In February, we celebrate Black History, so I wanted to honor our stories and diaspora throughout all genres by recommending books you can read this month.
Contemporary
The List by Yomi Adegoke
Just as a high-profile couple is about to get married, the groom’s name appears on an anonymous online list accusing influential men of harassment and abuse. The story follows his fiancée as she navigates a frantic search for the truth while her relationship and career spiral toward a public reckoning.
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
During the COVID-19 pandemic, four women reflect on their past loves, regrets, the search for true happiness, their desire to be « truly known », and the weight of the choices that define a woman's life.
Real Life by Brandon Taylor
During a tense weekend in a Midwestern university town, Wallace, a Black queer graduate student, navigates the microaggressions and shifting dynamics of his predominantly white friend group.
Maame by Jessica George
Maddie Wright, a 25-year-old Londoner, balances the heavy responsibilities of caring for her father with Parkinson’s and navigating her first real steps toward independence. This coming-of-age story explores family expectations, cultural identity, and the courage it takes to redefine oneself.
Fantasy
Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord
After Paama leaves her gluttonous husband, she is gifted the "Chaos Stick" by ancient spirits, granting her the power to manipulate the forces of the universe. This whimsical, Senegalese folklore-inspired tale follows her journey as she tries to use this power wisely while being pursued by the Indigo Lord, who wants his artifact back.
The Rage of Dragons by Eva Winter
In a world where some are born with the power to call down dragons and others are magically transformed into giants, a low-born, giftless swordsman commits himself to a suicidal training regime to seek vengeance against the aristocrats who betrayed him. It is a brutal, military-inspired epic fantasy influenced by Xhosa culture and the history of Southern Africa.
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
A mercenary tracker with a supernatural sense of smell is hired to find a mysterious missing boy. As he joins a ragtag group of hunters—including a man who can shift into a leopard—the quest descends into a brutal, psychedelic odyssey with monsters and betrayals.
The Deep by Rivers Solomon
The water-breathing descendants of pregnant African women thrown overboard during the slave trade live in an underwater utopia, though only one person—the Historian—is tasked with remembering their traumatic past. When the current historian, Yetu, finds the weight of these memories unbearable, she flees to the surface, forcing her people to face the truth of their origins.
Romance
Yinka, Where Is Your Husband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn
Yinka is a thirty-something British-Nigerian woman facing relentless pressure from her traditional family to find a husband before her cousin’s upcoming wedding. The story follows her humorous and heartfelt journey as she navigates a series of disastrous dates while learning that her own self-worth isn't defined by a wedding ring.
You Made A Fool Of Death With Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi
Five years after the tragic death of her husband, an artist begins to rediscover desire and joy while navigating a romance during a tropical getaway. However, her journey toward healing becomes complicated when she finds herself falling for the one person who is strictly off-limits.
One Summer in Savannah by Terah Shelton Harris
After returning to Savannah to care for her ailing father, Sara Scott is forced to confront the man who shattered her life years ago when she discovers he is her daughter’s uncle.
A Love Song For Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams
Set in modern-day Harlem with magical ties to the 1920s Renaissance, the life of a florist feeling like a misfit in her powerful family experiences a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger, sparking a star-crossed romance that transcends time.
Science Fiction
An Unkindness Of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
A gritty, Afrofuturist sci-fi novel set aboard the HSS Matilda, a generation ship organized like the antebellum American South. The ship is strictly stratified, with dark-skinned "low-deckers" living in poverty and forced labor under the brutal, white-supremacist rule of the upper decks. The story follows Aster Grey, a neurodivergent and intersex healer who discovers a connection between her mother’s decades-old suicide and the death of the ship’s sovereign. As Aster deciphers her mother’s coded journals, she uncovers a secret about the ship’s true path that could spark a revolution and offer a desperate chance for freedom.
Rosewater by Tade Thompson
Set in near-future Nigeria, Kaaro, a cynical psychic agent, can access the "xenosphere"—a telepathic network created by microscopic alien fungal spores. The story centers on the titular city, which has grown around a mysterious, impenetrable alien biodome that once a year opens to "heal" the sick (often with grotesque side effects) and reanimate the dead. As "sensitives" like Kaaro begin dying from a mysterious illness, he is forced to investigate the true, predatory nature of the alien presence while navigating his own dark past and the secret government agency.
Sweep of Stars by Maurice Broaddus
Set in the year 2121, this Afrofuturist space opera follows the Muungano empire, a Pan-African alliance of city-states spanning from the Moon and Mars to Titan. Having broken away from a decaying, oppressive "Original Earth" (O.E.) to form a communal utopia rooted in African traditions and ancestral wisdom, the Muungano now face threats from both within and without.
Noor by Nnedi Okorafor
After killing several men in self-defense against a lynch mob, AO, a woman whose body is heavily augmented with cybernetic prosthetics, becomes a fugitive and teams up with DNA, a nomadic Fulani herdsman also on the run after being falsely branded a terrorist. As they journey through the "Red Eye"—a perpetual, massive sandstorm—they must evade the surveillance and military might of Ultimate Corp, a mega-corporation that exploits the region's resources.
Thriller & Horror
This is literally my TBR and the books I'm the most excited to get to.
When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole
Sydney Green returns to her Brooklyn neighborhood to find it rapidly gentrifying, only to realize that her neighbors aren't just moving away—they're disappearing. Partnering with her new neighbor Theo, she investigates.
When the Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen
Mira returns to her segregated hometown for a childhood friend’s wedding at a plantation that has been converted into a luxury resort. As the weekend unfolds, the land’s blood-soaked history resurfaces through vengeful spirits that force Mira to confront ancestral trauma and the literal ghosts of the past.
The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
In 1950s Jim Crow Florida, twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens Jr. is sentenced to a brutal reformatory for the "crime" of defending his sister from a wealthy white teenager. While Robbie struggles to survive the school's sadistic warden and the restless ghosts of boys who died there, his sister Gloria fights a desperate, uphill battle through a corrupt legal system to bring him home.
The Spite House by Johnny Compton
A father on the run with his two daughters accepts a high-paying job as a caretaker for a bizarre Texas estate known as the "most haunted house in the state." To claim the life-changing payout, he must document the property's paranormal activity, only to find that the house's vengeful history is dangerously intertwined with his own family's secrets.
Young Adult
A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow
In a modern-day Portland where mythical creatures live alongside humans, two Black "play-sisters" struggle to protect their secrets and their safety in a society that fears and silences them. As a high-profile murder trial heightens tensions against sirens, Tavia must hide her magical voice while Effie battles mysterious demons from her past.
Pet by Akwaeke Emezi
In the utopian city of Lucille, where monsters are said to no longer exist, a teenager named Jam accidentally summons a feathered, clawed creature from a painting that claims it is there to hunt a monster hiding in plain sight. Jam must navigate a community in deep denial to uncover a hidden truth, discovering that justice requires the courage to see the unseen.
Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury
In a near-future Toronto where magic and technology coexist, teen witch Voya Thomas is given a horrifying ultimatum by an ancestor: she must find and kill her first love, or her entire family will lose their magical heritage forever. To complete this impossible task, Voya uses a genetic matchmaking program to find a compatible partner, only to find herself torn between her duty to her bloodline and her growing feelings for the boy she is destined to destroy.
Where Sleeping Girls Lie by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
After enrolling in a prestigious boarding school to escape a tragic past, Sade Hussein is thrust into a mystery when her new roommate vanishes on her very first night. To uncover the truth, she must navigate a web of elite secrets and institutional cover-ups that reveal a dark, systemic rot hidden beneath the school's polished surface.
Historical Fiction
Conjure Women by Afia Atakora
Rue, a young midwife, inherits her mother’s legacy of healing and "conjuring" in a community of newly freed people. When the birth of an unusual child coincides with a mysterious plague and the arrival of a charismatic preacher, Rue must navigate shifting loyalties and buried secrets to protect her people and herself.
Symphony of Secrets by Brendan Slocumb
A music professor uncovers evidence suggesting that a famous 20th-century composer stole his greatest masterpieces from a brilliant, neurodivergent Black woman named Josephine Reed. As he races to expose the truth, he finds himself targeted by a powerful foundation determined to protect the composer’s legacy at any cost.
River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer
Rachel escapes a plantation in Barbados after learning that "freedom" still requires years of forced labor. She embarks on a perilous journey across the Caribbean in a desperate quest to find the five surviving children who were stolen and sold away from her.
Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine
Junie, a sixteen-year-old enslaved girl, accidentally awakens her sister's ghost after committing a desperate act. To free her sister's spirit and secure her own future, Junie must navigate her dark family secrets, a forbidden romance, and the heavy price of choosing liberation.
Nonfiction & Memoirs
Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford
Ashley C. Ford explores a childhood defined by her father’s incarceration and her mother’s volatile, often abusive affection. Growing up in Indiana, Ashley idolizes her absent father, using his imagined love as a shield against the complexities of her daily life and her changing body. However, as she navigates the trauma of her own sexual assault and the challenges of poverty, she eventually learns the devastating nature of the crime that sent her father to prison.
How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair
A lyrical and harrowing account of Safiya Sinclair’s upbringing in a strict, militant Rastafarian household in Jamaica. Ruled by her father’s volatile temper and his obsessive need to protect his daughters from the "corrupting" influence of the Western world (known as Babylon), Safiya grew up under rigid patriarchal control that forbade everything from modern clothing to independent opinions. Through the quiet encouragement of her mother and a deep-seated love for books, Safiya discovered poetry as a tool for resistance and self-expression.
Leslie F*cking Jones by Leslie Jones
Comedian and actress Leslie Jones delivers a raw, high-energy account of her decades-long journey to "overnight" success. She details her upbringing in a military family, her early years as a standout basketball player, and the grueling thirty-year grind of the stand-up comedy circuit before finally landing on Saturday Night Live at age 47.
We Refuse by Kellie Carter Jackson
Historian Kellie Carter Jackson challenges the traditional binary that limits Black resistance to a choice between nonviolence (King) and violence (Malcolm X). Through a mix of historical research and personal narrative, she outlines five essential strategies of refusal—revolution, protection, force, flight, and joy.
I hope you’ll find your next read here! For more book recommendations, visit my dedicated section.
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