New Stories by Black Authors

The story of Chicago engineer Ruth and her family reveals both the commonalities and the drastic inequalities among Black and white Americans in times of economic insecurity in The Kindest Lie (William Morrow) by Nancy Johnson. $28

Michelle Duster has created a vibrant portrait of her pioneering and Pulitzer Prize–winning grandmother in Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells (Atria/One Signal). $27

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House (Little, Brown and Company) by Cherie Jones welcomes you to Barbados, where wealth, class, love, crime and the lives of four characters merge in this seemingly picture-perfect paradise. $27

Pick up The Prophets (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) by Robert Jones Jr. for the exceptional writing. Stay for the tale of a forbidden love between two enslaved young men on a Mississippi plantation and the betrayal that threatens their existence. $27

Available in bookstores and online