Black Love Stories To Read Right Now
Like much of the world, I am sickened by the death of George Floyd. Since he was killed, I’ve donated to BLM, The Southern Poverty Law Center, to the NAACP Legal fund, and to the National Bail Out fund. (You can support all or some of these organizations via ActBlue.) I’ve talked to my kids about what we–white, privileged, and safe–can do (listen, support, validate, vote). I’ve wept. I’m sure I’m making mistakes and getting it wrong. It’s not enough but it’s something.
I’ve been thinking about AAR and how we can help. One thing we can do is promote black authors, especially in romance, because we need stories of black love and black joy.
We have an Amazon storefront dedicated to diverse love stories. Currently it has 135 ebooks on it and we add more every week. You can access it here. (AAR makes 4% of any book we sell on Amazon. This month we will donate all monies made from this list to ActBlue.) We have tags, too. Some day I hope to incorporate them in our Power Search but in the meantime you can access many of them through these two blogs (here and here) that Caroline has put together. AoC books are by authors of color and PoC books feature protagonists of color. We do not currently have a tag specifically for black authors/protagonists, but we are open to adding it.
And if you haven’t read any recent books by black authors, here are some that AAR reviewers have loved. Please suggest more in the comments!
Dread Nation and A Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland
Stay with Me Forever by Farrah Rochon
A Love Hate Thing by Whitney G. Grandison
Blitzed by Alexa Martin
The Kingmaker by Kennedy Ryan
Not the Girl You Marry by Andie J. Christopher
Promise Me a Dream by Wayne Jordan
The Write Escape by Charish Reed
Royal Holiday by Jasmine Guillory
Work for It by Talia Hibbert
Grading Curves by Naima Simone
Inevitable Conclusions by Christina C. Jones
Sweet Heat by Zuri Day
One Day to Fall by Therese Beharrie
A Prince on Paper by Alyssa Cole
As Good As The First Time by K. M. Jackson
How to Stay by Christina Mitchell
Bingo Love by Tee Franklin
Red Carpet Redemption by Yahrah St. John
Speaking of Summer by Kalisha Buckhanon
Sugar Pie Guy by Tabitha True
Midlife Crisis by Audra North
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Men of Valor: His Treasure by Kiru Taye
Here is another great compilation of romance novels by black authors. (Gotta love Oprah!)
https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/tv-movies/g32829101/best-black-romance-novels/
My favorites:
Sincerely, Carter by Whitney G
Sin & Ink by Naima Simone
Cheeky Royal by Nana Malone
Thank you for bringing this up. For contemporary AoC I love Rebekah Weatherspoon and Talia Hibbert. I also really like L. Penelope and the Earthsinger Chronicles. Outside of genre romance – In scifi you can do no better than N.K. Jemisin. For required reading I thought So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo was amazing.
I’ve enjoyed many of Hibbert’s books. Haven’t read any Weatherspoon–is there one you really like?
I enjoyed Haven (darker, BDSM) which is my speed for contemporary but I enjoyed Rafe a lot too (lighter, male nanny hero)
And about to start reading Xeni!
I always read through every crisis. Last few weeks, I have read James Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain; Girl, Women, Other by Bernardine Evaristo and An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole. I feel enraged and helpless. What will it take?
Thank you for addressing this here! One of the most important things that can happen is for people w/ white privilege to acknowledge and discuss racial inequalities with their friends and family and especially their children. the Frontline/PBS documentary about teacher Jane Elliott’s brown eye/blue eye classroom experiment is available on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mcCLm_LwpE
I showed it to my own kids years ago and I think it makes a great intro to having the conversation with young people.
I also second Maggie Boyd’s recc of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow,
and believe everyone should read Bryan Stevenson’s excellent Just Mercy. He runs the Equal Justice Initiative and another excellent place to donate and support. I loved his TEDtalk. https://eji.org/bryan-stevenson/
and last book recc, Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me.
and ultimately, it is not enough to be just outraged and saddened, or even to donate or have the important conversations with family and friends; we have to do our part in paying attention to how our communities, states and countries are governed. we have to participate, we have to vote.
(so sorry, if that was a bit long, i feel rather upset these days and have spent way too much time alone, thanks! xo)
No, it’s not nearly enough for white people to feel sad or to donate, click a link, or post a meme on FB!
So much more activism is needed by ordinary Americans to challenge inequality, and that can mean political activism by joining with protestors on the streets today, voting carefully and educating ourselves on the platforms and backgrounds of anyone running, consciously voting for people of color, demanding new legislation around police accountability, pushing for equity legislation across the board for better schools, access to healthcare, affordable housing, anti-discrimination laws throughout our institutions. It means challenging white privilege and entitlement when we hear and see it and being willing to be a voice, even when it’s uncomfortable. Lately, it also means having a cellphone in hand and quickly videoing racism in public, and even when the videos seem as if they aren’t having an impact, look at how many are. As a teacher, for me it means being willing to disrupt people’s sense of comfort about their world and choose books filled with ideas that are outside many people’s norm. It means being okay with having different views than others and thinking differently. And, it means as a white person, shutting up and listening rather than trying to recenter whiteness all the time. That is why more people of color are needed in all conversations and on all social media sites.
And, like you, Beth, I too am upset and disgusted with our cultural environment and our nation.
What? No mention of Beverly Jenkins? Her pirate story Captured is the first romance novel I ever read, and the book that put me on the path of not dismissing romance novels as silly diversions and/or hack work.
I loved Jenkins’s Tempest, which is about a conservative doctor widower who orders a mail order bride to ensure his young daughter has a mother. Of course, he’s expecting someone tame and demure like his first wife and is in for a big surprise in the personality department.
Forbidden is also a good story. It concerns a half black man who has been passing as white in order to run a fancy hotel but then must grapple with the dangerous possibility of revealing his true identity to win the love of a black woman.
We were citing newer romances. We’ve given high marks to several of Jenkins’ books DIKS including Tempest.
“We were citing newer romances.” Ah… But there’s nothing quite like the classics! :)
I haven’t read Beverly Jenkins’s Rebel yet, but it’s a sort of newish HR. Plus, she has an upcoming HR semi-sequel (spinoff?) to Tempest coming out next year, already available for pre-order. It’s called Wild Rain. Just ran across it on Amazon.
The classics are good.
Hello, Sorry for the late reply. On the side of classics, any book by Sandra Kitt. The Color of Love still resonates with me.
There are so many great books by black authors. A few of my favorites are
The Proposal Jasmine Guillory (anything by her)
Opposite of Always Justin A. Reynolds (2019 DIK)
Passion’s Song and the upcoming Boyfriend Project Farrah Rochon (anything by her, really)
Taste for Temptation Phyllis Bourne
Stiletto Justice Camryn King (especially pertinent right now)
I would also recommend reading The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander and One Person, No Vote Carol Anderson. They are non-fiction which lays out some of ways racism is written into the system.
Have you watched Just Mercy? You can rent it for free right now at Amazon. I thought it was terrific. And the audiobook is just 7.50 right now too.
I’d add Adriana Herrera’s Dreamers series to the list. And American Love Story in particular, as it contains an especially topical storyline.
I plan to continue with L. Penelope’s Earthsinger Chronicles this month. Ilona Andrews blurbed it as an “engaging romance set against the backdrop of ancient magic.”
The beautiful hardcover edition for the first book caught my eye at the bookstore, so I looked for it on Scribd and listened to the audio for it last year. I bought the eBooks for the follow-up novella and 2nd novel in the series and plan on reading them soon. I think the 3rd book in this series comes out in July. I tend to forget a lot between book releases, so had been saving this so I can still remember details by the time the 3rd book comes out. I think all of the covers for this series so far are wonderfully alluring.
Also, on your list above, I loved the female friendship in Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation books and the audios are superb.
I am almost through with A Deathless Divide. I haven’t liked it as much as Dread Nation because I think Jane is really hard to relate to AND, in the Covid era, the whole vaccine thing reads a bit differently. But I love Katherine and the friendship between the two women is amazing.
Karyn Langhorne’s Unfinished Business is on my keeper shelf. She writes across a number of genres. From the UK I watch my hometown (Los Angeles) in agony yet again. Shocking? Yes. Surprising? No. How sad it all is.
The romance reading world still feels very divided along racial lines, and I rely on following authors of color on Twitter and social media to have a clearer sense of how and why segregation in this field continues to exist and what can be done about it. It would be great to see more authors of color interviewed here to help bridge these divides. I would love to see more people of color posting here on this site too as it would add enormously to conversations.