Can’t Get Enough. Kennedy Ryan. 2025. Forever. 448 pages. [Source: ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.] This ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley for an unbiased review, and I was dancing a whole jig at the “invite” to read it after missing the “read now”. I’d only been stalking the author and site for months. Since the beginning of the Skyland series, I’ve been saying “Ken...

The Soulmate Project. Reese Ryan. 2024. Forever. 304 pages. [Source: Public library.] I’m a sucker for a friends to lovers story, so The Soulmate Project was right up my alley. The book starts with a New Year’s Eve love confession by “girl next door” Emerie to her best friend Nicholas. Unfortunately, it doesn’t go as planned and he doesn’t return her affections. Instead of ringing in the new year in a new relationship...

Church Girl. Naima Simone. 2024. Afterglow Books. 264 pages. [Source: ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.] Admittedly, the cover of Church Girl drew me in, and the story held my interest. Aaliyah is a runaway bride who left her small Alabama hometown to get out from under the thumb of her bishop father. She convinces her cousin to take her back to Chicago, where she’s planning to reinvent herse...

Stuck Wit’ Chu. Olivia Shaw-Reel. 2020. 149 pages. [Source: Kindle Unlimited.] Stuck Wit’ Chu is essentially a story about a broken marriage and a couple at a crossroads. Keith and Marlow have been married over a decade, are parents to three young children, and have somehow lost their way. They’re navigating the Covid-19 pandemic while facing their own crisis at home, and the book follows their attempt to figure otu whether to s...

Flamboyants: The Queer Harlem Renaissance I Wish I’d Known. George M. Johnson. 2024. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 127 pages. [Source: Public library.] The Harlem Renaissance was a remarkable period in American history, but was pivotal within Black America. The “New Negro Movement” launched the careers of countless scholars, photographers, musicians, and dancers and ushered in a rebirth of racial pride and solidarity, in addition to le...

Love Scammed

Love Scammed. Rilzy Adams. 2021. 141 pages. [Source: Kindle Unlimited.] Blind dates are usually a recipe for disaster — you show up somewhere, hoping the other person doesn’t look like an ogre, isn’t a sociopath, and if you’re lucky, you’ll make a love connection. Imagine, then, planning for a tropical getaway with your best friend, only to show up to the airport and see the would-be blind date you’ve...

The Outside Child

The Outside Child. Tiffany L. Warren. 2018. Dafina Books. 306 pages. [ARC provided courtesy of NetGalley.] The Outside Child follows the courtship and marriage of make-up artist Chenille and NFL star Brayden Carpenter. Chenille is “once bitten, twice shy” when it comes to dating, but Brayden is convinced nearly from the start that he’s destined to spend his life with her. Their relationships has normal ups and downs, b...

Nothing to See Here
Fiction , Humor , Public Library Love / January 24, 2021

Nothing to See Here. Kevin Wilson. 2019. Ecco. 254 pages. [Source: Public Library.] Nothing to See Here starts off innocuously enough. Lillian and Madison were roommates in boarding school — Lillian because of an academic scholarship and Madison because it’s what’s expected for a girl from a wealthy family. Their time as roommates is short-lived, but the friendship continues more than decade later. Lillian’s not ...

Motherhood So White

Motherhood So White. Nefertiti Austin. 2019. Sourcebooks. 300 pages. [Source: ARC provided courtesy of NetGalley.] Motherhood So White is a memoir that I picked up because I wanted to see a Black woman’s experience in parenting centered. Often, conversations about parenthood are colorblind, and use whiteness as a default when parenting Black children is far more nuanced. What I read was a robust memoir that examines numerous aspec...

Yellow Wife

Yellow Wife. Sadeqa Johnson. 2021. Simon & Schuster. 287 pages. [Source: Public Library.] Yellow Wife is nothing short of captivating, with its look into the life of Pheby Delores Brown, a young enslaved girl on the cusp of womanhood who has been told her entire life that she’d see more than the plantation. Instead of the freedom she’d been promised, she finds herself heartbroken, sold to one of the most infamous slave j...