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Celebrating Women’s History Month

LinneaLeave a comment

There are so many wonderful, new books being published but since it is still Women’s History Month, I wanted to focus on…women authors! I’ve created a list of a few recently published books by debut women authors to continue our celebration of Women’s History Month. From witches to thrillers to family strife, we’ve got it covered.  

Rootless by Krystle Zara Appiah 

“When his wife, unable to handle the demands of motherhood and feeling the dreams she had slipping away once again, disappears, leaving their toddler son behind, Sam finds his vision for their future shattered, in this heartrending love story that explores what happens after a marriage collapses.” 

Such Pretty Flowers by K. L. Cerra 

“A woman investigating her brother’s apparent suicide finds herself falling for her prime suspect—his darkly mysterious girlfriend—in this edgy Southern gothic thriller.” 

Weyward by Emilia Hart 

“Told over five centuries through three connected women, this riveting novel follows Kate, in 2019, as she seeks refuge in Weyward Cottage; Altha, in 1619, as she uses her powers to maintain her freedom; and Violet, in 1942, as she searches for the truth about her mother’s death.”  

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson 

“A funny, sharply observed novel of family, wealth, love and tennis, this zeitgeisty debut follows three women in an old Brooklyn Heights clan: one who was born with money, one who married into it, and one, the millennial conscience of the family, who wants to give it all away. Rife with the indulgent pleasures of affluent WASPS in New York and full of recognizable if fallible characters, it’s about the peculiar unknowability of someone else’s family, about the haves and have-nots and the nuances in between, and the insanity of first love-Pineapple Street is a scintillating, wryly comic novel of race, class, wealth and privilege in an age that disdains all of it.” 

What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez by Claire Jimenez 

“A powerful debut novel follows a Puerto Rican family in Staten Island who discovers their long missing sister is potentially alive and cast on a reality TV show, and they set out to bring her home.”

The Secrets of Hartwood Hall by Katie Lumsden 

“In 1852, young widow Margaret Lennox, taking a position as governess to an only child at an isolated country house in the West of England, starts to feel that something isn’t quite right and, as her past threatens to catch up with her, she learns the truth behind the secrets of Hartwood Hall.”

The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes 

“Seven years after the mysterious death of her best friend, Aubrey, Maya comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman dies in front of the same man Aubrey did, leading her back to a New England cabin to finally uncover a truth that could save her.”  

-Linnea 

Celebrating Black Authors 

LinneaLeave a comment

There are innumerable Black authors that have impacted, influenced, and informed the landscape of literature—Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, Ralph Ellison, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and many more prolific, important people.

For Black History Month, I want to highlight some Black authors that published their debuts in 2022 and 2023.  

Jackal by Erin E. Adams 10/2022 

A young Black girl goes missing in the woods outside her white Rust Belt town. But she’s not the first-and she may not be the last…  

It’s watching. 

Promise Boys by Nick Brooks (1/2023) 

In Brooks’ YA debut, three prep school students are accused of murdering their high school principal. The boys team up to find the real killer before it’s too late. 

Stories from the Tenants Downstairs by Sidik Fofana (8/2022) 

This collection of short stories follows each tenant in the Banneker Homes, a low-income high rise in Harlem where gentrification weighs on everyone’s mind, as they weave in and out of each other’s lives, endeavoring to escape from their pasts and forge new paths forward. 

Maame by Jessica George (1/2023) 

A young British Ghanaian woman navigates her 20s and finds her place in the world. 

Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey (10/2022) 

Rooted in spiritual energy and centered in black liberation, womanism and Afrofuturism, the founder of The Nap Ministry sheds new light on our troubled relationship with rest and how to imagine and dream our way to a future where rest is exalted – and a divine human right. 

Sink: A Memoir by Joseph Earl Thomas (2/2023) 

In a series of exacting and fierce vignettes, the author, who found salvation in geek culture, takes readers through the unceasing cruelty of his impoverished childhood toward an understanding of what it means to lose the desire to fit in and build community and love on your own terms. 

-Linnea