Erica Ezeifedi, Associate Editor, is a transplant from Nashville, TN that has settled in the North East. In addition to being a writer, she has worked as a victim advocate and in public libraries, where she has focused on creating safe spaces for queer teens, mentorship, and providing test prep instruction free to students. Outside of work, much of her free time is spent looking for her next great read and planning her next snack.
Find her on Twitter at @Erica_Eze_.
It’s March, girlies (inclusive), which means it’s time to put an even bigger spotlight on books by women. The past few years have seen so many great literary works by women, and I suspect the number will only increase, especially considering that more women seem to be publishing more books than men.
If you, like me, regularly incorporate audiobooks into your reading life (they’re great for us neurodivergent!), then Libro.fm’s release of their list of Books to Read by Women of Color in 2025 is perfectly timed. Out of curiosity, I sorted the books by bestselling, which I’ve incorporated into the list below (after the first two, I skip around in order of bestselling).
Support your local bookstore while listening to great audiobooks, and get into these BIPOC women-authored audiobooks, which have family secrets, the Midwife of the Harlem Renaissance, essays on life lifing, the legacy of residential schools, and more.
Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson, narrated by January LaVoy
Following up the 2022 smash hit Black Cake (which has already been adapted into a series on Hulu), Wilkerson has another account of a Black family’s past. This particular family’s history is marred by one singular event. When she was a child, Ebby Freeman found her brother Baz dead on the floor, surrounded by a shattered old jar. It flipped, understandably, flipped her whole life in well-to-do New England upside down. And now, looking to avoid the media frenzy all too ready to descend on the scandal of her high-profile romance disintegrating, she moves to France. But being in France has thinking—thinking about her brother, what happened, and a certain broken stoneware jar that was brought up North by an enslaved ancestor, and that may shine a light on her future.
Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray, narrated by Robin Miles
I have half listened to the audiobook and half read a physical copy of this for my February book club meeting.
It follows Jessie Redmon Fauset, who is known as the “Midwife of the Harlem Renaissance” for discovering and fostering the growth of writers like Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen. In 1919, she was appointed as the new literary editor of The Crisis—the Negro magazine at the time—by its founder, W.E.B. Du Bois. With Jessie leading the way, subscriptions soared, and the literary component of the Harlem Renaissance started to take shape. There was just this one thing, though: she was having an affair with Du Bois, who was not only her boss and 14 years older, he was married, too. Harlem Rhapsody explores this long-held secret affair, as well as the racism and sexism Fauset fought through to forge a path of success and legacy for herself.
Sucker Punch, Essays by Scaachi Koul, narrated by Scaachi Koul
Sucker Punch follows Koul’s similar essay collection One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter. Here, she uses her usual sense of humor and wit to craft vignettes detailing how to deal with things going way off track. Take, for instance, how she thought after her 2017 release that she’d be writing about her beautiful four-day wedding. Instead, she’s writing about divorce and COVID. Life comes at you fast.
Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools by Mary Annette Pember
This is out in April, and already, it’s moving units. It chronicles the very deliberate effort to destroy First Nations communities and cultures by way of cultural genocide. From the mid-1800s to the late 1930s, tens of thousands of Indigenous American children were stolen from their families and forced to go to boarding schools that were sponsored by the US government—and which had virtually no regulation. At the schools, they were abused and discouraged from engaging in their traditions and culture through violence. Ojibwe journalist Mary Pember explores the long-term ramifications of attending these loveless institutions, detailing how her mother having attended one set the stage for a fraught mother-daughter dynamic.
The Grand Paloma Resort by Cleyvis Natera
As with Natera’s debut, Neruda on the Park, The Grand Paloma Resort is giving us a look into the life of Dominican women, girls, and families. This time, a curandera, or local healer, is at the center. Vida, our healer, is called to the Grand Paloma Resort to see to an unconscious child guest. If Vida can’t wake the child, Laura, a manager at the resort, may see all of her dreams and hard work dashed. But then there’s Laura’s sister, Elena, a babysitter at the resort who relies on pills to function. The unconscious child’s father—who is also really into drugs—has offered Elena money to set him up with local young girls, and though she takes the money, she also tries to get the girls to safety. Then they disappear.
This sounds so messy and tragic, and White Lotus-coded (in the best way).
All Access members, continue on for BIPOC releases out this week
English (US) · 