Black Authors to Start the New Year
Sistah Girls, the new year is here, and every year our book club gets asked the same question: What books should I start the new year off with?
It’s always hard to answer because first there’s reading by genre, and everyone knows they are tricky little things. Then, there are sub-genres, and people who prefer thick reads vs. those who prefer shorter reads. Next are our Sistah Girls, who’d rather wait until an entire book series is finished before they read book one.
I could go on and on, and I still wouldn’t even be scratching the surface of reading preferences, but that is why we are a book club. We narrow down the lists, and come up with books we know you’d love no matter your reading style.
Lissa-Marie and I recently went live on YouTube (be sure to subscribe to our channel) to talk about what books we’ve been reading, and came up with a good list to get Sistah Girls started.
The list is below, there is something for every Sistah Girl, and when you get to the bottom, watch our first LIVE of the new year. And again, subscribe to our YouTube Channel.
The Last Man on Earth: A Survival Romance by Shae Sanders
Famous rapper Villain and his rowdy entourage are headed to his bachelor party in Brazil when his private jet crashes on a remote island. The only survivors are him and Ariana, the beautiful, older, no-nonsense in-flight concierge who can’t stand him.
Stranded with no rescue in sight, they have no choice but to work together if they want to survive. What begins as a fragile truce soon ignites into passion and forges a path to trust, understanding, and a love neither of them expected to find.
But when rescue finally comes, reality hits hard–the headlines, the scrutiny, their grief, and the fiancee and boyfriend they left behind.
Ultimately, they realize they have to decide: Will they return to the lives they once knew, or fight for the new life they built together on that island?
The 19th Hole by Evelyn Latrice
Zaire Cooks knows the game.
The eighteen holes that made him a star, and the quiet rules that were never written for someone like him. He’s sharp, rooted, and too damn visible for a league that only wants his swing, not his voice. When the headlines get loud and the pressure turns political, a colleague tells him about this magical place where golfers go to refocus themselves. Juniper Falls.
Meadow Green is running out of room to breathe.
Her family’s land is on the brink of foreclosure, her mama’s health is slipping, and every unpaid notice feels like another clock ticking. She grew up on the green. Dirt under her nails, expectations on her back, carrying a legacy that never cared if she was tired. Being the only daughter taught her how to hold things together, even when they’re falling apart.
What starts as friction across the fairway turns into something neither of them planned. Golf ends after eighteen holes. But Zaire and Meadow are about to learn what waits after the scorecard runs out.
Say So: A Dark Mafia Romance by B.B. Reid
Ocean Kilpatrick has starred in many wet dreams. As for best friends Hunter Parrish and Coby Perry, he’s become their worst nightmare.
When Coby is sold to the mafia prince to settle her brother’s debt, Ocean vows to take what he’s owed and then some.
Obviously, he’s never heard that trouble comes in two because Hunter has made a vow of her own—to rescue her twin flame or die trying.
She’ll burn down Ocean’s world and dance on the ashes before letting him take what’s hers. But Ocean isn’t just the heir to the Fola. He’s a master manipulator. Every move the friends make, he’s two steps ahead, and the game won’t end until he says so.
The Winning Play (Playing for Keeps Book 2) by Lauren Lacey
Sebastian Boom was born into a life of legacy and expectation, raised to chase perfection on and off the basketball court. Lottie Daniels grew up fighting for peace in a world that never handed her anything easily. He thrives on order. She moves through chaos. They shouldn’t fit, but somehow, they do.
What starts as a lust-filled friendship turns into something neither of them can escape. He becomes her calm when life spins out of control, and she’s the spark that reminds him what it means to feel alive. But calm doesn’t mean safe, and sparks have a way of burning when the past refuses to stay buried.
Read the full synopsis HERE.
Tempting Chaos by K.C. Mills
When it comes to Samari Janaé, music is in her soul and her lyrics are the blood that keeps her heart beating. When the label silences her voice taking away her lifeline with a bogus contract, Samari feels defeated but still holds onto the dream of sharing her talent with the world. Failure isn’t fatal and success…or lack thereof isn’t final.
Asao ‘A’so’ Delane built his empire from the hustle and now wears the crown as one of the most successful indie artists to ever step to a mic. Work hard, grind harder isn’t just a phrase, it’s Asao’s life motto. He’s not looking for anything or anyone else to fulfill him beyond the music.
No matter your plans, your purpose will always take center stage in this game called life. Samari and Asao are destined. Their attraction is instant and a pull neither can deny. Their connection runs deep. It’s lyrical and poetic. A rhythm that doesn’t make sense but can’t be ignored. Read the full synopsis HERE.
Kin by Tayari Jones
Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood but are fated to live starkly different lives.
Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and discovers a world of affluence, manners, aspiration, and inequality.
Annie, abandoned by her mother as a child and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, culminating in a battle for her life.
Keeper of Lost Children by Sadeqa Johnson
Ethel Gathers, the proud wife of an American Officer, is living in Occupied Germany in the 1950s. After discovering a local orphanage filled with the abandoned mixed-race children of German women and Black American GI’s, Ethel feels compelled to help find these children homes.
Philadelphia born Ozzie Phillips volunteers for the recently desegregated army in 1948, eager to make his mark in the world. While serving in Manheim, Germany, he meets a local woman, Jelka, and the two embark on a relationship that will impact their lives forever.
In 1965 Maryland, Sophia Clark is given an opportunity to attend a prestigious all-white boarding school and escape her heartless parents. While at the school, she discovers a secret that upends her world and sends her on a quest to unravel her own identity.
Toggling between the lives of these three individuals, Keeper of Lost Children explores how one woman’s vision will change the course of countless lives, and demonstrates that love in its myriad of forms—familial, parental, and forbidden, even love of self—can be transcendent.
If I Ruled the World by Amy DuBois Barnett
It’s 1999, and Nikki Rose is the only Black editor on the staff of a prestigious fashion magazine she once thought would be her ticket to becoming a respected editor in chief. But after being told one too many times by her boss that “Black girls don’t sell magazines,” she quits to take over Sugar, a struggling hip hop music and lifestyle magazine with untapped potential.
Thrown into an entirely new world of wealth, decadence, and debauchery, Nikki has just six months to save Sugar—and her own dreams. As she pulls all-nighters at the office and parties with New York City’s most influential bad boys, Nikki must prove she has what it takes to lead.
But her most dangerous challenge is evading Alonzo Griffin, her very married, very powerful ex-lover and former boss, who is determined to destroy both her and Sugar. Along the way, Nikki leans on a circle of loyal friends and navigates unexpected romances that force her to reckon with what—and who—she truly wants.
If I Ruled the World is a smart, utterly immersive journey through one of the most dynamic eras in pop culture history—a story of ambition, friendship, love, and finding your own voice.
With Love from Harlem: A Novel of Hazel Scott by ReShonda Tate
Harlem, 1943. At just twenty-three, Hazel Scott is a woman on fire. A jazz prodigy, a glamorous film star, and a fierce advocate for civil rights, she’s breaking barriers and refusing to play by the rules.
Then Adam Clayton Powell Jr. walks into her life. Harlem’s most electrifying preacher-turned-politician, Adam is as bold and unyielding as Hazel—charismatic, powerful…and married.
This kicks off a decades-long relationship that propels them into the center of a political and cultural revolution. As Hazel’s star rises, Adam takes the national stage in Congress, and the couple becomes the toast of the country. But when their affair turns into a marriage, behind the glamorous façade is a battlefield of ego, ambition, and sacrifice. Forced to choose between her music and her family, Hazel must decide what she’s willing to lose—and what she refuses to give up.
Set against the pulsing backdrop of twentieth-century Harlem and featuring icons like Billie Holiday, Langston Hughes, and James Baldwin, With Love from Harlem is a sweeping, emotionally charged romantic drama, rich with historical detail. ReShonda Tate delivers a powerful portrait of love, art, and the price of being unforgettable.
It’s Never Too Late: A Memoir by Marla Gibbs
Marla Gibbs has been a Hollywood icon for generations of fans. Now, at ninety-three, she chronicles her climb from a difficult youth in which she yearned for safety and love, to the high-stakes world of Hollywood where she became a confident powerbroker learning to work behind the scenes for fair pay, access, and more creative control for herself and her colleagues.
Told in her forthright voice, It’s Never Too Late illuminates Gibbs’ daring move to Los Angeles to rebuild her life after an abusive marriage, how she became an actor, and how she eventually learned to balance acting with show running.
She was a “Boss Bae” decades before the term would become entertainment industry shorthand for a power flex. While developing 227 her lawyer won her “all rights, courtesies and privileges of an executive producer without the credit.” Though the authority she wielded behind the scenes created deep tensions on and off the set, her hard-luck young life had prepared her to succeed even as her tenacity was put to the test.
Her experiences laid the groundwork for powerbrokers like Shonda Rhimes and Issa Rae.
