BCALA | May 19, 2023
45 outstanding works of fiction and nonfiction for kids by African American authors selected by the Black Caucus of ALA.
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Austin Reads | May 8, 2023
A Likeable Woman by May Cobb (July 11)
Don’t miss the latest thriller from the acclaimed author of The Hunting Wives. Her new book follows 30-something Kira, who returns to her hometown after her mother’s mysterious death. When Kira’s grandmother shares the unpublished, unfinished memoir of her mother, juicy secrets are revealed, fueling suspicions of murder. Having grown up in Longview, May Cobb knows how to capture the pressure-cooker environment of a small Texas town engulfed in scandal.
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Kirkus | May 5, 2023
You and the Bowerbird by Maris Wicks, Roaring Brook Press. Publication Date: 08/15/2023. ISBN (Hardcover): 9781250849878
The stressful courtship ritual of a male bowerbird, as seen by a young observer.
Satin Bowerbirds are native to Australia, and during mating season the males build elaborate structures on the ground out of natural and found blue materials—buttons, bottle caps, pieces of glass, even socks—to attract females. It is not an easy job—not only are the females picky, but rival males will swoop in at the slightest opportunity to steal the best bits and mess up the rest. Here Gianferrari records the ups and downs of Satin, one such hopeful swain, as he carefully builds and rebuilds his bower, drives off interlopers, and dances enthusiastically when green-feathered Pea, a likely looking prospect, doubtfully lands for a lookie-loo. There’s really nothing for it but to cheer him on. Playing this arduous ritual as a romantic comedy, Wicks depicts Satin looking over his bower with a critical eye, fussing over it, expressing confusion and astonishment when he returns from various forays to find it wrecked, and climactically casting a flirtatious side-eye at Pea as she watches him flapping and high-stepping. A dark-skinned child in the illustrations, watching all of this as raptly as readers will, fills notebooks with sketches and comments and provides a satisfying sense of closure by later spotting Pea in a tree, presiding over a nest full of eggs.
Delightful, tongue in cheek, and compellingly romantic. (Informational picture book. 6-9)
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PUREWOW | april 10, 2023
After her mother's mysterious death, Kira fled her wealthy Texas town and never looked back. Decades later, she’s invited to an old frenemy's vow renewal celebration, and though she’s reluctant to go, there are things pulling her home…including Jack, her childhood crush. There are also the urgent texts from her grandmother, who says she has something for Kira that makes her mother’s death look an awful lot like murder. With few allies left in her fancy hometown, Kira turns to Jack for help. But as she gets closer to discovering what really happened, it becomes clear that someone wants the past to stay buried.
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Bank Street College of Education | April 1, 2023
Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free: The True Story of The Grandmother of Juneteenth by Alice Faye Duncan, illustrated by Keturah A. Bobo. Tommy Nelson/Thomas Nelson. ISBN: 978-1-4002-3125-6
Yellow Dog Blues by Alice Faye Duncan, illustrated by Chris Raschka. Eerdmans BFYR/Eerdmans. ISBN: 978-0-8028-5553-4
The Struggle for the Right to Vote by Alice Faye Duncan, illustrated by Charly Palmer. Calkins Creek/Astra BFYR/Astra Publishing House. ISBN: 978-1-68437-979-8
Each year members of the Children’s Book Committee review thousands of titles for accuracy, literary quality, diversity, emotional impact, and social relevance and organize them according to age, topic, and genre. The Committee is composed of volunteers with an established expertise in the field of children’s literature, including librarians, authors, teachers, psychologists, and booksellers.
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The Root | March 18, 2023
“You Never Know” is the latest work from Connie Briscoe, named one the “100 Black Novelists You Should Read” by USA Today. In her first new fiction in over a decade, Briscoe centers on a hearing-impaired woman who realizes that she’s married to a man who may not be what he seems.
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Crime Reads | March 17, 2023
Although Briscoe is a prolific author in genres like romance, historical fiction, and nonfiction, her first official work of domestic suspense, You Never Know is a sly commentary on classics like Jane Eyre and Rebecca updated for our times.
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BookRiot | March 7, 2023
For domestic suspense fans: Alexis Roberts is living in fear after a recent break-in and attempted assault. The police don’t have much to go on since it was in the dark, making it difficult for Alexis to see, and she didn’t have her cochlear implants in, making it difficult for her to hear. She’s alone in a giant house, her husband having disappeared when she confronted him with her discovery that his previous wife was missing and presumed dead. Was her attacker a stranger…or someone she knows?
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shereads | March 2, 2023
Alexis Roberts is scared and shaken after someone breaks into her home and attempts to assault her while she is asleep. Unable to find her cochlear implants during the invasion, Alexis, who is hearing impaired, has little details to share with the police during their investigation. A year prior, Alexis meets Marcus and believes she’s met the man of her dreams, but when they marry, Marcus becomes cold and distant. As Alexis digs up his past, she finds out his ex-wife is missing and presumably dead, and when she finds out? Marcus disappears. Trapped and vulnerable, Alexis beings to wonder what Marcus is really capable of as she wait for her intruder to return.
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Booklist Online | February 15, 2023
Briscoe, who has been writing historical fiction and romance for nearly three decades, makes her first foray into domestic suspense. Protagonist Alexis is a hearing-impaired woman of color in her late thirties, attractive and successful in her career. She decides to end her relationship with her obsessive boyfriend, Paul, after she meets Marcus, a handsome attorney. Their whirlwind romance is spontaneous and a refreshing change. When Marcus proposes after just six months, Alexis agrees to a hastily assembled wedding despite her parents’ concern that she has hardly had a chance to get to know him. Turns out they were right. Marcus turns “reckless, even dangerous.” The dangerous part is not just his professional dealings, but the fact that his first wife, Charlene, is missing and suspected dead. Alexis is left wondering what to do when Marcus disappears, and she nearly drowns fleeing an intruder who breaks in one night and attempts to assault her. More drama than suspense, but Briscoe’s fans will still find much to enjoy.
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MadameNoire | January 30, 2023
Denene Millner is a woman of many words. Her writing career started at the Associated Press fresh out of Hofstra University. At a tender age, editors identified the literary GOAT she’s blossomed into. After an eight-year stint as an entertainment and political reporter with the New York Daily New, Millner’s career took a sharp turn. The young journalist added a New York Times Best Selling author to her resume, after her book The Sistahs’ Rules: Secrets for Meeting, Getting, and Keeping a Good Black Man in 1997–and it was up from there. To date, Millner has authored over 31 books and, now, is the Vice President and publisher for Denene Millner Books, her own book imprint that centers storytelling for Black children.
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Literary Hub | January 26, 2023
The 41st John Dos Passos Prize was awarded to Uruguayan American writer Carolina De Robertis (The President and the Frog; Cantoras; The Gods of Tango) by Longwood University. The Dos Passos Prize is the oldest literary award given by a Virginia college or university, and every year honors an “American writer who experiments with form, explores a range of voices and deserves more recognition.”
“In clear, precise prose, De Robertis makes audible the beating hearts of people navigating a terrifying world,” said Dos Passos Prize committee chair Brandon Haffner said in a statement. “But De Robertis’ stories aren’t so much interested in exploiting that terror for narrative suspense as they are in interrogating what compassion and resilience look like in the face of confounding policies and state violence.”
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Great Opening Lines | January 18, 2023
The house screamed, “Fire!” from every orifice.
After seven words, we are fully engaged, and the narrator makes sure we stay that way as the opening paragraph unfolds.
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B&N Reads | December 28, 2022
A new year means it’s time for a new #TBR, and we couldn’t be more thrilled about the upcoming January releases! With big names returning with new stories, debut authors that we are falling head over heels for, and beloved characters giving us a constant as the years change, our most anticipated books in kids and YA for January 2023 are certainly ones you won’t want to miss!
Let Me Call You Sweetheart
Mary Lee Donovan, Brizida Magro
Whether you’re a sugar pie, cutie poo or darling delight, Let Me Call You Sweetheart is everything a picture book should be. Mary Lee Donovan’s poetry and Brizida Magro’s art go together like seasalted caramel and cookies n’cream (or whatever your personal equivalent would be).
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SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL | OCTOBER 21, 2022
Ride On by Faith Erin Hicks
Who is the mysterious new girl at Edgewood Stables? When Victoria shows up one day to ride the horses she tells the others there that she does not need new friends. But why is she here? And what happened at her stable before?
Dragon Bones: The Fantastic Fossil Discoveries of Mary Anning by Sarah Glenn Marsh, ill. Maris Wicks
Born in 1799, no one would have expected Mary Anning to be remembered as the mother of paleontology. The story of a scientist that couldn’t stop digging up impressive, ancient sea creatures.
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LIBRARY JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 1, 2022
Vital Lies by Daniel Pyne. Brilliance Audio. (Sentro, Bk. 2). Feb. 2022. 11:57 hrs. ISBN 9781713594390. $34.99. THRILLER
In Cold War Germany in the 1980s, teenager Aubrey Sentro is an entry-level intelligence operative for the CIA. When she discovers that an entire CIA unit’s cover is about to be blown, she sacrifices herself to give them time to escape. She is captured and handed over to former Stasi agent Günter Witt, who beats, rapes, and impregnates her. Often drugged, she is told by her captors that the baby was stillborn. Then the Berlin Wall falls, and the Cold War is over. Sentro returns home to her family but with memory loss and ongoing PTSD. Thirty years later, Witt reappears in connection with a series of bombings in Europe. Meanwhile, a woman claiming to be Aubrey’s daughter also surfaces with deadly intent. When Aubrey and her daughter are drawn into the search for answers and put in peril, Aubrey must recover the long-buried truth about her past. This is Pyne’s second book (after Water Memory) in the “Sentro” series. Narrator Christina Traister skillfully presents the many voices and accents necessary to make the story come alive.
VERDICT Listeners of spy thrillers will enjoy this book. Recommended.
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BOOK REPORTER | AUGUST 25, 2022
With GIRL, FORGOTTEN, Karin Slaughter pens a worthy follow-up to PIECES OF HER, which became a huge hit as a Netflix series. . . .
The whole story is a masterpiece of mystery, and Slaughter's skill as a writer has never shone as brightly as it has in this novel.
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WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF BOOKS | August 18, 2022
May Cobb is the author of three novels, the latest of which is My Summer Darlings, which was recommended by “The Today Show,” CrimeReads, Booklist, Shelf Awareness, and many more, and follows the critical and public enthusiasm her prior novel (The Hunting Wives) received. Her essays and interviews have appeared in the Washington Post, the Rumpus, Edible Austin, and Austin Monthly.
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