Hello my dears! Get ready for some up-and-coming April releases that will leave you wanting more. The new month calls for a new reading list, and this article has the top 10 best book releases of the month that will make you want to purchase everything within a second.
Woman, Eat Me Whole: Poems By Ama Asantewa Diaka
Genre: Poetry Availability: April 5, 2022
Woman, Eat Me Whole is a bold, mesmerizing debut collection exploring womanhood, the body, mental illness, and what it means to move between cultures.
Touching on themes from perceptions of beauty to the betrayals of the body, from what it means to give consent to how we grapple with demons internal and external, Woman, Eat Me Whole is an entirely fresh and powerful look at womanhood and personhood in a shifting world. Moving between Ghana and the United States, Diaka probes those countries' ever-changing cultural expectations and norms while investigating the dislocation and fragmentation of a body and a mind so often restless or ill at ease. To be released on April 5, this much-awaited Poetry Fiction has to be on your month’s reading.
High Spirits By Camille Gomera-Tavarez
Genre: Young Adult Availability: April 5, 2022
Camille Gomera-Tavarez publishes eleven interconnected short stories from the Dominican diaspora. It is set in the fictional small town of Hidalpa and Santo Domingo and Paterson and San Juan and Washington Heights too. It is told in a style both utterly real and distinctly magical and its stories explore machismo, mental health, family, and identity.
Get to know Camille’s debut Young Adult novel on April 5 and discover the true magic of life.
New to Liberty By DeMisty D. Bellinger
Genre: Adult Fiction Availability: April 5, 2022
New to Liberty is DeMistry’s new and impressive book which introduces readers to a rural community marked by poverty and isolation, as seen through the eyes of two outsiders and one of their own.
In 1966, Sissily travels across Kansas with an older man, the father of one of her school friends. On their way to California to begin a life together, he insists on stopping at his family ranch to see his mother. This family reunion is a painful reminder for Sissily about the truth about her own heritage, but she also sees a woman who, decades later, is still scarred by the great depression.
This much-awaited Adult Fiction will be released on April 5.
Song for Almeyda and Song for Anninho By Gayl Jones
Genre: Poetry Availability: April 5, 2022
In the late 17th century, the fugitive slave enclave of Palmares was destroyed by Portuguese colonists. Amid the flight and re-enslavement of Palmares's inhabitants emerges the love story of Almeyda and Anninho. In Song for Anninho, Almeyda moves between a dark present, in which she is once again enslaved and abused by a terrible captor, and memories of her lover, Anninho, whom she believes to have been killed. Song for Almeyda is told in the voices of Anninho and his fellow warriors.
Gayl Jones' Fiction masterpiece will be published on April 5, and it is set to break numerous charts.
Hope and Glory By Jendella Benson
Genre: Contemporary & Domestic Fiction
Availability: April 7, 2022
Hope and Glory is British-Nigerian author Jendella Benson’s debut novel, in which Glory Akindele returns to London from her seemingly glamorous life in LA to mourn the sudden death of her father, only to find her previously close family has fallen apart in her absence. Her brother, Victor, is in jail and won't speak to her because she didn't come home for his trial.
Benson’s impressive Adult Contemporary piece explores family relationships and personal growth as one enters teenage and adult years. Coming on April 7, Hope and Glory is a highly recommended title to add to your list.
Theatre of Marvels By L.M. Dillsworth
Genre: Historical Availability: April 12, 2022
Crowds gather at Crillick's Variety Theatre, where curiosity is satisfied with displays of intrigue and fear. They're here for the star of the show, the Great Amazonia warrior. They needn't know this warrior is in fact Zillah, a mixed-race actress from the East End fooling them each night with her thrilling performance.
But something is amiss, and when Crillick's new act goes missing Zillah feels compelled to investigate, knowing the fates that can befall women in Victorian London.
Discover L.M Dillsworth Young Adult novel on April 12 and be ready to be mind blown.
Take My Hand By Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Genre: Fiction Availability: April 12, 2022
Montgomery, Alabama 1973. Fresh out of nursing school, Civil Townsend has big plans to make a difference, especially in her African American community. At the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic, she intends to help women make their own choices for their lives and bodies.
Take My Hand is an outstanding Fiction that navigates the world of a Black woman trying to find peace and a stable job while the world’s adversities are all coming through her door. Dolen’s Fiction book will be available on April 12.
Things They Lost By Okwiri Oduor
Genre: Fiction Availability: April 12, 2022
Things They Lost tells the story of Ayosa, a wandering spirit, joyous, exuberant, filled to the brim with longing. Her only companions in her grandmother’s crumbling house are as lonely as Ayosa herself: the ghostly Fatumas, whose eyes are the size of bay windows, who teach her to dance and wail at the death news; the Jolly-Annas, cruel birds who cover their solitude with spiteful laughter; the milkman, who never greets Ayosa and whose milk tastes of mud; and Sindano, the kind owner of a café no one ever visits.
Okwiri Oduor’s Fiction novel dives deep into the dualities of love and the thin line between the human world and the spirit world. It is set to be released on April 12, so make sure to keep an eye out for this date.
A Woman of Endurance By Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa
Genre: Adult Fiction Availability: April 12, 2022
A woman of Endurance narrates the story of the Puerto Rican Atlantic Slave Trade, witnessed through the experiences of Pola, an African captive used as a breeder to bear more slaves. Along the way, Pola learns to recognize and embrace the many faces of love--a mother's love, a daughter's love, a sister's love, a love of community, and the self-love that she must recover before she can offer herself to another. It is ultimately a novel of the triumph of the human spirit even under the most brutal of conditions.
You can read Dahlma’s Adult Fiction on April 12.