I Who Have Never Known Men ~ Jacqueline Harpman, Translated from French by Ros Schwartz The unnamed protagonist of I Who Have Never Known Men has no memory of life outside of the underground bunker where she lives imprisoned with 39 other women. They were all adults when they were captured, but she was a baby and was raised by them. They have no idea why they are here, the only interaction with other human beings is with the harsh guards who watch over them, bring them food, and prevent them from breaking any of their arbitrary rules. Then one day, while the guard has the keys in the lock…

Good Dirt ~ Charmaine Wilkerson Ebony (Ebby) Freeman is 10 years old when she is witness to a home invasion gone wrong, where her 15 year old brother, Baz, is shot and killed. Because her family is one of very few wealthy Black families in a tony Connecticut neighborhood, the crime is the subject of a lot of media attention. Whenever Ebby meets someone new, she waits for that realization of who she is to dawn on them, for the pity and curiosity to make itself known. We first meet her almost 20 years later, when her (white) well to do fiancé ghosts her on their wedding day. 9 months later,…

Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (On a Dead Man) ~ Jesse Sutanto Vera Wong is back in this sequel to Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, and I couldn’t be happier. A year after Vera came downstairs in her San Francisco Chinatown tea shop and found a dead man, her life has new meaning. She has a group of found family, young people who were actually her suspects in that murder, and her son Tilly is living with Selena, the detective who was working on that case. Her shop is bustling. But she is bored and needs a challenge. If only another person would end up dead so she could…

Go As A River ~ Shelley Read After Victoria “Torie” Nash’s mother, aunt, and cousin are killed in a car accident, she is left behind as the ‘woman of the house’ at her family peach orchard in Colorado with her father, her brother, and her uncle. Her father has changed since losing his wife, he is despondent and angry. Her brother, Seth, has always been a cruel bully, and without their mother’s stern discipline, he becomes more so. Her uncle is an angry man who came home from WWII in a wheel chair, and depends upon his family to care for him. Go As A River begins when Torie is…

Dream Count ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Dream Count is told from the point of view of four African women, three are wealthy and successful women from Nigeria, one is a hotel employee from Ghana. Chiamaka is a travel writer from a wealthy Nigerian family, and as the book begins she is in the lockdown part of the pandemic, and is considering her shitty taste in men. Zikora is a successful lawyer, and her section begins as she is in labor, attended by her mother, the baby’s father nowhere in sight. Omelogor is Chiamaka’s cousin, a former banker, now intellectual studying how pornography is currently teaching youth unrealistic lessons about sex.…