July brought the heat, but these books brought the smoke. From the dystopian novel everyone couldn’t stop arguing about to powerful conversations on colorism and beautifully designed spaces, these are the July reads that had us turning pages.
One of the most anticipated (and controversial) books of the year made its way to shelves. Daggermouth, by H.M. Wolfe, expands the world of adult dystopian dark romance with an assassin forced to marry her target after her bullet to kill him misses.
@steffyreads Ad | Daggermouth is out now in the UK with a new cover and you need to get a copy!! The dystopian era is so back!! 😆🖤🥀 @H. M. WOLFE @Book Break by Pan Macmillan @Pan Macmillan UK #daggermouth #dystopian #dystopianbook #hmwolfe #bookrecommendations ♬ Army Dreamers – MC Mablo Dos Paredões
BookTok transformed this once-obscure novel into a phenomenon that’s now the first installment of The Heart Duology.
The Harlem trilogy is complete with NYT best-seller Colson Whitehead‘s Cool Machine, a thriller set in New York City as it struggles to leave the crime-ridden streets of the ’80s in the rearview.
We watched in real time as Love Island USA Season 8 contestants had hard conversations about colorism and skin tone, a subject explored in a new book by Dr. Sara L. Webb, an international colorism expert and the founder of the global initiative Colorism Healing.
Kristen McCallum’s debut novel is all about second chances, where her young protagonist is trying to start a new life while keeping the year she spent in juvenile detention a secret. Shirlene Obuobi taps our fascination with eternal life in Die for Me: A Novel.
If you’re obsessed with gorgeous interiors as we are, as our House to Home series has shown us, there’s nothing more exciting than peeking at beautiful interiors. In the House: Celebrating America’s Leading Black Interior Designers introduces us to the geniuses behind beautiful spaces.
Mirroring a subject that’s become an all-too-heartbreaking reality for Black families, Alex Travis’ Black Girls Don’t Cry explores when a Black teen is in the predominantly white space of high school, the competition for prom queen takes a deadly turn.
Audrey Smaltz schools us in her memoir Every Inch a Lady, dressing us up in her connection with EBONY Fashion Fair. Past EBONY Power 100 honoree Rashad Robinson also returns with a new book exploring what it takes to build—and wield—power.
Find your next great read on our list below.
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