We're a community of readers committed to embracing a wide range of perspectives. Each of us brings unique experiences, and by actively seeking out books from various backgrounds, we can deepen our understanding of the challenges faced by marginalized groups. It's our shared responsibility as a community to engage in mindful, inclusive reading habits every day, not just on special occasions.
That's why we're here – to help you discover diverse voices and stories. In essence, we'll be curating a newsletter featuring;
New book releases
Spotlighting indie authors
Sharing our team's personal recommendations and book reviews
Hosting author Q&A sessions
Offering themed book lists
Organizing reading challenges and readathons, and much more.
If you're interested in expanding your bookshelf with diverse titles, we invite you to join our community by following our page and subscribing to our newsletter. Together, let's celebrate diversity within the book community by uplifting and showcasing diverse authors.
•”My Beloved Life” by Amitava Kumar, February 27, Knopf Publishing Group, Historical/Literary/World Literature/India
•”Whiskey Tender: A Memoir” by Deborah Taffa, February 27, Harper, Personal Memoirs/Women/Cultural, Ethnic & Regional/Native American & Aboriginal
•”I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both” by Mariah Stovall, February 13, Soft Skull, Contemporary/Coming of Age/Friendship/African American/Women
•”Private Equity: A Memoir” by Carrie Sun, February 13, Penguin Press, Personal Memoirs/Women in Business/Business/Finance/Wealth Management/Investments & Securities
•”Village in the Dark” by Iris Yamashita, February 13, Berkley Books, Mystery & Detective/Police Procedural/Thriller/Suspense/Women
•”Redwood Court” by Délana R. a. Dameron, February 06, Dial Press, Literary/Coming of Age/Women/African American/Southern
•”Wandering Stars” by Tommy Orange, February 27, Knopf Publishing Group, Literary/Cultural Heritage/Native American & Aboriginal
•Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop
Hwang Bo-Reum & Shanna Tan (Translator), February 20, Bloomsbury Publishing, Contemporary/City Life/World Literature/Korea
•”Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit: Essays
Aisha Sabatini Sloan, February 20, Graywolf, Essays/Cultural, Ethnic & Regional/African American & Black/LGBT/Anthropology/Cultural & Social
•”The Things We Didn't Know” by Elba Iris Pérez, February 06, Gallery Books, Literary/Coming of Age/World Literature/Puerto Rico/20th Century
•“The Fox Maidens” by Robin Ha, February 13, Harperalley, Comics & Graphic Novels/Historical/Fairy Tales/Folklore/Legends & Mythology Fantasy/Romance/LGBT/World Literature/Korea
•”Hope Ablaze” by Sarah Mughal Rana, February 27, Wednesday Books, Magical Realism, Poetry/Religious/Muslim/Social Themes - Activism & Social Justice
•“ASAP” by Axie Oh, February 06, Harperteen, YA/Romance/Contemporary/Coming of Age/Asian American
•”Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories” by Amitav Ghosh, February 13, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Nonfiction/Historical/Travelogue/Memoir/Family History/Essay in History/Globalism/Capitalism
•”Fathomfolk” by Eliza Chan, February 27, Orbit, Fantasy/Action & Adventure/Dragons & Mythical Creatures/East Asian Mythology
•”Ours” by Phillip B. Williams, February 20, Viking, Literary/Historical/African American/Magical Realism
•”Neighbors and Other Stories” by Diane Oliver, February 13, Grove Press, Short Stories/Literary/Historical/African American & Black
•”Greta & Valdin” by Rebecca K. Reilly, February 06, Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, Literary/Romcom/Family Life/LGBT/Cultural Heritage/World Literature/New Zealand/Cultural, Ethnic & Regional/Russian-Maori-Catalonian/Indigenous/Polynesian
•”The American Daughters” by Maurice Carlos Ruffin, February 27, One World, Historical/Civil War Era/Saga/African American/Women
•”My Side of the River: A Memoir” by Elizabeth Camarillo Gutierrez, January 13, St. Martin's Press, Personal Memoirs/Cultural, Ethnic & Regional/Hispanic & Latino/Public Policy - Immigration
"The Book of Goose" by Yiyun Li
"My Brilliant Friend" by Elena Ferrante
"My Sister, the Serial Killer" by Oyinkan Braithwaite
"Bunny" by Mona Awad
"My Year of Rest and Relaxation" by Ottessa Moshfegh
"The Return" by Rachel Harrison
Now on sale - Other & Different!
An anthology of diverse fiction
Available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and direct from our own shop! To help us maximise profits - the first six months of which will be donated to charity - we encourage you to order through our shop where we stock both ebook and paperback copies.
Buy in our Shop!
Free shipping to UK
Buy from Amazon UK
Buy from Amazon US
Buy from Barnes & Noble
A diverse anthology from writers around the world. From prehistory to the not-too-distant future, "Other & Different" features folklore, fantasy, gothic, speculative, supernatural, sci-fi, weird, horror, and contemporary fiction exploring what it is to be other or different.
Thirteen all new stories from: Busayo Akinmoju, Malik Berry, A.M. Gautam, Anita Goveas, Heather Haigh, Miriam H. Harrison, Anastasia Jill, Avra Margariti, Kyungseo Min, Samir Sirk Morató, Corinne Pollard, Jonathan Olfert, and Marianne Xenos.
The first six months of which will be donated to our two chosen causes North American non-profit Rainbow Railroad and UK charity Rainbow Migration.
More information about our contributors and the charities we will be supporting can be found here.
Check out our blog posts about Other & Different, including Q&As with the authors.
Isn't this book beautiful? I can't wait to read it. Do you have any plans for the weekend? I plan to check out a local Easter market and maybe visit a friend too.
A story by a Diné woman about a Diné woman who is a forensic photographer. She can also see and hear ghosts, something she's been able to do all her life and she has had to hide that she can, with death such a taboo subject for Diné.
I am Diné myself, Navajo, and I was excited to see a book written about and by Diné woman! It's more of a mystery and less of a fantasy and so it took me a bit to get into it, but once I did I devoured it! This is a really good book and I really really hope Ramona Emerson writes more!
What about a book draws you in, if it's not your type of book you read?
The concept of “OWN Voices” has become increasingly popular in the past several years, especially in the literary world.
OWN Voices is a term used to describe literature, stories, or pieces of art that are written or created by people who are a part of the same culture, community, or identity portrayed in the work itself.
In a world where so many stories are created by outsiders, the presence…
Mystery Titles by African American Authors: a list
Jackal by Erin E. Adams
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.
Liz Rocher is coming home . . . reluctantly. As a Black woman, Liz doesn’t exactly have fond memories of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white town. But her best friend is getting married, so she braces herself for a weekend of awkward and passive-aggressive reunions. Liz has grown, though; she can handle whatever awaits her. But on the day of the wedding, somewhere between dancing and dessert, the bride’s daughter, Caroline, goes missing—and the only thing left behind is a piece of white fabric covered in blood.
It’s taking.
As a frantic search begins, with the police combing the trees for Caroline, Liz is the only one who notices a pattern: a summer night. A missing girl. A party in the woods. She’s seen this before. Keisha Woodson, the only other Black girl in school, walked into the woods with a mysterious man and was later found with her chest cavity ripped open and her heart missing. Liz shudders at the thought that it could have been her, and now, with Caroline missing, it can’t be a coincidence. As Liz starts to dig through the town’s history, she uncovers a horrifying secret about the place she once called home. Children have been going missing in these woods for years. All of them Black. All of them girls.
It’s your turn.
With the evil in the forest creeping closer, Liz knows what she must do: find Caroline, or be entirely consumed by the darkness.
As the Wicked Watch by Tamron Hall, T. Shawn Taylor
When crime reporter Jordan Manning leaves her hometown in Texas to take a job at a television station in Chicago, she's one step closer to her dream: a coveted anchor chair on a national network.
Jordan is smart and aggressive, with unabashed star-power, and often the only woman of color in the newsroom. Her signature? Arriving first on the scene—in impractical designer stilettos. Armed with a master's degree in forensic science and impeccable instincts, Jordan has been able to balance her dueling motivations: breaking every big story—and giving a voice to the voiceless.
From her time in Texas, she's covered the vilest of human behaviors but nothing has prepared her for Chicago. Jordan is that rare breed of a journalist who can navigate a crime scene as well as she can a newsroom—often noticing what others tend to miss. Again and again, she is called to cover the murders of Black women, many of them sexually assaulted, most brutalized, and all of them quickly forgotten.
All until Masey James—the story that Jordan just can't shake, despite all efforts. A 15-year-old girl whose body was found in an abandoned lot, Masey has come to represent for Jordan all of the frustration and anger that her job often forces her to repress. Putting the rest of her work and her fraying personal life aside, Jordan does everything she can to give the story the coverage it desperately requires, and that a missing Black child would so rarely get.
There's a serial killer on the loose, Jordan believes, and he's hiding in plain sight.
Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules--a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about growing up black in the lone star state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home.
When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders--a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman--have stirred up a hornet's nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes--and save himself in the process--before Lark's long-simmering racial fault lines erupt.
A rural noir suffused with the unique music, color, and nuance of East Texas, Bluebird, Bluebird is an exhilarating, timely novel about the collision of race and justice in America.
All Her Little Secrets by Wanda M. Morris
Everyone has something to hide...
Ellice Littlejohn seemingly has it all: an Ivy League law degree, a well-paying job as a corporate attorney in midtown Atlanta, great friends, and a “for fun” relationship with a rich, charming executive—her white boss, Michael.
But everything changes one cold January morning when Ellice goes to meet Michael… and finds him dead with a gunshot to his head.
And then she walks away like nothing has happened. Why? Ellice has been keeping a cache of dark secrets, including a small-town past and a kid brother who’s spent time on the other side of the law. She can’t be thrust into the spotlight—again.
But instead of grieving this tragedy, people are gossiping, the police are getting suspicious, and Ellice, the company’s lone black attorney, is promoted to replace Michael. While the opportunity is a dream-come-true, Ellice just can’t shake the feeling that something is off.
When she uncovers shady dealings inside the company, Ellice is trapped in an impossible ethical and moral dilemma. Suddenly, Ellice’s past and present lives collide as she launches into a pulse-pounding race to protect the brother she tried to save years ago and stop a conspiracy far more sinister than she could have ever imagined…
I spent my day reading outside and although it was hot, there was a great breeze. I’m really enjoying this one so far—it has such incredible representation!
[ID: Instagram boomerang of a windy day featuring the cover of the book Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min. There are plants in pots in the background.]
I talked about this on Tiktok, but the number one person I'm worried about reading my upcoming romance is my mom.
And no, it's not the sex scenes.
It's because when I wrote the first draft of this story during NaNo in 2017 a lot of me snuck in and much of that stuck.
Part of that was my current job and idealizing a friend's lifestyle. Another part was a friend's worry for her mom's health. A large part was my relationship with my queer identities. I was only a year into learning bi and ace me when I wrote the first draft. My concerns about telling people were varied, but i worried about my parents' response enough that I never actually told them. They found out by reading my bio on Amazon.
While Lisa's relationship with her parents is focused on the bi aspect of her identity rather than the aro part, i too wanted to avoid the conflict of the conversation. I worried they wouldn't understand my preferences, try to fix them. I worried coming out would lead to irreputable damage to my relationship with my mom, and who she might talk to about it. Lisa has the same concerns.
And now, i worry my mom will read this (fictionalized) interaction between a character with elements of me and a different character with elements of her and want "the talk".
We haven't done it properly, so i still dread it. The potential misunderstandings and baffled looks, versus any lack of support. At one point, she had balanced three guys. Her hips literally stopped cars. She expected me to date in the 7th grade. Ace me has never, and will never, live like that.
This is always a risk, concern, and source of anxiety, stress, and embarrassment for authors. That someone we know in real life will read our stories and see something they would never have been told. Maybe it's a self reflection of the author, or a fantasy, or an 'inside thought' about a person the reader can identify.
The two books of mine on Amazon you can currently get (Cydelle's Ghost Hunt and Tomorrow and Beyond) 100% have elements of me in them. The former is based on the area my dad grew up, and the latter contains stories connected to me figuring out I'm queer.
But I don't think anything I will ever publish will be as full of my thoughts and emotions as Returning to You.
My release on the 21st will probably find me an emotional wreck, wondering if people will buy it. How they'll judge it. And how, perhaps, they'll judge me.
I know not to read the comments. But I'll wonder. And if my mom picks up a copy and reads it...well. I'll probably panic. But only momentarily. Because while the conversations between Lisa and Norma were written before my mom knew I was queer, they follow a similar trajectory of the one convo I've had with my mom about the topic.
It’s that time of year again!
Welcome to another round of the Best Books of the Year so Far, where halfway through the year, I name the titles I read that I feel are the best of 2022. Just like last year, I will be listing the books by different genre and format. So stay tuned every Thursday throughout the rest of this month, catch my favorite reads of 2022 that you want to keep your eye…