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Spring is here and so is a fresh new crop of books by BIPOC authors that are blooming with brilliance, healing, drama, and delicious storytelling. These April releases are already on my radar and they should be on yours too. Whether you’re in the mood for juicy romance, literary realness, or stories that hold our joy and our pain in the same breath, this month’s lineup is not playing.
Here’s what I’m most excited to read this month:
Gold Coast Dilemma by Nana Malone
Nana always delivers the kind of steamy, suspenseful romance that keeps me up way past my bedtime. Set in the lavish world of Ghanaian royalty and political scandal, Gold Coast Dilemma follows a fierce heroine caught between love and legacy. Nana Malone writes Black women like we deserve—powerful, soft, messy, and desirable. I’m ready for the drama, the diasporic richness, and a little bit of fantasy I can sink into with a glass of wine and my silk bonnet.
Bibliotherapy in the Bronx by Emely Rumble.
Books have saved me more times than I can count, so a book about the healing power of stories? Yes please. I received an ARC of this book and i read it at just the right time.
This book is very much both a guide and a tribute to reading as resistance, restoration, and healing. It explores the history of bibliotherapy which i found informative and fascinating.
If you believe in the sacredness of community, the radical act of healing, and the ways stories can carry us home, Bibliotherapy in the Bronx needs to be on your list.
Zeal by Morgan Jerkins
Morgan Jerkins never misses—and this time, she’s coming with fire.
Zeal is a novel about Black ambition, faith, and the complicated spaces where they intersect. I’ve followed Morgan from her essays to her memoir to this, and her pen just keeps getting sharper. Her ability to interrogate race, identity, and womanhood while still centering fully fleshed-out characters makes me know this is going to be one of those books—the ones you finish and immediately want to discuss with your book club.
Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
The title is ironic. The truth is gutting. But necessary. Happy Land dives into a little-known chapter of post-Civil War Black history—when Black children were trafficked for labour in the American South. Dolen Perkins-Valdez is known for historical fiction that doesn’t look away, and I’m grateful for her work in illuminating these stories. It’s not going to be an easy read, but it is an essential one.
Somadina by Akwaeke Emezi
Every Akwaeke book is a spiritual portal, and I step through each time with reverence and wonder. Somadina is Akwaeke Emezi’s middle-grade debut, but don’t get it twisted, this story will resonate with readers of all ages. It’s a powerful tale about ancestry, grief, and stepping into your true self. Emezi’s storytelling is lush, spiritual, and rooted in Igbo cosmology. I can’t wait to read this one with my daughter—and maybe even host a youth book circle around it.
Fish Tales by Nettie Jones
This re-release is a reclamation, a resurrection, and a celebration of Black womanhood in the Deep South. Originally published in 1996, Fish Tales is a raw, poetic novel about love, pain, and survival. Nettie Jones deserves her flowers, and I’m so glad this work is getting a second life. For those of us who crave southern Black lit with rhythm, heartache, and hope braided through every line, this one’s for you.
A Mouth Full of Salt by Gaafar Reem
In A Mouth Full of Salt, the lives of Sudan’s men, women and children reveal a country on the edge of seismic change, as women challenge and reshape cultural traditions. In a small farming village in North Sudan, the tragic drowning of a young boy sets off a series of mysterious events: animals fall ill, date gardens burn and rumours of a sorceress spread.
Here are additional books coming out this month…
Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory
When the Harvest Comes by Denne Michele Norris
Black Power Scorecard: Measuring the Racial Gap & What We Can Do to Close It by Andre M. Perry
Fugitive Tilts: Essays by Ishion Hutchinson
Everything Is Fine Here by Iryn Tushabe
Matriarch: A Memoir by Tina Knowles
Medicine River by Mary Annette Pember
Parable of the Talents A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Octavia E. Butler; Damian Duffy
The Hollow Half by Sarah Aziza
The Hypebeast by Adnan Khan
Where the Jasmine Blooms by Zeina Sleiman
Julie Chan Is Dead by Liann Zhang
The World So Wide by Zilla Jones
Spilling the Tea by Brenda Jackson
Prose to the People: A Celebration of Black Bookstores by Katie Mitchell, Nikki Giovanni
No Ordinary Love by Myah Ariel
The Defiant Queen by L.R. Jackson
The Book of Possibilities: Words of Wisdom on the Road to Becoming by Bee Quammie
Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez
Big Chief by Jon Hickey
Shatter Me: The New Republic #1: Watch Me by Tahereh Mafi
The Matchmaker by Aisha Saeed
Six Days in Bombay by Alka Joshi
No One Left Alone: A Story of How Community Helps Us Heal by Liz Walker
Mojo Hand by J.J. Phillips
The Moment: Thoughts on the Race Reckoning That Wasn’t and How We All Can Move Forward Now by Bakari Sellers
Veracity and Verse: A Preacher’s Reflections and Poems on Faith and Truth by James A. Forbes
We All Got Something by Lawrence Lindell
Ms. V’s Hot Girl Summer by A.H. Cunningham
The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad
One Way Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
Steamy on Set by D.S. Walls
Children and Young Readers Books
Freedom at Dawn: Robert Smalls’s Voyage Out of Slavery by Leah Schanke
Iron Tongue of Midnight (the Forge & Fracture Saga, Book 3) by Brittany N. Williams
Black Boy, Rise by Brynne Barnes, Bryan Collier (illustrator)
Don’t Cause Trouble by Arree Chung
The Reel Wish by Yamile Saied Méndez
Afia in the Land of Wonders by Mia Araujo
Ready, Set, Mango! By Tamla T Young, Raz Latif (illustrator)
A Cup of Quiet by Nikki Grimes, Cathy Ann Johnson
Everybelly by Thao Lam
Fierce Aunties! By Laurel Goodluck, Steph Littlebird (Illustrator)
Fix-It Familia by Lucky Diaz
Frida Kahlo’s Flower Crown: A Picture Book by Nydia Armendia-Sánchez, Loris Lora
Opal Watson: Private Eye by Brittany J. Thurman
The Pecan Sheller by Lupe Ruiz-Flores
Kaya Morgan’s Crowning Achievement by Jill Tew
Abeni’s Song #2: Abeni and the Kingdom of Gold by P. Djèlí Clark
All the Noise at Once by DeAndra Davis
Amoya Blackwood Is Brave by Chantaie Allick, Aaron Marin
Bold Words from Black Men: Insights and Reflections from 50 Notable Trailblazers Who Influenced the World by Dr. Tamara Pizzoli, Desire Cesar “El’Cesart Ngabo (illustrator)
City Summer, Country Summer by Kiese Laymon, Alexis Franklin (illustrator)
Faruq and the Wiri Wiri: A Celebration of Family and Food by Sophia Payne, Sandhya Prabhat (illustrator)
So go ahead and make some room on your shelves (and in your heart). These stories are giving voice to our joy, our struggles, our communities, and our dreams. And you know we’ll be reading and reflecting together.
Which one are you most excited to read? Let me know in the comments or over on IG @thisblackgirlreads. Let’s read, feel, and rise—together.
With love & books,
Lalaa
What do you think?