Dear Leslye Penelope, I saw that your new book, a fantasy novel called The Monsters We Defy, takes place in the milieu of the Black community in 1925 Washington, DC and I thought that sounded interesting and fresh, so when Orbit offered me an ARC, I went for it. It’s ... more >
Meet Yinka: a thirty-something, Oxford-educated, British Nigerian woman with a well-paid job, good friends, and a mother whose constant refrain is “Yinka, where is your huzband?” Yinka’s Nigerian aunties frequently pray for her delivery from singledom, her work friends think she’s too traditional (she’s saving herself for marriage!), her girlfriends ... more >
1925: Chicago is the jazz capital of the world, and the Dreamland Café is the ritziest black-and-tan club in town. Honoree Dalcour is a sharecropper’s daughter, willing to work hard and dance every night on her way to the top. Dreamland offers a path to the good life, socializing with ... more >
Trigger warnings: Content warnings: Dear Brit Bennett, I can’t name any one reason why I picked up your novel, The Vanishing Half. Part of it was surely its omnipresence on my Goodreads stream. Part of it was all the praise it’s garnered, which includes appearing on the National Book Award’s ... more >
“Magic in North America”: The Harry Potter franchise veers too close to home – So if you’ve heard about or read JK Rowling’s new “Magic in North America” pieces on Pottermore, you may also know about the pushback that Adrienne Keene and others have articulated. Rowling, you see, has decided to ... more >