Books from United States

Natural Beauty follows a talented young pianist whose promising musical career is interrupted when an accident leaves her Chinese immigrant parents unable to care for themselves. Forced to abandon her ambitions, she takes a job at Holistik, an exclusive beauty and wellness store in New York City that caters to wealthy customers seeking increasingly extreme forms of physical perfection. As she becomes immersed in this glamorous world, she discovers an industry where experimental treatments promise to reshape bodies, erase imperfections, and transform people’s appearances. Her growing fascination with Helen, the niece of the store’s charismatic owner, further draws her into a world of privilege, desire, and manipulation. Yet beneath the seductive promises of self-improvement lies something deeply disturbing.

Set in 1918 Miami, House on Biscayne Bay follows two women whose lives become intertwined within a grand mansion overlooking the water. When Carmen Acosta moves into the luxurious estate with her husband, she hopes to begin a new chapter, but unsettling events and whispers of the house’s dark past soon disturb her dreams. Decades later, another woman becomes connected to the property, uncovering secrets that refuse to remain buried. Through shifting perspectives and atmospheric storytelling, Chanel Cleeton explores ambition, betrayal, marriage, and the hidden histories behind outward appearances. Blending historical fiction with mystery and suspense, the novel reveals how the secrets of a place can shape the lives of generations.

What does it mean to witness someone else’s suffering—and what responsibility comes with seeing the truth? Set in contemporary New York City, Witness brings together ten stories about people caught between the desire to care for one another and the uncomfortable truths that make connection difficult. A young girl tries to navigate tensions within her family as the home she knows faces an uncertain future. A man struggles with memories he cannot escape. A woman living with the aftermath of violence searches for a way forward. Across these lives, ordinary encounters become moments of revelation, exposing the quiet decisions that can shape a family, a friendship, or an entire community. Jamel Brinkley writes about the spaces between people: the affection that survives disappointment, the secrets that fracture trust, and the moments when silence becomes its own kind of betrayal. His characters are neither wholly innocent nor easily condemned; they are human, complicated, and often uncertain about what doing the right thing actually requires. Tender, unsettling, and deeply observant, Witness explores grief, belonging, inequality, and the moral weight of looking away. It asks whether truly seeing another person is enough—or whether we must also find the courage to act.

Set in the politically charged atmosphere of an American university on the eve of the 2016 presidential election, The Laughter follows Dr. Oliver Harding, an aging white professor of English who considers himself a progressive, liberal intellectual. His carefully constructed worldview begins to unravel when he becomes infatuated with Ruhaba Khan, a younger Pakistani Muslim law professor whose confidence, intelligence, and political activism both attract and unsettle him. When Ruhaba’s teenage nephew, Adil, arrives from France, Oliver uses his growing relationship with the boy as a way to get closer to his aunt. At the same time, campus protests over diversity and representation challenge the university’s established power structures, forcing Oliver to confront questions about privilege, race, and his own supposedly liberal beliefs. As his obsession intensifies, his behaviour becomes increasingly disturbing, and the gap between how he sees himself and how others might see him grows more dangerous. Told through Oliver’s unreliable perspective, the novel gradually reveals the prejudices and insecurities concealed beneath his intellectual sophistication. With dark humour and psychological suspense, Jha examines how people rationalise their own behaviour, how racial and cultural differences can become objects of both fascination and hostility, and how easily a sense of entitlement can disguise itself as virtue. The Laughter is a provocative exploration of power, misogyny, identity, and the contradictions of contemporary American liberalism.

When Ikemefuna, a young Nigerian dancer, boards a plane from Lagos to Texas, she imagines a new life filled with opportunity, freedom, and the promise of a happy marriage. Instead, she finds herself trapped in the home of her new husband’s parents, where her movements are controlled, her independence stripped away, and the pressure to produce a male heir grows increasingly intense. Her husband, Nna, initially struggles to reconcile his self-proclaimed feminist beliefs with his family’s expectations. As secrets emerge and the household becomes increasingly suffocating, the boundaries between victim and perpetrator, tradition and cruelty, begin to blur. Ikemefuna’s apparent obedience conceals something far more complicated, and the family’s carefully maintained facade begins to unravel. Blending domestic thriller, psychological horror, and Nigerian diasporic fiction, House Woman explores patriarchal power, forced marriage, intergenerational trauma, and the devastating consequences of silencing women. It also questions whether moving to another country necessarily brings freedom when oppressive social structures travel with you.

How far would you go to become the writer you believe you deserve to be? June Hayward has spent years watching her university friend Athena Liu enjoy the literary success she desperately craves. When Athena dies unexpectedly, June steals her unpublished manuscript, makes a few changes, and publishes it under the ambiguous name Juniper Song. The novel becomes a sensation, bringing June fame, fortune, and the recognition she has always wanted. But as questions about authorship and cultural appropriation begin to surface, maintaining her carefully constructed identity becomes increasingly dangerous. With biting humour and escalating suspense, Yellowface exposes the darker side of the publishing industry, exploring racism, jealousy, literary ambition, and the ethics of telling stories that are not yours.

Across generations of Black Muslim life in America, ten interconnected worlds of faith, family, and belonging unfold. A daughter haunted by her father’s ghost struggles to reconcile his legacy with the truth; a mother caring for her disabled son revisits a life-altering experience; and a federal agent spying on a prominent member of the Nation of Islam confronts the contradictions of his own life. Set against the complex social and spiritual landscape of Black Muslim communities, these stories explore the tension between religious conviction and human imperfection, tradition and independence, and the desire to belong and the need to question. With compassion, subtle humour, and remarkable insight, Temple Folk offers an intimate portrait of people navigating the distance between who they believe they should be and who they really are.

The Unfortunates is a darkly humorous and experimental debut novel about Sahara Kesandu Nwadike, a queer, half-Nigerian Black college student struggling to survive at an elite American university. Battling depression, academic pressure, and feelings of inadequacy, Sahara becomes increasingly disturbed by the mysterious disappearance and deaths of Black students on campus. Determined to expose the institution’s failures, she transforms her experiences into an unconventional honors thesis addressed to the university committee. Blending fiction with elements of a thesis, personal essays, playlists, emails, and visual collages, J. K. Chukwu creates an intimate portrait of a young woman confronting racism, institutional hypocrisy, and mental health struggles. Sahara’s sharp, irreverent voice combines anger with humor as she searches for meaning and connection in an environment that repeatedly marginalizes her. The novel examines the psychological cost of systemic inequality while exploring the complexities of identity, belonging, and resistance.

For twenty years, the Guerrero family has called Nothar Park, a predominantly Dominican neighbourhood in New York City, home. But when a neighbouring tenement is demolished to make way for luxury condominiums, the threat of gentrification pushes the community toward a breaking point. Eusebia Guerrero, determined to protect the neighbourhood and the people who shaped her life, begins organising increasingly risky schemes to frighten developers away. Her daughter, Luz, has very different ambitions: a successful career in corporate law and the comfortable lifestyle her immigrant parents worked hard to provide. When Luz loses her job and falls into a passionate relationship with a wealthy property developer connected to the very project her mother opposes, the conflict between them becomes deeply personal. Meanwhile, Luz’s father secretly plans their retirement in the Dominican Republic, reopening old tensions about home and belonging. With humour and emotional depth, Neruda on the Park explores gentrification, generational conflict, immigrant identity, and the difficult choices families face when the place they call home begins to disappear.

It’s 1996, and Harvard sophomore Selin Karadağ is determined to turn her life into something worthy of a novel. Still trying to make sense of her complicated feelings for Ivan, the elusive Hungarian student she fell for the previous year, Selin turns to literature and philosophy for answers about love, desire, and how to live. Inspired by her reading of Kierkegaard and guided by the messy experiences of university life, she experiments with sex, relationships, parties, and independence. When she travels to Turkey, the country of her family’s heritage, her understanding of herself begins to shift. Witty, thoughtful, and painfully relatable, Either/Or captures the exhilarating uncertainty of becoming an adult and learning to write your own story.

“I don’t want to tell you what happened. I want to tell you how it felt.” When Cassandra Williams, known as C, is twelve years old, her seven-year-old brother, Wayne, disappears during a swimming accident. His body is never found, leaving C trapped in a grief complicated by guilt and unanswered questions. Their mother refuses to abandon hope and dedicates herself to searching for missing children, while their father eventually leaves the family. As C grows older, the loss refuses to remain in the past: she begins seeing Wayne everywhere, recognising his face in strangers on trains, in cafés, and in crowded streets. Then she meets a man who shares her brother’s name and seems connected to the mystery of her loss. Moving between perspectives and shifting versions of reality, Namwali Serpell explores how grief distorts memory and how the stories we tell ourselves can become inseparable from what we believe to be true. Both intimate and formally adventurous, The Furrows is a haunting meditation on sibling love, racial identity, and the impossible desire to recover those we have lost.

In late nineteenth-century Puerto Rico, seventeen-year-old Valentina Sánchez dreams of romance and a life beyond the expectations of her family. She marries Vicente Vega, a coffee farmer from the mountainous region of Utuado, hoping their love will bring happiness. But married life proves far more difficult than she imagined. Poverty, family tensions, and the struggle to keep their farm afloat threaten their future, while political upheaval transforms the island around them. Following the Spanish-American War and the devastating San Ciriaco hurricane of 1899, Puerto Rico comes under American rule, and the Vegas lose their livelihood. Promised prosperity, Vicente and Valentina join thousands of Puerto Ricans who migrate to Hawaii to work on sugar plantations. Instead of the fresh start they hoped for, they encounter harsh working conditions, exploitation, and broken promises. Spanning generations and continents, The Taste of Sugar traces one family’s struggle to survive amid colonial domination and economic injustice. Marisel Vera brings a neglected chapter of Puerto Rican history to life, exploring how love, family, and resilience endure when the promise of a better future comes at an extraordinary cost.