Over the past several months, I repeatedly heard All the Colors of the Dark praised highly.  I don’t know why it took me so long to read it.  Let me spare you from making the same mistake: Read it as soon as you can.  This book is a masterpiece.  An unforgettable love story that spans 25 years, it is also a mystery that crosses over into a psychological thriller. Chris Whitaker drew me in immediately and kept me turning the pages late into the night.

I want to warn you first thing that this book is incredibly disturbing but also extremely good. Ng sets it in a not-so-distant, dystopian future that seems to be transpiring in many ways even since Ng published in 2022. She observes history and social change with a keen eye. Her predictions feel terrifying but are just a hair's breadth away from the current administration's agenda at this moment.

In Sweetness in the Skin, Ishi Robinson tells one of the most original and compelling coming-of-age stories that I’ve read in a long time.  Robinson, who was born and raised in Jamaica, sets the story of Pumkin Patterson in the city of Kingston. At eleven-years-old, Pumkin lives in a small apartment with her grandmother, mother and Aunt Sophie.

When my friend Gevvie recommended Good Dirt, I was excited to learn that Charmaine Wilkerson, author of Black Cake (read review here) had a new novel out. Then when I saw it on display at my local library branch, I knew it was time to scoop it up and dive in. As much as I loved Black Cake, I think Good Dirt is even better.

Real Americans starts out as a better-than-average love story between Lily Chen, a young, unpaid intern at a media company in New York City, and Matthew Allen, a successful, slightly older man.  Despite their vastly different backgrounds—she was born in America but her parents are from China and she struggles to get a financial foothold, and his family is wealthy and waspy—they end up marrying and having a child.

When I bought Julie Chan Is Dead at Hudson News in the Billy Bishop airport in Toronto, I was looking for a light read for my trip home to Boston.  Reading the book’s flap copy, I thought it would fit the bill.  And, although I am not recommending the book as a great piece of literature, I do recommend it as both an outstanding commentary on today’s phenomenon of social media influencers and a real page-turner.