While I encourage you to read books written by black authors at any time I know some of you are looking for books to read during black history month. And I don't believe your black history month reads only have to be stories involving social justice and race relations. And you don't only have to read classic black literature. So here's a short list from different genres by black authors starring black characters. Take a step back, review your TBR and see where you can add more black authors to it.
Contemporary Romance
If you are looking for a sweet, clean romance with black characters just being their normal selves doing normal rom com things in a small town then this is perfect for you. This is a story about Alexandra Gale, a struggling actress who put her career on hold to move back to a small town to help her aunt at her bakery; and Kellen Killborn, head of his family's real estate business who is trying to convince his grandmother to sell the old theater she owns. Sparks fly between Suits and Boots when they first meet and they'll have to learn to work with each other.
The Wedding Party
Jasmine Guillory is one of the most popular contemporary romance writers out right now. And I love a good black love story. It's still so rare to come across one on popular book lists and I love a good contemporary romance. I read The Wedding Date which features Alexa who is a friend to Theo and Maddie who are the stars of this story. Despite having the same best friend they can't stand each other until they fall into bed together and then can't keep their hands off each other. From there they start a no strings attached affair.
Mystery
Melody for Murder: A Bertie Bigelow Mystery
This is free on Kindle Unlimited at the moment so those of you who are members should definitely enjoy. Music, mystery, and a South Side of Chicago setting. Bertie Bigelow is a newly widowed college choir director who is just starting to date again. When Judge Theophilous Green is found shot to death and one of her students is arrested for the crime it's up to her to solve the case.
Hollywood Homicide
If you're looking for a light mystery that's a lot of fun you should try Hollywood Homicide. Dayna Anderson is an actress who is struggling after having minor success as the face of a popular chicken commercial. She's living in her friend's shoe closet, struggling for gas money, and trying to help her parents keep their house when she decides to track down a killer for the reward money.
Contemporary Literature
Halsey Street
It's been almost 2 years since I've read this book and it's still one I would highly recommend for the way it examines race, culture, gentrification, class, and family. And luckily it's usually either $.99 or free on Kindle Unlimited. This book follows failed artist Penelope Grand after she moves back to gentrified Brooklyn to be closer to her father and Mirella, her mother who has since moved back to the Dominican Republic since the divorce. Penelope and her mother Mirella have a complicated relationship and old wounds are reopened.
Black Girls Must Die Exhausted
This book follows Tabitha Walker and her friends as she navigates her career and relationship woes as a 33 yr old woman who finds her biological clock is fast ticking.
Suspense
They All Fall Down
I'm not really a suspense reader but I know a lot of people enjoyed this story
Delighted by a surprise invitation, Miriam Macy sails off to a luxurious private island off the coast of Mexico with six other strangers. Surrounded by miles of open water in the gloriously green Sea of Cortez, Miriam is soon shocked to discover that she and the rest of her companions have been brought to the remote island under false pretenses—and all seven strangers harbor a secret.
Danger lurks in the lush forest and in the halls and bedrooms of the lonely mansion. Sporadic cell-phone coverage and miles of ocean keeps the group trapped in paradise. And strange accidents stir suspicions, as one by one.
Essays
Womanish
13 essays exploring black womanhood in today's turbulent times.
Well Read Black Girl
Whether it’s learning about the complexities of femalehood from Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison, finding a new type of love in The Color Purple, or using mythology to craft an alternative black future, the subjects of each essay remind us why we turn to books in times of both struggle and relaxation. As she has done with her book club–turned–online community Well-Read Black Girl, in this anthology Glory Edim has created a space in which black women’s writing and knowledge and life experiences are lifted up, to be shared with all readers who value the power of a story to help us understand the world and ourselves.
Sci-Fi and Fantasy
The Black God's Drums
In an alternate New Orleans caught in the tangle of the American Civil War, the wall-scaling girl named Creeper yearns to escape the streets for the air--in particular, by earning a spot on-board the airship Midnight Robber. Creeper plans to earn Captain Ann-Marie’s trust with information she discovers about a Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls The Black God’s Drums.
But Creeper also has a secret herself: Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, speaks inside her head, and may have her own ulterior motivations.
Soon, Creeper, Oya, and the crew of the Midnight Robber are pulled into a perilous mission aimed to stop the Black God’s Drums from being unleashed and wiping out the entirety of New Orleans.
Young Adult
I Wanna Be Where You Are
I adored this book and it was one of my favorite YA reads last year. It's about this ballerina named Chloe who really wants to audition for a spot at a famed dance academy. Unfortunately her mother has been overprotective of her since her father died so she decides to sneak out behind her back while her mother is away on a cruise. Her neighbor Eli catches her and makes her give him a ride to meet his father out of state or else he'll rat her out. This is a cute coming of age road trip adventure starring two black teens.
Opposite of Always
If you can get this book while it's still $1.99 I suggest you do. I've heard so many things about this book and it's on my TBR for this year.
When Jack and Kate meet at a party, bonding until sunrise over their mutual love of Froot Loops and their favorite flicks, Jack knows he’s falling—hard. Soon she’s meeting his best friends, Jillian and Franny, and Kate wins them over as easily as she did Jack.
But then Kate dies. And their story should end there.
Yet Kate’s death sends Jack back to the beginning, the moment they first meet, and Kate’s there again. Healthy, happy, and charming as ever. Jack isn’t sure if he’s losing his mind.
Still, if he has a chance to prevent Kate’s death, he’ll take it. Even if that means believing in time travel. However, Jack will learn that his actions are not without consequences. And when one choice turns deadly for someone else close to him, he has to figure out what he’s willing to do to save the people he loves.
Middle Grade
The Jumbies
Tracey Baptiste weaves West Indian folklore together in this fantasy tale set on a fictional island in the Caribbean very similar to Trinidad and Tobago. This book can truly be enjoyed by all ages. It follows young Corinne La Mer and her friends who notice things on their island aren't quite the same after a beautiful mysterious stranger arrives in town.
From the Desk of Zoe Washington
Zoe Washington is excited to spend her summer working a bakery internship in hopes of proving to her parents that she's mature enough to audition for a kid's cooking show on The Food Network. On her 12th birthday she received a letter from the father in prison she's never known and decides to secretly write back to him. Soon Zoe starts writing back and forth with him and is determined to prove his innocence.
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I need to buy some of these stories
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