“Short stories can act like little tuning forks, helping us to clarify our own values,” writes guest editor Celeste Ng. “In a time when our values are being tested daily, it’s hard to think of anything more important.” The Best American Short Stories 2025 resonates precisely at this pitch: twenty pieces that upend expectations and test the foundation of our beliefs. From a bereaved medical actress obsessed with a student in her rotation to a mysterious sickness that ignites a leth...

Award-winning author Wanda Morris returns with a powerful, haunting thriller following a lawyer who after the mysterious disappearance of a local landowner and the death of his sister just months before, uncovers a conspiracy that dates back to Reconstruction and persists in half the United States today.Deena Wood’s life has fallen apart in the aftermath of losing her beloved mother, her marriage, and her prestigious job at an Atlanta law firm. She needs what the G...

Eveen the Eviscerator is skilled, discreet, professional, and here for your most pressing needs in the ancient city of Tal Abisi. Her guild is strong, her blades are sharp, and her rules are simple. Those sworn to the Matron of Assassins—resurrected, deadly, wiped of their memories—have only three unbreakable vows.First, the contract must be just. That’s above Eveen’s pay grade.Second, even the most powerful assassin may only kill the contracted. Eveen’s a professional. She...

As seen on The TODAY Show!Bestselling author ReShonda Tate presents a fascinating fictional portrait of Hattie McDaniel, one of Hollywood’s most prolific but woefully underappreciated stars—and the first Black person ever to win an Oscar for her role as Mammy in the critically acclaimed classic film Gone With the Wind.It was supposed to be the highlight of her career, the pinnacle for which she’d worked all her life. And as Hattie ...

NAACP nominee and USA Today bestselling author Beverly Jenkins returns to the town of Henry Adams with a story of family, friendship, love, and second chances.In Henry Adams, Kansas, you can’t start over without stirring things up . . .Many a good woman has had to leave a no-good man, but how many of them took a back-seat to his 600-lb. hog? On her own for the first time, Genevieve Gibbs is ecstatic, even if certain people preferred the doormat ver...

In this groundbreaking classic essay collection, Alice Walker speaks out as a Black woman, writer, mother, and feminist on topics ranging from the personal to the political.Originally published forty years ago, Alice Walker’s first collection of nonfiction is a dazzling compendium that remains both timely and relevant. In these thirty-six essays, Walker contemplates her own work and that of other writers, considers the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the ant...

A 2025 CHRISTY AWARD WINNER!"A poignant story of sisterhood, motherhood, and new love found in old places. McKnight's writing is as delectable as the Gullah cuisine at the heart of the novel." --Denny S. Bryce, bestselling author of The Other Princess and Wild Women and the BluesFrom the beloved author of The Thing About Home comes a dual timeline tale of Lowcountry flavor, family, grief, secrets, and the ...

Whispered secrets about her parents’ past take on new urgency for Chariline as she pays one last visit to the land of her forefathers, the ancient Kingdom of Cush.Raised as an orphan by her aunt, Chariline has only been told a few pieces of her parents’ tragic love story. Her beautiful dark skin is proof that her father was Cushite, but she knows nothing else. While visiting her grandfather, Chariline overhears that her father is still alive, and discovering his identity becomes he...

For readers of Vanessa Miller, Sheila Williams, Victoria Christopher Murray, and Tracy Chevalier, the story of an unconventional woman who overcame adversity to create enduring tributes in stone to her race and times. The life of pioneering Black Neoclassical sculptor Edmonia Lewis—from the Civil War–era Midwest to Boston’s abolitionist circles, to Rome’s expatriate community—is resurrected in this stunning debut biographical novel.“I plan to be a sculptor, to ...

Over the waves, sea lions bark and seagulls wheel and call. The bay is smooth and bright in the sun.But under the waves, there’s a whole hidden forest full of whales and wolf eels, sardines and sea bass, and leopard sharks and luminous jellies, as well as the waving kelp that shelters them all.Discover the magical depths of the kelp forest and all the fascinating creatures living just a paddle’s length away—over and under the waves.

A special assignment. The outcome is a matter of life or death.Who will accept the challenge before time runs out?Katherine Kincaid, a church mother from Christ Is For All, has been fervently petitioning Jesus to return and rescue His saints from this wicked world.The Lord gives her a list of unknown individuals urgently needing deliverance. The intercessors and prayer warriors are charged with leading them to Christ. Once every soul is accounted for, Jesus will com...

Bestselling author Beverly Jenkins makes the move to trade paperback with this rich and moving story that introduces us to the beautiful Kansas town of Henry Adams, and the townspeople who make it unique.Bernadine Brown is a woman with money to spend. Henry Adams is a town in desperate need of cash. But after Bernadine puts up the money, she has some ideas about how the town should be run. Will the townspeople be willing to shake up their comfortable lives to share...