed into us all—through ancestry, lineage and the stories passed down long before we could question them.

Ghanaian representation and complicated (But aren’t they all?) family dynamics are thoughtfully explored in this romantic drama centering a high-powered journalist and themes of love, suspense and culture. The steamy friends-to-lovers romance is set in a fictionalized Washington, DC, and reimagines the pursuit of a new American dream.

Affectionately known as the Grandmother of Juneteenth, at the tender age of 99 and still in her “right mind”, Ms. Lee is a bona fide force. She’s a big reason then President Biden passed the 2021 bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Now the Marshall, Texas native is educating us on her activism, her incredible life story and why adversity need not define one’s destiny.

The babies want and deserve great summer reads, too! An award-winning author, Grant continues her tradition of championing positive representation of Black childhood in literature. This beautifully illustrated picture book features a young girl who deep dives to uncover a sunken slave ship. It is a touching tribute to heritage, while shining a light on the brave divers who explore these shipwrecks.

The New York Times bestselling author (and former ESSENCE editor) who brought us faves like Seven Days in June and The Perfect Find, which became a Netflix romantic comedy starring Gabrielle Union is back. This time Williams returns with another sizzling novel that includes a blush-inducing sex scene on a kitchen island. In her latest book, we meet a booked and busy casting agent, Sasha Cruz, a charismatic private investigator Wes Dane and a mysterious business mogul, Seat 1F who are all on one heck of a ride.

This humorous, heartwarming and honest essay collection by a proud Spelman College grad leans on wisdom of the Southern Black women who raised while infusing thought-provoking stories of dancing in Janelle Monae’s “Tightrope” music video and partnering with Tracee Ellis Ross to compose odes to natural hair. Within the pages on this debut literary project, “Black girl” is a verb.

Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, Cox was still a struggling actress working in a drag restaurant well into her 40s. She thought her dreams of becoming a Hollywood star were just that until she landed a prime role in Orange is the New Black. Cox made history as the first openly transgender person nominated for a Primetime Emmy and became the first transgender person to win a Daytime Emmy as executive producer on Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word. She details all of this and more in her New York Times bestselling memoir.