Fresh ARCs! Get your fresh, hot ARCs!

NOTE: THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED. And the winners are...Anonymous, who gets FREEMAN; Carla, who gets THE MAN WHO TURNED BOTH CHEEKS; Stacy Michelle, who gets SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST; and Tea, who gets BEAUTIFUL, DIRTY, RICH. Winners, please email me your mailing addresses (carleenbrice AT gmail DOT com).

ARCs are advanced readers' copies, and I've received 4 recently from publishers that I want to pass along. So before 10 p.m. MDT Monday, July 9th leave a comment on this post. Tell us the title of a good book you just read or what you're looking forward to reading next and which of the 4 books (Beautiful, Dirty, Rich; Freeman; South by Southeast; or The Man Who Turned Both Cheeks) that you'd like to win. I'll pick names at random using Random.org.

Beautiful, Dirty, Rich by J.D. Mason. On sale tomorrow, July 2nd! First in a new series about Blink, Texas, a tiny town with lots of secrets. If you're psyched because "Dallas" is back on the air, you should know the Ewings have got nothing on Mason's Gatewood clan! From RT Book Reviews: "This is a captivating story with so many twists and turns that readers may feel dizzy. The clues to Desi's mystery are as intriguing as the characters, who all hide deep secrets. Readers will find this one hard to put down."

Freeman by Leonard Pitts, Jr. In stores now! Django Unchained isn't the only story about a former slave on a search to find the love of his life. See post with a Q&A with Pitts here.

South by Southeast by Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes (presented by Blair Underwood). The fourth in the Tennyson Hardwick mystery series is due out in September. If hearing that it could be could be described "as Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins meets Miami Vice" doesn't make you want to buy the book, just watch the video below. Perhaps something about it will get your attention. :) Remember, Barnes and Due also have their zombie novel The Devil's Wake out at the end of this month!




The Man Who Turned Both Cheeks, second in a series by Gillian Royes. This one isn't out until December. Talk about getting an early sneak peek!
From the publisher: "Jamaica is the picturesque background for this explosive novel about love, fear, and intolerance, the second in Gillian Royes’s mystery series featuring charming and charismatic bartender-turned-detective Shad. Hopes for the impoverished village of Largo Bay come alive with the arrival of Joseph, estranged son of bar owner Eric. Janna, who has returned to the island, falls for Joseph’s good looks and charm, but she isn’t the only one with an eye for this mysterious man. As questions about Joseph’s sexuality arise, Shad struggles with protecting the survival of his beloved birthplace amidst the deeply ingrained culture of intolerance that surrounds him. Questions arise about what it means to be a man and a father, and Shad feels pressure to defend what he knows is right. As in the acclaimed The Goat Woman of Largo Bay, the first book in this series, Gillian Royes paints an indelible picture of a beautiful land where religion is strong but life is cheap, and explores what happens when a village must confront its own darkness or lose a bright future."

A good list of new and upcoming releases from Mala Nunn, Stephen Carter, Susan Fales-Hill and more can be found on the APOOO Book Club site. Thanks to APOOO, I found one I'm especially interested in: Elsewhere, California by Dana Johnson. Danzy Senna, author of one of my favorite novels Caucasia, says "Dana Johnson’s extraordinary novel offers an arresting vision of black female identity that transcends color and class even as it reveals its continuing power in our lives. The main character, Avery, is everything at once: struggling and middle-class, black and not-quite-black-enough, sexually invisible and sexually exoticized. Avery is about as complex and compelling a heroine as I’ve read recently, and Elsewhere, California is a luminous, funny, and poignant tale that speaks directly to a whole generation raised in a state of cultural confusion.”

The Go On Girl Book Club has posted a list of the books they're reading between now and the end of the year. Check it out. Maybe you'll see something you like!

In other news, The Bat Segundo Show has some new author podcasts up you might want to check out, including talks with Samuel R. Delany, author of Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, and Jesymn Ward, author of Salvage the Bones.

Note to readers: Full disclosure: I know J.D. Mason, Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes. Agate Bolden, publisher of Freeman, will also publish a writing book by me tentatively titled The Not So Fearless Writer. However, I never post about books that I don't believe in. Even if a book is not my particular cup of tea, people who like the genre or type of book may like it and I enjoy letting readers know it's out there.

Win a copy of The Devil in Silver

Hat tip to Twitter and author @matjohnson for the news that Victor LaValle is giving away a copy of his upcoming novel The Devil in Silver. I loved Big Machine, which was a little scary. This new one sounds really scary! (Devils are big this summer Devil's Wake, Tananarive Due's and Steven Barnes' zombie novel is out soon too!)

Freeman

I fell in love with Leonard Pitts Jr.'s fiction with Before I Forget. Now he's out with a new one, Freeman, coming in May (available for pre-order now). His publisher (which, full disclosure, is set to publish a book by me for writers) sent me a copy. It's a beautiful book, and I highly recommend it.

Set after Abraham Lincoln is assassinated, it's the story of Sam, a runaway slave who sets out on a long journey to find his wife who was still stuck in slavery. Freeman is a love story, as you can tell when you read the first line: "His first thought was of her."

Following is part of a Q&A with Pitts from Agate's press kit on their website. At this link you can read the entire interview and Chapter One of Freeman. I'm excited to see the tour that Pitts and Agate have put together to promote this book. Pitts will follow the same route that Sam does in the book. Go here to see if he's coming to your city.

Q: What was the genesis for Freeman? Where did the idea first come from?

A: Years ago, I read the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Been In The Storm So Long, by Leon F. Litwack, about the lives of the slaves during and immediately after the Civil War. One of the most poignant things I learned from that book was the ordeal freed slaves went through to find their lost and separated family members. Men and women wrote letters, haunted the offices of the Freedmen’s Bureau, and walked hundreds of miles in search of their mothers and brothers and sisters and sons and husbands and wives. The quests were rarely successful; it was not uncommon, for example, for a man to find his wife only to discover that she had given him up for dead and taken up with another man. The idea that freed men and women would strive to be reunited that way, against such impossible odds, struck me as a profound and inspiring statement about the importance they attached to family and to loved ones. It also struck me that this is an aspect of history about which most of us have no clue. It’s something I’ve always kept in the back of my mind. I always thought it would provide the framework for a compelling novel.

Q: Why did you write Freeman? What were you hoping to accomplish with this story?

A: Well, obviously, the first goal of any novel is to entertain. Beyond that, though, there were a number of things I was out to accomplish. I wanted to write a love story that I thought would have a particular resonance for African-American women. I think there is something inherently affirming in the idea that a man would walk a thousand miles in a nearly hopeless search for one particular woman. I wanted to question, albeit indirectly, the whole stereotype of African Americans as a people who are frivolous about family connections, particularly paternal connections. That was certainly not the case right after the Civil War. Finally, I wanted to deal with questions of identity. We tend to treat race as something obvious and immutable, a bright, hard line of separation that cannot be crossed. But from science’s point of view, race does not exist—it’s a myth—and if you look at the history of race, you find it’s a lot more complicated and self-contradictory than we typically believe. I liked the idea of characters grappling with identity in the context of a country that was forced to do the same.

Q: What kind of research did you do in working on the book? Did you learn anything
that surprised you?

A: Researching a historical novel is less about finding out what happened when than about trying to unearth the small details that will help you recreate the physical look of a given time and place, i.e., a grocery story in 1865. I spent a lot of time in the Library of Congress. I also toured a railroad museum and a place that uses horses to help rehabilitate the physically handicapped. I should mention, also, that some of the minor episodes in Freeman—for example, the woman who approaches Sam and Ben in the courthouse, looking for her long lost baby—are fictionalized renditions of things that I learned had actually happened.

Note to readers: I recently signed a contract with Agate to publish a book for writers. The reason I signed on with them is because I admire their list. I was telling folks about their books long before I became one of their authors, but I thought I ought to make it public.

Hot off the presses!

Get your fresh, hot fiction! It's a popping April and May! A few upcoming or recent releases I'm delighted to tell you about:

The six novels in Gar Anthony Haywood's mystery series featuring Aaron Gunner, a South-Central Los Angeles native and African-American private investigator, are being rereleased by Mysterious Press!

Speaking of mysteries, Robert Greer has a new one in his CJ Floyd series: Astrid a Pink Horse. See my Q&A with Greer here!

Creeping With the Enemy, the second in Kim Reid's Langdon Prep YA mystery series is out April 24th!

Tayari Jones' big hit Silver Sparrow is out in May in paperback!

Leonard Pitts Jr.'s Freeman also comes out in May! A sweeping historical love story about a runaway slave who goes in search of his wife after the Civil War ends.

Speaking of love stories, Sadeqa Johnson's Love in a Carry On Bag is an old-school love story in the Terry McMillan tradition (and the movie Love Jones). If you're in the Black Expressions Book Club, it's an Alternate Selection for May!

Beverly Jenkins just released A Wish and a Prayer, a new one in her Blessings series. This is the fourth one, so you might want to hurry up and get started on the first three!

And if you like Christian fiction, check out Stacy Hawkins Adams' latest, Coming Home!

You probably already know this, but just in case you missed it: Eric Jerome Dickey and Toni Morrison also have new books. Dickey's is out now and Morrison's comes in May.

I'm reading Freeman now. What are you reading? What are you looking forward to?

Fall book releases

On shelves now

 NOTE: * Are for titles I added after this post was first published.

Fall in love with books!

Here's a list of new and upcoming releases WRMBA readers might like (I discovered some titles on the APOOO Book Club website).

*Assumption by Percival Everett (H/T to Doret, the Happy Nappy Bookseller!), a literary mystery partially set in Denver? I'm all over that!

The Book of Ephesus by Tarshia Stanley, a novel about a holy woman and a man with a past, the second title from DownSouth Press.

Boundaries by Elizabeth Nunez, which comes with a blurb from Edward P. Jones: "Ms. Nunez has always had the power to get to the essence of what makes human beings take right and wrong turns. With Boundaries, a reader will find that she, again, does not disappoint."

Children of the Street by Kwei Quartey, the 2nd Inspector Darko Dawson mystery is out now! It comes fueled by a starred review in Publishers Weekly and a blurb from Michael Connelly.

*Creatures Here Below by O.H. Bennett. Out in November. The publisher's press release states: "This book is certain to bring [Bennett] a bigger, more diverse, and more appreciative readership. It is exactly the sort of book I am most proud to publish here at Agate’s Bolden imprint—fiction by remarkable African-American writers that reveals deep truths about life in this country through moving, accessible, and absorbing stories. His is the sort of voice that’s not heard from enough: that of a black male novelist writing from the mainstream of African-American experience. In particular, Mr. Bennett’s work merits comparison to Edward P. Jones’s Lost in the City and All Aunt Hagar’s Children."

The Goat Woman of Largo Bay by Gillian Royes, a new mystery series set in Jamaica.

The Loom by Shella Gillus, historical & Christian fiction.

Pub date: August 30th

My Soul To Take by Tananarive Due, the 4th in the African Immortals series. My one-sentence review: An insightful take on global politics and policies hidden in a fast-paced urban fantasy. Dolen Perkins-Valdez said, “The world of My Soul to Take is so enchantingly drawn I could not help but be caught in its spell. From California to Ethiopia to Mexico, Tananarive Due takes you on a nonstop ride that will leave you breathless.”

My Own Worse Frenemy by Kimberly Reid -- first in a new YA detective series featuring Chanti Evans. Kirkus calls it a "clever mystery" and "breath of fresh air." Looking for a strong young woman protagonist? This is the book for you (or your teen reader). 

Makeda by Randall Robinson, called "part coming of age story, part spiritual journey and part love story."

*Nairobi Heat by Mukoma Wa Ngugi (also thanks to Doret!), an international crime novel, which seems like it was out in the U.K. and other countries since 2009, but is hitting American shores in September.

*Nappily About Us by Trisha R. Thomas. Seventh book in the series is out in October! In this one, Venus & her family star in a reality show. Sounds good!

Night Hawk by Beverly Jenkins, a little cowboy romance from this Romantic Times Award-winning author might be in order come October!

Paris Noire by Francine Thomas Howard, a take on post-war Paris featuring a family of immigrants from Martinique. 

On shelves in September

Passing Love by Jacqueline Luckett, another story partially set in the City of Lights. Paris is hot! This one alternates between modern Paris and 1950s Paris. Hits shelves in January; available for pre-order now!

Remember Me by Cheryl Robinson (I'm reading When I Get Where I'm Going now & really enjoying her writing)

Salvage the Bones by Jesymn Ward, a novel about the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina (star review in Publishers Weekly)

The Taste of Salt by Martha Southgate. I read this one too. It's a haunting story about a family struggling to cope with the father's alcoholism. The father is sober, but the adult son is still drinking and using drugs. Told from the point of view of the daughter, Josie, a marine biologist, her brother Tick (short for his knick name Tick Tock), and her father, Mr. Henderson, the reader gets an insight into how families work and don't work. Set in Cleveland, it's also an elegy for a dying city.

Twelve Gates to the City by Daniel Black, author of the wildly popular Perfect Peace.

*When the Only Light Is Fire, the first chapbook by Saeed Jones. His publisher's synopsis: "In his debut chapbook of poetry, Saeed Jones walks on the periphery of the South, those places on the outskirts of town, in bars after midnight, and on dangerous backroads where most people keep their heads down or look the other way. Through Texas and Tennessee, Alabama and the riverbeds of the Mississippi, these poems wrap themselves in cloaks of masks and comfort; garments we learn are flammable if we stand too close to flames." Available for pre-order 10/10.

Zone One by Colson Whitehead, sure to be one of the oddest zombie stories ever (and I mean that in a good way)!

Coming in December

What are you looking forward to reading this fall?

A couple of online events this week


I'm on #blacklitchat, a Twitter book chat, this Sunday 8/21 at 9 pm eastern time. Hope you can join us! We'll be discussing It Might As Well Be Spring the sequel to Orange Mint and Honey I'm releasing a chapter at a time on www.achapteramonth.com. Why a sequel? Why serialize a novel? How is writing the third book different from the first? I'll also be happy to answer your questions about writing, books, the biz or whatever you like!

Terry McMillan will be interviewing Heidi Durrow about The Girl Who Fell From the Sky in a live webcast tomorrow 8/18 at 7 pm eastern.

Goodbye 2010, See Y'all in February!

Dear Friends,

Thanks so much for all your support this month and all through 2010! May 2011 bring you health, happiness and many good books to read.

I'm starting the new year with a little blog hiatus. I'll be back in February for Black History Month during which I'll host a virtual Read-In for the National African American Read In (thanks Bernice McFadden for the info! If you're in Columbus, OH, go see Bernice on Jan. 8th.). Please join me here for the Read-In and consider hosting a live one in your community.

Schools, churches, libraries, bookstores, community and professional organizations, and interested citizens are urged to make literacy a significant part of Black History Month by hosting and coordinating Read-Ins in their communities. Hosting a Read-In can be as simple as bringing together friends to share a book, or as elaborate as arranging public readings and media presentations that feature professional African American writers.

To be counted as participants, simply:

• Select books authored by African Americans;
• Hold your event during the month of February; and
• Report your results by submitting the 2011 African American Read-In Report Card.

In the meantime, a few things to keep you busy until then:

Save on this year's taxes (if you move quick)! Give to the Literary Freedom Project and support black literature and education.

Go a little overboard with the spending at Christmas time? Read The Frugalista Files: How One Woman Got Out of Debt Without Giving Up the Fabulous Life. It's by Natalie McNeal who runs the popular blog The Frugalista Files.


"But Carleen, how will we know what else to read while you're gone?" Don't worry! Check out APOOO Book Club's list of 2011 new book releases. You can count on these ladies to keep you in the loop! Or read along with the Go On Girl! Book Club's reading list for the beginning of 2011. Or join the Reading and Writing Sistazs of the RAWSISTAZ Book Club for their black book chats. Or join the Black Lit Chat on Twitter in January.

The NAACP Image Award nominees will be announced January 12. The LMN movie Sins of the Mother based on my novel Orange Mint and Honey may be in the running! (By the way, it airs again January 22nd.) To vote for the finalists you have to be a member of the NAACP. You can join online for as little as $30. If I'm nominated, I will let y'all know!

If you're a writer and your on Facebook, join us for the 32-day writing challenge.

Happy New Year!

News and notes

Reviews

Publishers Weekly has some great reviews of upcoming releases. Gonna be a big spring!

One is for Jabari Asim's A Taste of Honey: "Asim successfully delves into politics, domestic violence, racial identity, young love, and more in this humorous and poignant collection, although often the characters feel too rich for the format."

They also loved Uptown by Deberry and Grant: "DeBerry and Grant capture timely and increasingly universal themes with this dramatic, epic and often tragic story of triumph and failure."

Of Suzetta Perkins' Nothing Stays the Same, "This tight sequel to Ex-Terminator checks in on the fortunes of the “Ex-Files,” a group of friends who’ve helped each survive life after divorce."

Blonde Roots, a British parody of the slave trade by Bernardine Evaristo, hits the states this month. Here's a review.

Online chats

RAWSISTAZ have some great authors in the queue, including Darnella Ford on her latest novel Finding Me.

They're also celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Sugar online today. Congrats Bernice!!!

Interviews and blog posts

The Defenders Online talks with author Elizabeth Nunez about her novel Anna In-Between.

Tu Publishing's editor Stacy Whitman talks multicultural sci fi and fantasy for kids and YA.

A book reviewer calls for diversity in publishing in wake of Cybil Awards controversy. Check here for more from Black-eyed Susan on the topic of diversity in children's literature.

Ishmael Reed wonders what 2010 holds for black literature.

Brown Girl Speaks has a reading challenge.

Contests and free books!
I'm holding a contest to promote the LMN movie "Sins of the Mother" based on my novel Orange Mint and Honey. Go here for more details.

Hello 2010!

Goodbye to 2009 and hello 2010! Writers, editors, publishers and booksellers are all skittish about what the future holds for us. Will technology save the industry or be the death of it? With books digitized will people be willing to pay for them or snatch them free like they did with music? We're about to find out.

I'm choosing to focus on what I can control, which is letting people know about good books. And, of course, writing. Working on your next book is always the best medicine to worrying about your current one(s).

In addition, I'm lucky to have something special to look forward to next year. "Sins of the Mother" the TV movie version of my novel Orange Mint and Honey will air on LMN February 21st! Stay tuned for more details (a contest!)

Forgive my little personal commercial break. Back to doing what I do here. I'm also lucky to be able to come to this blog and hear from readers who are hungry for good books! Thank you for all your support last year!

Following are a few of the new books that I've heard about. Many more can be found on APOOO Book Club's site. Remember, pre-orders really help writers! And check the authors' websites for tour dates. They might be in your neck of the woods and you could meet them in person!

January


Searching for Tina Turner by Jacqueline E. Luckett. I'm currently reading the advance copy, and I sure hope this book makes a big splash. All those ladies who rushed out to see "It's Complicated:" you'll love this book too! Want a taste? Here's Chapter 1.

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. This book is getting all kinds of advance pub (watch for it in the February issue of O Magazine!), and for good reason: it's about a resort (which actually existed) where slave-holders took their slave mistresses. Publishers' Weekly says: In her debut, Perkins-Valdez eloquently plunges into a dark period of American history . . . Heart-wrenching, intriguing, original and suspenseful, this novel showcases Perkins-Valdez's ability to bring the unfortunate past to life." If you're on Facebook, join Dolen's fan page. 


February


The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi Durrow. This novel won the Bellwether Prize for "fiction for social change," which Barbara Kingsolver created. I've mentioned this here before, but soon it's out! Have you pre-ordered? DENVER FOLKS: Heidi will be at the Tattered Cover Colfax on March 11!


March


Uptown by Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant. These ladies stay on the "ripped from the headlines" tip. Their last book was about a woman laid off from her job. This one is about "money, power and real estate" and I happen to know they had to deal with the crash of the real estate market. DENVER FOLKS: Donna and Virginia will be at Tattered Cover Colfax on March 12!


What Mother Never Told Me by Donna Hill. On Donna's website she calls this, "A story of healing, hope, love and forgiveness" and says "WHAT MOTHER NEVER TOLD ME is a book for every daughter, every mother, every family." News flash about Donna: she's celebrating 20 years of publishing in 2010. That's TWENTY YEARS! Congratulations Donna!

Author J.D. Mason is back with Take Your Pleasure Where You Find It, a story about three women who were friends in high school and meet again at their reunion thirty years later. Promises to be a great story about women's relationships, secrets and lies!

April

The great Pearl Cleage is back with Till You Hear From Me.

May

In May I'll be singing glory, glory because Glorious, Bernice McFadden's latest literary novel will be out! Author Susan Straight calls it "Intense and sweeping."

Not to jump too far ahead, but a couple of friends of the blog have pub dates in 2011 too. Look for The Silver Girl by Tayari Jones from Algonquin Books and Act of Grace by Karen Simpson from Plenary Publishing. Watch here for more about these and other upcoming releases!

Happy New Year everybody!

Merry month of May links

Some May releases everybody should know about:

God Says No by James Hannaham. “A tender, funny tour of a mind struggling to do the right thing. A revelatory and sympathetic guide to a misunderstood world.”

—Steve Martin, author of Shopgirl

Shadow Valley by Steven Barnes (fantasy)

Where Did You Sleep Last Night? by Danzy Senna (memoir)

Kiss the Sky by Farai Chideya (novel)

I am Not Sydney Poitier by Percival Everett (Check out this starred review in Publishers Weekly, which states it has "the most sidesplitting dialogue this side of Catch-22")

Did you catch the cover story of the NY Times Book Review this weekend? Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor reviewed by Toure. RingShout points out that it's been 2 years since an African American made the cover. The blog also asks an interesting question about "post-black" fiction.

And another blogger asks Whitehead if Sag Harbor is YA, and Whitehead seemed to take offense. Whitehead responds that he dislikes talking about marketing rather than writing.

A nice review of Stacyann Chin's new memoir, The Other Side of Paradise. From the review: "The reader who is already familiar with Staceyann Chin, and who knows her as the riveting spoken word artist famous for her role in the Tony award winning Def Poetry Jam, will perhaps be surprised by this book. While Chin the performer is charismatic, tough, and assertively political, Chin the memoirist has a quieter voice. Her writing is exquisitely beautiful and emotionally tender."

Got any news to share? Lemme know.

Heads up!

New books and upcoming releases:



Don't forget J. California Cooper's latest Life is Short But Wide is out today!


That Devil's No Friend of Mine by JD Mason just hit!


Finding Me by Darnella Ford looks good.


Other new books and upcoming releases that look good (including the Book of Night Women by Marlon James and Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead).

Blogger Donna Bennett has a good list of 2009 releases too.

APOOO's list of books they're reading this month.


Kiss The Sky by Farai Chideya looks like a winner. Out in May; available for pre-order now. Here's the synopsis:


Sophie Maria Clare Lee doesn't have the résumé of a rock star. She grew up a book-smart black girl in blue-collar Baltimore, then remade herself at Harvard into a hipster with an appetite for self-destructive men. One of them is the mesmerizing Ari Klein, a charismatic and handsome black-biracial trust-fund baby. Ari is her Harvard classmate, the man she toured America with as part of an indie rock band right after college, and -- by the time we meet Sophie at the start of the novel -- her ex-husband.


Ten years after graduation, Sophie has made a career as a music television host in Manhattan. But she's grown restless of interviewing pop culture icons and wannabes enjoying their fifteen minutes of fame. Spurred into a one-night musical reunion with Ari in order to help a friend, Sophie decides it's time to stop playing the good girl and snatch back the mic. She wants to be the next "It girl" in the music media circuit.


Sophie has the talent and drive to take her game to the next level despite the odds. She lands a record deal -- with the help of a new manager and paramour, Leo Masters -- but quickly discovers that her celebrity status brings new risks for her sense of self and even her safety. As she and Ari begin to play music together again, Sophie, Leo, and Ari also enter a complicated love triangle. It puts her in personal jeopardy just as she's beginning to achieve commercial success. With a Greek chorus of advice from her two best girlfriends from Harvard, Sophie tries to figure out how she relates to these two men, the music business, her loving but demanding extended family, and her penchant for alcohol and melancholy. As the band tours America, Europe, and Africa, will Sophie's faith, family, and friendships crumble under the weight of her dogged fight for fame?




And new on my radar screen (even though she was published a while ago), thanks to AALBC.com, is author Nina Revoyr, who has 2 novels about Japanese-American & African-American relationships. Southland really sounds interesting.

Pre-pub buzz

Float like a butterfly, buzz like a bee! Books are sold more like movies these days: it's all about the pre-publicity buzz and "opening" well. So here's a partial list of 2009 books that y'all should start talking about and consider pre-ordering.

For their contributions to this list, my thanks to Yasmin Coleman, APOOO Book Club (which is currently featuring a 12 Days of Christmas book giveaway); Martha Southgate, founding member of Ringshout, (new web site to launch soon!) a nascent group whose mission is to promote ambitious, skilled literary work by African Americans; and Doret Canton, of the Happy Nappy Bookseller.

If you know of other upcoming books, please let us know in the comments! Especially if you have a release later in the year. I'll try to keep up with a list of releases for each month. (Hint: Those that get the most ink make it easy for me by supplying all necessary info. When I have to go hunting for it, sometimes I don't find it.)

January
Donna Grant and Virginia DeBerry write as a team and consider themselves one author. Their latest novel What Doesn't Kill You comes out in January, and it's a book for these times. Says Tee, the main character: “I really thought I had a handle on life—then it broke off.” (Check out their blog for the Your Best Broke Story Contest)

The Black Girl Next Door is a memoir by Jennifer Baszile. In the Jan. issue, Essence magazine says, "Her account of living in exclusive Palos Verdes Estates in Southern California will move you, enrage you, and ultimately empower you."

Something Like Beautiful by asha bandele is a memoir about being a single mother.

Bicycle: Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni.

Best African American Essays, Vol I, edited by Debra Dickerson and Gerald Early. This exciting collection introduces the first-ever annual anthology of writing solely by African Americans, and includes writing by Malcolm Gladwell, James McBride and Jamaica Kincaid.

The Someday List a novel by Stacy Hawkins Adams asks the question: What do you do when you realize you're not who you want to be? Authors Adriana Trigiani and Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant say this is a keeper.

Nikki and Deja: Birthday Blues, written by Karen English and illustrated by Laura Freeman, is a 2nd in a series published by Clarion Books. They say they started the series in response to requests from booksellers, teachers and librarians for multicultural books where race is not an issue, just an attribute of the characters. (Sounds good to me!) Kirkus said of this book: "Likable and independent African American girls are a rare find in early chapter books--let's hope these two [Nikki and Deja] can start a trend."

Up to No Good by Carl Weber.

I Heard God Talking to Me: William Edmondson and His Stone Carvings looks at the life and work of the first African-American to have a solo show at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art.

February

The Book of Night Women by Marlon James.

Mitchell Douglas' debut poetry collection, Cooling Board: A long-Playing Poem, will be published by Red Hen Press. It's a book of persona poems written in the voice of the late soul legend Donny Hathaway, and the voices of those who knew him best Roberta Flack, Curtis Mayfield and Hathaway's widow, Eulaulah.

March
That Devil's No Friend of Mine by JD Mason. When Bishop Fontaine passed away, he left behind more than a list of good deeds. He was known as a caring friend and doting father...but he was also manipulative and controlling, especially to those he loved. His death begins to unravel deep secrets and shocking desires among the people he cared most about. Five very different people whose lives are only connected by Bishop suddenly find themselves up close and personal as desires, dreams and passions collide.

Vegan Soul Kitchen: A New and Healthy Way to Cook African American and Southern Fare by Bryant Terry reinvents the traditional cuisine without the use of animal products. Sounds yummy!

April
A New Kind of Bliss by Bettye Griffin. Griffin writes "contemporary stories today's women can relate to." Her website describes A New Kind of Bliss as: a first-person story, funny, poignant, and with plenty of attitude, about a woman who returns to her hometown after the death of her father. She wants to help her mother - who's never even written a check - adjust to the loss. A friend introduces her to a widowed oncologist with sexy bedroom eyes, and he thinks she's a fox. Is this her reward for being a dutiful daughter? Suddenly the hometown doesn't look so shabby after all . . . except there's a catch.

Like '80s "crap culture"? Stuff White People Like says you do. Colson Whitehead's new book Sag Harbor about growing up in the '80s comes out in April. Book trailer is here.

May
Sisters and Husbands by Connie Briscoe. This novel is a follow-up to the best-selling Sisters and Lovers.

Keeping Secrets and Telling Lies by Trice Hickman.

June

The Ultimate Test, a YA novel by Sheila Goss.

July

Goss also has His Invisible Wife hitting stores in July.

My 2nd novel Children of the Waters comes out in July. The blurb off the back cover: The author of the #1 Denver Post bestseller and Essence Book Club Pick Orange Mint and Honey explores the connection between love and race, and what it really means to be a family. You can read an excerpt and pre-order here.

A partial list of African American books for 2008-2009 from Publisher's Weekly.

Other books I'm excited about:

Martha Southgate tells me God Says No by James Hannaham, a novel about a black gay Christian who undergoes "treatment" for homosexuality will be published by McSweeney's in 2009, but I couldn't find any link to the book being available for pre-order yet.

Tayari Jones is finishing up her 3rd novel, The Silver Girl. Read an excerpt here.

Terry McMillan is working on the sequel to Waiting to Exhale.

Anybody have anything in the works that's likely to be published in the next couple of years? Let's get the word out.