You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty. Akwaeke Emezi. 2022. Atria Books. 288 pages. [Source: ARC provided by the publisher courtesy of Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.] They say you can’t always judge a book by its cover, but in the case of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, I did exactly that and came out a winner. I was struck by the vivid, indulgent vibe I got from the cover’s illustration, and I wasn’t surprised to pick up on this throughout the book. You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty is centered on Feyi, a 29-year-old Nigerian-American artist who is at a turning point in her life. She’s been widowed five years and is finally coming out the stupor that her grieving kept her in. She’s committed to picking up the pieces and moving her life forward, though she’s not always sure what moving forward looks like. Part of reinventing herself includes opening herself up to love (or lust). As Feyi leans further into her plan to rebuild her life, she steps into the “dating” scene. She easily meets different men, but actually being vulnerable enough to make a sustained…

Through the Storm. Beverly Jenkins. 1998. HarperCollins. 388 pages. [Source: Public Library.] I am far too late on the Beverly Jenkins train; luckily, I’ve corrected course and thoroughly enjoyed the first in her historical fiction series that follows the Le Veq family in Civil War-era New Orleans. With an unexpected and dramatic escape from the plantation she’s always know as home, Sable finds herself newly free during the ongoing Civil War. Through what can only be described as divine intervention, she comes crosses paths with Raimond Le Veq at a refugee camp. While the disarming general is obviously enamored with her, Sable is suspicious and disinterested in any connection that doesn’t make good use of her newfound freedom. Unfortunately, things never play out in simple terms, and a spur of the moment decision pulls the two apart, with Raimond left resenting Sable, who he’s come to see as a traitor. Just a year later, Sable finds herself in Raimond’s hometown of New Orleans. They’re one again thrown together by chance, this time in a marriage of convenience so that Raimond’s family can access the much-needed family inheritance they need to recover from the war. There is constant tension between the…

The Guy Next Door. DL White. 2019. 244 pages. [Source: Public Library.] Life is full of happy accidents, even if they start from bad ones. When Evonne and Taj cross paths in Potter Lake’s medical clinic, both assume it’s a one-off meeting after he patches up her injury from an unfortunate fall. They’re both chagrined when the cute yet hysterical patient happens to be the new tenant of the sexy male nurse with whom she traded barbs. While the connection starts off with professional distance, it’s clear that their paths in and around Potter Lake are going to increase — being neighbors aside. What neither realizes is that their connection is closer to home than either realizes, and that has the potential to derail their attempts to figure out if their chemistry will lead to anything more than lustful looks. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and found Evonne and Taj’s interactions hilarious, even with their significant emotional baggage. Despite a decade having passed, Evonne still lives under the shadow of mistakes she made in college. Her attempts to move past it seem to work for everyone except her mother, and her newfound independence threatens the relationships that she actually values….

Black Love Matters. Jessica P. Pryde, ed. 2022. Berkley. 285 pages. [Source: Public Library.] As a proud lover of all things Black romance, I had to get my hands on this anthology which features essays from some of the most visible names in the field of Black romance publishing and scholarship. With this book, Pryde has brought together long-established names as well as those who are on their rise to consider the ways that Black Love Matters. The result is a book filled with contributors representing all facets of Black life and love, sharing their insights on the genre and what it means for them or critically examining the space that Black love occupies in literature. One of the greatest take aways here is that Black Love Matters gives space to ask the question — why do we need to center Black love? If romance is one of the best-selling segments of the publishing industry, why are Black stories still lacking in representation? In responding to this topic, the authors share their own experiences as creators, consumers, and scholars of Black romance. What I love about this book is that its chapters reflect the complexity of Black writing; there are…

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.  Honoree Fanonne Jeffers. 2021. Harper. 801 pages. [Source: Public library.] The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois is an early contender for my favorite read of 2022. It recounts the history of the Pinchard family through the juxtaposition of modern-day experiences of its protagonist, Ailey Garfield, and flashbacks to the lives of her ancestors as far back as Africa during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Throughout the book, Jeffers pulls the reader forward and backward through centuries, giving snapshots of the family’s experiences in and around the rural town of Chicasetta, Georgia. Clocking in at just over 800 pages, Love Songs is a substantive read, not only in length but also in breadth. Jeffers addresses a wide range of topics related to slavery in the U.S., and by centering the small town she’s able to dig into topics like racism, segregation, and colorism. Jeffers’ approach obviously centers the enslavement of Black members of the Pinchard family, but in doing so, she also examines the complicated relationships that included indigenous people — the Creek who predated plantations — and the white families that established plantations. As the title alludes to, the scholarship of W.E.B. Du…