"He had so much love in him. And he had swiftly run out of places to put it." Eve about her husband, Quentin.

This heartbreaking yet hopeful book starts with the unthinkable--Eve finds her husband, photographer Quentin, dead from suicide on New Year's Eve. There's no note and no hint of why he has done the unthinkable. The two met in college, fell in love and married quickly, despite both of their families reservations. Eve's close Nigerian family felt she married too quickly and Quentin's rich family was upset both by his career choice and the fact that he married a Black woman.

While dealing with her own horrific grief and confusion, Eve also has to handle a mother-in-law who blames her for her only son's death, the loss of her job, and her increasing reliance on the numbness drinks and drugs make her feel. A surprise among the tragedy and the love of Eve's family and friends start her on the path to healing.

Nwabineli expertly explores the layers of emotions inherent in this difficult subject. Eve blames herself and wonders why she didn't see Quentin's struggles. Her family blames him for not explaining to Eve why he did this. Her best friend hates him for doing this to her friend, causing her to be in this pain. The range of emotions by all are genuine and relatable. The main question, the unanswerable "why?" is addressed so well by Nwabineli. Eve and Quentin had real and authentic love, so the lack of closure or the answer to that "why?" makes Eve's loss even more powerful--and readable.

Although this one tackles a tough subject, I loved it. I listened to the audiobook and, my favorite narrator, Adjoa Andoh (Lady Danbury from Bridgerton), does another spectacular job with the range of emotions required for this book. I highly recommend listening to this one. It's human, emotional, relatable, and profound. A stunning debut.

Now this is a BOOK. I’ve wanted to read this one ever since I read Butler's amazing short story, Speech Sounds.

Before I review the book, let me introduce you to the fabulous legacy of sci-fi author Octavia Butler. Raised by a single mother, Butler was a quiet, introverted child who loved reading science fiction. Her interest in writing science fiction was spurred by the fact that most of what she read was written by white, male authors. Also, as a Black woman, she was determined to write science-fiction that was more profound than the unserious pulp of her time (the 1970s)—she wanted it to mean something and especially speak to the Black female experience. Kindred is a perfect example of a sci-fi book that is monumental in its scope and subject matter.

In this book, Dana, a Black woman, ends up traveling through time back to a Maryland plantation in the early 1800s. Every time her white ancestor, Rufus (the son of the plantation owner) is in mortal danger, she is jolted from her life in 1976 to this earlier time. She goes back to her time when her own life is threatened. The third time this happens, Dana is hugging her white husband Kevin, who ends up traveling back in time with her.

These trips are an ingenuous way for Butler to explore so many things related to slavery. The author wanted to create a new way to present first-person slave narratives and to explore how Black people of her time were wrong in thinking they could handle slavery with their modern attitudes. All that and more is expertly addressed here, as Dana sees the nuances of power, control, hate, and survival that permeate slavery, a history that she has, up until this point, only read about in books.

Butler's prose is spare yet direct. This book will make you feel all the emotions but also keep you flipping the pages as you wonder if Dana will ever get--and stay--home and how changed she and her husband will be when they return for the final time. Read this book--it's phenomenal.

This gorgeously written book is both hopeful and horrifying. In a not-so-distant future, years of violence and economic struggles known collectively as The Crisis have plunged the United States into a police state ruled by the PACT Act. Created to crack down on any anti-American attitude—especially any person who is Asian-American or is deemed by the government to be pro-China—it keeps all people in line, but also includes an unspoken policy. The government takes children from their families if they believe the parents are anti-American dissidents.

This is how Bird—the 11-year-old son of Ethan, a white library employee and Margaret, an Asian-American poet—ends up living with just his father and goes by the name Noah. When his mother’s book of poetry called "Our Missing Hearts" is labeled anti-American due to people interpreting it as a call to resistance, she must leave her family and hide. Yet Margaret is not content to let America remain as it is—and Bird is not content NOT knowing why his mother left and where she has gone.

While this may sound far-fetched, you realize it really isn't, when you think of the rise of anti-Asian violence during the pandemic and the U.S.'s history of taking kids from parents to force obedience (slavery, Indigenous communities, immigrants). And that’s what gives Ng’s story its emotional heft. Her prose is expertly crafted, too, from details about Bird’s eyes to the scurry of police as they clean up the latest art-installation of resistance. What I really loved was how, in the end, this book is a love letter to the power of story. Whether it’s Margaret’s words resonating with those who yearn for a better America, to the network of librarians helping locate the missing children and parents, it shows again and again how story encourages empathy, connection, humanity, and love.

Pick this up for Ng's stunning prose and storytelling talent and stay for the cautionary-yet-hopeful narrative. You won’t regret it.

For me, 5-star books range from ones that I know I'll remember long after I'm done to books about characters that are a complex mix of emotions and experiences that are relatable and things I haven't experienced. Demon Copperhead is the latter--what an amazing creation by Kingsolver.

This novel is a modern-day reimagining of the Dickens' classic David Copperfield. Set in Appalachia's rural Lee County, VA, the title character seems to have the odds stacked against him from the start, as the town is mired in addiction, poverty, and neglect. Demon's father is dead & his mother is a recovering addict who just married the nasty Stoner. After Stoner gets violent and his mom almost ODs, Demon moves from foster home to foster home, even hitchhiking to his grandmother's house--unfortunately she won't take him in either. He ends up living with the town's celebrated football coach and his daughter Angus. After a football injury, Demon and his girlfriend Dori get addicted to oxycontin.

Through Demon's first-person narrative, readers are treated to a fascinating story. Demon's wit is top-notch and he even manages to make horrific things funny. His love of his life & his community shines through, even when he knows, deep down, his odds of surviving aren't great. Kingsolver touches on political issues in organic ways, and it's a testament to her talent that it never becomes preachy. She also does a stellar job depicting the complexity of Appalachia, its beauty and community vs the poverty and harm done by pharmaceutical/coal companies. Demon is a character and voice I won't soon forget. Seriously...read this book. It's over 500 pages, but completely worth it.

Much thanks to @harperbooks for choosing me to win a free ARC. Also, props to @charlietthurston for the amazing narration of this audiobook. He did SUCH a good job. Reading AND listening is the way to go with this one.

This interesting book is a great piece of historical scholarship, especially because it reassesses "known" history to include information that's not easily known. Historian Greenidge writes about the Grimke family, starting with the lives of the Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina. White Quaker abolitionists, these sisters usually get the historical spotlight, when their family--including biracial nephews--gets lost. Greenidge puts a spotlight on the entire family with a litany of historical information and anecdotes.

Sarah and Angelina's brother Henry fathered three biracial children with one of his biracial slaves. These children were Archibald, Frances, and John. Frances's wife Charlotte was a teacher and writer who was an abolitionist herself. Archibald's daughter, Angelina Weld Grimke, was a Harlem Renaissance writer who was also most likely a lesbian. Within the stories of this extended family, various nuances of slavery are explored--how the Grimke sisters were compelled to abolish slavery due to their spirituality, yet still took money and lived off of their brother Henry, a slave owner. How Henry fathered three children with Nancy Wilson, his biracial slave, but still kept them all enslaved. A slave named Stephen who was treated abominably by the family and ended up physically disabled because of it. How Angelina Weld Grimke promoted "educated and cultured" Black people as superior to poor Blacks.

All of these nuances and the stories of the family members build a compelling picture of the layers of both interpersonal and political issues surrounding the institution of slavery. I really enjoyed learning more about this family and how their relationships helped push abolition--even incrementally--forward.

The premise of this book sounded intriguing--and it was especially compelling based on how its presented with an intriguing meta-physical conceit--an author (named as Banks himself) discovers reels of tapes in an old library. These tapes contain the narrated story of Harley Mann, an elderly man who grew up in the New Bethany Shaker colony Florida, that eventually became part of the land Disney's Magic Kingdom was built on. The author transcribes Harley's tapes to tell his story.

Shakers were prohibited from marriage or sex--their "relationship" was with God and his two children, the male Jesus and a female Godly representative who came later. Harley's family becomes completely enmeshed into the Shaker community after his father dies and they labor for a while on a horrific plantation in the south. Their debts at the plantation are paid off and they're "rescued" by Elder John Bennett, who takes them to Florida.

Harley loves his community, work, and his faith, until he falls in love and starts a relationship with a woman who has TB that the community cares for. This relationship is the beginning of the end of Harley's relationship with the Shakers.

While Harley's story is intriguing, there's not much to it. I kept waiting for something more to happen--or there to be more to the land and Harley's connection to Disney. All the pieces of a good story were here except for enough conflict. I really wanted more. Banks absolutely has a way with words and crafting a story, the framing of this one is especially good. It just need a little more "juice."

If you're looking for a cheery, romanc-y read for an after-holiday vacation, this isn't it. But, if you like "climate" fiction and dystopian novels that have a strong and gorgeously written human element, then this the book for you. I absolutely loved it.

In a not-too-distant future, a disappearing Florida is in the midst of another horrific hurricane. Frida is on the cusp of giving birth to a daughter that she shares with Kirby, her husband and an electric lineman who has two children from his previous marriage. After the storm decimates their small town and other parts of Florida, two of the family are dead, while a new life has risen from the destruction--their daughter Wanda, named after the hurricane.

A time jump finds Wanda as a young girl, navigating bullies at school and the treacherous weather nature continues to pummel Florida and the Earth with, due to, as Brooks-Dalton reminds readers often, the negligence and miscare of humans. Wanda, who has some magical light powers of her own, befriends her neighbor, Phyllis, who is both a science teacher and survivalist. Phyllis teaches Wanda how to handle the elements, and the novel blossoms into a riveting tale of Wanda's life of staying in Florida and learning to adapt to the "new" environment environmental devastation has wrought.

I loved this book. Yes, it's bleak and tragedies occur but there is still hope. Not the "hope" of fixing the damage that's been done or the damage to come that we've enabled, but learning how to adapt (and possible evolve?!) to what is left--a new environment forged from climate change enabled by human/government neglect.

I both read and listened to this book. Rosemary Benson does an amazing job adding emotion and fear to this fraught yet fascinating tale. Thanks to @hachetteaudio for the gifted copy in exchange for a review! I'm so glad I chose it as my BOTM Dec. pick, too. This is a keeper.

I've enjoyed Rachel's books in the past, but this one is definitely my favorite. Much thanks to @netgalley for the gifted audiobook. I really enjoyed how the narrators (especially the amazing Julia Whelan) brought the various characters (some British, some American!) and alternating timelines to life.

In present day, Emily and her frenemy Chess head to a villa in Italy for six weeks of vacation--and work. Both are authors working on their next books, but Emily is also recovering from a mysterious illness, while suffering through a contentious divorce. Although she's happy to get away, she's still suspicious about so much--Chess's real intentions for whisking Em away and the murder that happened in the notorious villa decades ago.

Mari, a young, hopeful writer, spends the summer of 1974 in the villa with her married boyfriend, Pierre; famous rockstar Noel Gordon; and her step-sister Lara. When present-day Em read Mari's very popular novel Lilith Rising and finds hidden pages of Mari's diary, she's propelled to write about the villa, Mari, and the murder. Like Hawkin's The Wife Upstairs, this one is inspired by a literary truth: the summer Mary Shelley spent with Percy Shelley and Lord Bryon writing Frankenstein.

I was on the edge-of-my-seat throughout this book and was genuinely surprised by some of the many twists and turns. The dual timelines keep the story moving at a quick pace, while asides from murder podcasts and biographical info about the 1970s characters add extra fun (especially when performed on audio). All in all this is a fast, fun thriller that has some interesting things to say about friendship, fame, and how female writers and artists.