Books

(Grievers Trilogy, Book 1) (Black Dawn, 1)

★ "It’s a strong precedent that will leave readers eager for more." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Grievers is the story of a city so plagued by grief that it can no longer function.

Dune’s mother is patient zero of a mysterious illness that stops people in their tracks—in mid-sentence, mid-action, mid-life—casting them into a nonresponsive state from which no one recovers. Dune must navigate poverty and the loss of her mother as Detroit’s hospitals, morgues, and graveyards begin to overflow. As the quarantined city slowly empties of life, she investigates what caused the plague, and what might end it, following in the footsteps of her late researcher father, who has a physical model of Detroit’s history and losses set up in their basement. She dusts it off and begins tracking the sick and dying, discovering patterns, finding comrades in curiosity, conspiracies for the fertile ground of the city, and the unexpected magic that emerges when the debt of grief is cleared.

By: Christie Tate (Author), 2021, Hardcover

A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The refreshingly original and “startlingly hopeful” (Lisa Taddeo) debut memoir of an over-achieving young lawyer who reluctantly agrees to group therapy and gets psychologically and emotionally naked in a room of six complete strangers—and finds human connection, and herself.

Christie Tate had just been named the top student in her law school class and finally had her eating disorder under control. Why then was she driving through Chicago fantasizing about her own death? Why was she envisioning putting an end to the isolation and sadness that still plagued her despite her achievements?

Enter Dr. Rosen, a therapist who calmly assures her that if she joins one of his psychotherapy groups, he can transform her life. All she has to do is show up and be honest. About everything—her eating habits, childhood, sexual history, etc. Christie is skeptical, insisting that that she is defective, beyond cure. But Dr. Rosen issues a nine-word prescription that will change everything: “You don’t need a cure. You need a witness.”

So begins her entry into the strange, terrifying, and ultimately life-changing world of group therapy. Christie is initially put off by Dr. Rosen’s outlandish directives, but as her defenses break down and she comes to trust Dr. Rosen and to depend on the sessions and the prescribed nightly phone calls with various group members, she begins to understand what it means to connect.

“Often hilarious, and ultimately very touching” (People), Group is “a wild ride” (The Boston Globe), and with Christie as our guide, we are given a front row seat to the daring, exhilarating, painful, and hilarious journey that is group therapy—an under-explored process that breaks you down, and then reassembles you so that all the pieces finally fit.

A debut novel that tells the story of Rasa, a young gay man coming of age in the Middle East
 
Set over the course of twenty-four hours, Guapa follows Rasa, a gay man living in an unnamed Arab country, as he tries to carve out a life for himself in the midst of political and social upheaval. Rasa spends his days translating for Western journalists and pining for the nights when he can sneak his lover, Taymour, into his room. One night Rasa's grandmother — the woman who raised him — catches them in bed together. The following day Rasa is consumed by the search for his best friend Maj, a fiery activist and drag queen star of the underground bar, Guapa, who has been arrested by the police. Ashamed to go home and face his grandmother, and reeling from the potential loss of the three most important people in his life, Rasa roams the city’s slums and prisons, the lavish weddings of the country’s elite, and the bars where outcasts and intellectuals drink to a long-lost revolution. Each new encounter leads him closer to confronting his own identity, as he revisits his childhood and probes the secrets that haunt his family. As Rasa confronts the simultaneous collapse of political hope and his closest personal relationships, he is forced to discover the roots of his alienation and try to re-emerge into a society that may never accept him.

 By: Matthew A. Cherry (Author), Vashti Harrison (Illustrator), 2019, Hardcover

A New York Times Bestseller and tie-in to Academy-Award Winning Short Film "Hair Love"
 
"I love that Hair Love is highlighting the relationship between a Black father and daughter. Matthew leads the ranks of new creatives who are telling unique stories of the Black experience. We need this."
     - Jordan Peele, Actor & Filmmaker

It's up to Daddy to give his daughter an extra-special hair style in this ode to self-confidence and the love between fathers and daughters, from Academy-Award winning director and former NFL wide receiver Matthew A. Cherry and New York Times bestselling illustrator Vashti Harrison.

Zuri's hair has a mind of its own. It kinks, coils, and curls every which way. Zuri knows it's beautiful. When Daddy steps in to style it for an extra special occasion, he has a lot to learn. But he LOVES his Zuri, and he'll do anything to make her -- and her hair -- happy.

Tender and empowering, Hair Love is an ode to loving your natural hair -- and a celebration of daddies and daughters everywhere. A perfect gift for special occasions including Father’s Day, birthdays, baby showers, and more!

By: Matthew A. Cherry (Author), Vashti Harrison (Illustrator), 2024, Board Book, Picture Book

An alphabet board book inspired by the bestselling HAIR LOVE, from the original award–winning author and illustrator duo—and perfect for baby gift baskets.

A is for Afro, N is for Natural, and W is for Waves. Letter by letter, follow Zuri and her father in their joy-filled journey through the kinks and curls of Black hair.

This 7x7 board book is perfect as a baby gift, for existing fans of HAIR LOVE, young readers embracing their natural hair, and toddlers learning their ABCs!

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • From the award-winning, bestselling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists—a haunting story of love and war. • Recipient of the Women’s Prize for Fiction “Winner of Winners” award.

With effortless grace, celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie illuminates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene.

Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war.

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of The Marriage Portrait delivers a luminous portrait of a marriage, a family ravaged by grief, and a boy whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time. • “Of all the stories that argue and speculate about Shakespeare’s life ... here is a novel ... so gorgeously written that it transports you." —The Boston Globe  

England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on.

A young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.

Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautifully bound pocket-sized gift editions of much loved classic titles. Bound in real cloth, printed on high quality paper, and featuring ribbon markers and gilt edges, Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure. This edition is edited by Dr Simon Avery, a specialist in queer history and culture at the University of Westminster.

Hand in Hand with Love is a celebration of queer voices throughout the ages, featuring an electrifying range of poems from Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Oscar Wilde, Christina Rossetti, Wilfred Owen and many more.

From Sappho and the Ancient Greeks to Edna St. Vincent Millay and the modernists, this luminous anthology champions and redefines the spectrum of queer poetry – from visionary writers whose only safe space to express their intimate thoughts was on the page, to the pioneering poets who paved the way for decades to come. Together, these dynamic voices offer a vivid archive of queer identity to be celebrated, discovered and treasured.

A beguiling collection of kinky, sapphic smut, featuring steamy encounters that seamlessly incorporate femme, butch, and enby characters' diverse disabilities into each scene. Let your imagination run wild in these stories celebrating the liberatory thrills of dom/sub play, gender fluidity, scintillating communication, and more, told with romantic flair and no shortage of juicy details. From canes to nerve pain, wheelchair use to depression, each page makes clear that people with disabilities have agency, autonomy, and hot sex. Some of these stories may push boundaries, so choose your safe word (one suggestion from inside: "communion") before partaking in their pleasures.

By Cindy Jin: Board Books; 16 pages / English

[Little Simon] All Season’s Greetings and Happy ALL-idays! Learn how different families celebrate the winter season with this holiday card-inspired board book that captures the meaning of Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, and more! The time has come to send holiday cheer to family and friends far and near. We all celebrate the season in our own special way. Let’s look at how families prepare for each holiday! Whether it’s putting up the Christmas tree, lighting the menorah, or getting ready for Kwanzaa, this story proves that the holiday season is a special time for everyone and a great way to learn about different winter holidays and send cheer to everyone you know!

By: Amy Friedl (Author), Drew Clark (Illustrator), 2024, Paperback

Strong Girls Travel is a book series showcasing a young girl's adventures in America's National Parks. Each book finds her learning something new about herself, her world, and her part in it all.

In AJ's Birthday at Congaree, AJ's "Epic Birthday Extravaganza Weekend" turns into a bicker-fest with her best friend and birthday twin, Max. One wants a late-night bonfire; the other wants a movie marathon. And neither of them can agree on a birthday dessert! Shouldn't each girl get what she wants on her own birthday?

Follow AJ and Max as they realize that just like the messy and beautiful floodplain at Congaree National Park, sometimes life has both give and take. And great moments can be found in what we teach and in what we learn.

"Dazzling. . . . An extraordinary document in care, mutual aid, and access."―Claudia Rankine

Named a Best Debut Book of 2025 by Debutiful

An imaginative and unforgettable debut poetry collection about the joys and complexities of the disability community from 2024 Ruth Lilly fellow Rob Macaisa Colgate.

Brilliant and innovative, Rob Macaisa Colgate’s debut poetry collection, Hardly Creatures, takes the form―visually and metaphorically―of an accessible art museum. Through nine sections that act as gallery rooms, the book shepherds the reader through the radiance and mess of the disability community.

At the heart of the collection is an exploration and recognition of access intimacy. Marked with universal access symbols to guide the way, poems mimic sensory rooms, tactile replicas, benches for resting, and more; “the body of a poem” itself is reimagined through formal experimentation, as abecedarians are scrambled out of order and sestinas are pressurized into new sequences. These poems also play with pop culture allusions, social media posts, and the infinite possibilities within queer love and deep friendships. With lyrical clarity and attention to language, Hardly Creatures reaches out and offers inventive, heartfelt insights for all readers, and celebrates the disability community through the lens of a visionary new voice in poetry.

By: Tamsyn Muir (Author), 2020, Paperback

Harrow the Ninth, an Amazon pick for Best SFF of 2020 and the New York Times and USA Today bestselling sequel to Gideon the Ninth, turns a galaxy inside out as one necromancer struggles to survive the wreckage of herself aboard the Emperor's haunted space station.

The Locked Tomb is a 2023 Hugo Award Finalist for Best Series!

“Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space! Decadent nobles vie to serve the deathless emperor! Skeletons!” ―Charles Stross on Gideon the Ninth

“Unlike anything I've ever read.” ―V.E. Schwab on Gideon the Ninth

“Deft, tense and atmospheric, compellingly immersive and wildly original.” ―The New York Times on Gideon the Ninth

She answered the Emperor's call.

She arrived with her arts, her wits, and her only friend.

In victory, her world has turned to ash.

After rocking the cosmos with her deathly debut, Tamsyn Muir continues the story of the penumbral Ninth House in Harrow the Ninth, a mind-twisting puzzle box of mystery, murder, magic, and mayhem. Nothing is as it seems in the halls of the Emperor, and the fate of the galaxy rests on one woman's shoulders.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her Emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath ― but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her.

Sealed in the gothic gloom of the Emperor's Mithraeum with three unfriendly teachers, hunted by the mad ghost of a murdered planet, Harrow must confront two unwelcome questions: is somebody trying to kill her? And if they succeeded, would the universe be better off?

THE LOCKED TOMB SERIES
BOOK 1: Gideon the Ninth
BOOK 2: Harrow the Ninth
BOOK 3: Nona the Ninth
BOOK 4: Alecto the Ninth

From critically acclaimed author Barbara Dee comes a “thought-provoking…wonderful” (School Library Journal) middle grade novel about a young girl who channels her anxiety about the climate crisis into rallying her community to save a local river.

Twelve-year-old Haven Jacobs can’t stop thinking about the climate crisis. In fact, her anxiety about the state of the planet is starting to interfere with her schoolwork, her friendships, even her sleep. She can’t stop wondering why grownups aren’t even trying to solve the earth’s problem—and if there’s anything meaningful that she, as a seventh grader, can contribute.

When Haven’s social studies teacher urges her to find a specific, manageable way to make a difference to the planet, Haven focuses on the annual science class project at the local Belmont River, where her class will take samples of the water to analyze. Students have been doing the project for years, and her older brother tells her that his favorite part was studying and catching frogs.

But when Haven and her classmates get to the river, there’s no sign of frogs or other wildlife—but there is ample evidence of pollution. The only thing that’s changed by the river is the opening of Gemba, the new factory where Haven’s dad works. It doesn’t take much investigation before Haven is convinced Gemba is behind the slow pollution of the river.

She’s determined to expose Gemba and force them to clean up their act. But when it becomes clear taking action might put her dad’s job—and some friendships—in jeopardy, Haven must decide how far she’s willing to go.

USA TODAY bestseller, #1 international bestseller, and Indie Next Pick

Best of 2023 Pick for Autostraddle and BookPage; a Recommended Reading List Pick for Locus; Locus Award Finalist; Dragon Award Finalist

The sequel and series conclusion to She Who Became the Sun, the accomplished, poetic debut of war and destiny, sweeping across an epic alternate China. Mulan meets The Song of Achilles.

How much would you give to win the world?

Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. Now she burns with a new desire: to seize the throne and crown herself emperor.

But Zhu isn’t the only one with imperial ambitions. Her neighbor in the south, the courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband―and she’s strong enough to wipe Zhu off the map. To stay in the game, Zhu will have to gamble everything on a risky alliance with an old enemy: the talented but unstable eunuch general Ouyang, who has already sacrificed everything for a chance at revenge on his father’s killer, the Great Khan.

Unbeknownst to the southerners, a new contender is even closer to the throne. The scorned scholar Wang Baoxiang has maneuvered his way into the capital, and his lethal court games threaten to bring the empire to its knees. For Baoxiang also desires revenge: to become the most degenerate Great Khan in history―and in so doing, make a mockery of every value his Mongol warrior family loved more than him.

All the contenders are determined to do whatever it takes to win. But when desire is the size of the world, the price could be too much for even the most ruthless heart to bear…