Last Updated: July 30, 2026
Ghalen: A Romance in Black
by Walter Mosley
The titular character, Ghalen, is a brilliant young Black man who is the son of an endearing neurodivergent man and a gifted, astute, and empathic woman. His parents’ grand love story takes up the first third of the book and sets you up to know Ghalen so fully and invest in this family (and their extended friend/family) so deeply, that each new twist and turn feels personal.
A Harlem Wedding
by Tiffany L. Warren
A dishy and dramatic novel about life of Harlem’s famous black debutante Yolande Du Bois, daughter of WEB Du Bois, whose spectacular wedding to poet Countee Cullen was the society event of the year…even though the bride and groom were not-so-secretly in love with other people.
Honey
by Imani Thompson
A wickedly funny, adrenaline-rush of a novel about a graduate student who murders bad men and justifies it in the name of feminism.
Now Then
by Morgan Radford
A Harvard student uncovers her mother’s secret past of fleeing Cuba during a revolution, while navigating her own path to self-discovery.
Good Morning Means I Love You
by Kendra Allen
Rae has just returned to her family after leaving for a stretch and suddenly – that family being her two male partners and the sons, named Morning and Night, that she has mothered with each of them. In the span of one year, they will experience unfathomable depths of devastation–and joys they could never predict.
Cool Machine
by Colson Whitehead
The final volume of Whitehead’s Harlem Trilogy, in 1981, New York City is beginning to emerge from financial ruin and decline. Up in Harlem, successful business owner/master fence Ray Carney has just been named Sterling Furniture’s Dealer of the Month. When the banks won’t give his beloved wife Elizabeth a loan for her new travel agency, however, Carney gambles on one last heist, and finds himself entangled with a legendary criminal mastermind.