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_.
This year, I started cooking way more for a few reasons, and doing so inevitably had me doing a lot of frustrated scrolling through recipe pages full of ads and that chit-chat that comes before every recipe. I say all that with no shade to the recipe writers, who I know are trying to make money from this free thing that they’ve gifted me, but it is a little annoying to fight through hella ads when I’m just trying to double-check how much oregano I’m supposed to add.
This whole experience — repeated many times — has led me to cookbooks, which I did not see myself getting into with the World Wide Web at my fingertips. But I have, and they’re dope. So far, I’ve gotten a few I mentioned in this list of BIPOC-written cookbooks, and I’m excited to see new ones, like this week’s Peculiar Baking: A Practical Guide to Strange Confections by Nikk Alcaraz and Eva Longoria’s My Mexican Kitchen.
There are also other noteworthy books out this week, of course, which include a new Paula Hawkins, a trippy queer coming-of-age tale, a Nigerian retelling of Mansfield Park, and more.
The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins
Paula Hawkins thrillers are a good time, and this one takes place 20 years ago, on the isolated Scottish Eris island, in one house. The same house where an artist’s cheating husband disappeared. Now, it’s home to the solitary Grace, who gets a visit after a discovery is made in London.
Masquerade by Mike Fu
Between Shanghai and New York, a curious story involving an artist and a bartender takes place. Let’s start with Meadow Liu, who is newly single, the aforementioned bartender, and house-sitting for his artist friend Selma. When he stumbles upon a book titled The Masquerade, about a masked ball that took place in Shanghai in the ’30s, suddenly all these weird things start happening. For one, the author’s name is the same as Meadow’s in Chinese (Liu Tian), and over the summer, Meadow encounters strangers speaking riddles, a potentially haunted apartment, and other strange happenings. Then Selma goes missing from her artist residency, and Meadow’s understanding of reality starts to feel like it’s giving way.
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Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me by Glory Edim
Here, the founder of the Well-Read Black Girl book club highlights the relationship she’s had with books all her life. As a daughter of Nigerian immigrants growing up in Virginia, the books that often left the biggest impression on Edim were ones where she felt uplifted and represented.
For She Is Wrath by Emily Varga
I went to see the early aughts adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo with my brother for a school assignment he had, and it had my little head in a lock. I was so shook; I immediately checked out the book from the library just to relive Dantes’ sweet, sweet revenge. Varga’s For She Is Wrath is a YA Pakistani retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo that I could see myself reading alongside the original back in the day — and now. But this time, it’s Dania, not Dantes, who’s been wrongfully sent to prison, and who counts her days until she can get revenge against Mazin, the boy who caused her all this mess. And the boy she once loved. I will say this gets bonus points for involving a stolen djinn treasure, and a still-burning desire for the boy who betrayed her. We love a conflicted love ting.
This Motherless Land by Nikki May
May is the author of Wahala, and here, she’s serving up Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park but made it Nigerian. In Nigeria, Quiet Funke is happy. She loves her educator parents, and even her annoying brother. But then a tragedy happens, and she’s sent to live in England, where the demeanor of her mother’s family feels just as cold, gray, and tasteless as the food and weather of the new-to-her country. There is a bright spot, though. Liv is her older cousin and a free spirit, and together, the two girls grow up as best friends. Then life lifes again, and they’re torn apart, separated by both their mothers’ choices and misunderstandings.
This Will Be Fun by E. B. Asher
After reading the description, I fully trust the title to deliver on its promise. Here we have a cozy quest romantasy that follows a group of friends — Beatrice, Elowen, Clare, and Galwell the Great — who were once heroes. But memories of their celebrated previous journey carry with them some darkness, and they haven’t been in touch in forever. Then, they’re sent an invitation to the queen’s wedding, and they’re very suddenly reunited. And it is messy — with former relationships and guilt all over the place. What’s more, it seems like they may have to dust that thang off and go to battle the dark forces that threaten to return. Ahead of them are undead foes, enchanted weapons, magical games, and coffee shops. Most daunting of all, though, may be their messy, unresolved romances.
Other Book Riot New Releases Resources:
- All the Books, our weekly new book releases podcast, where Liberty and a cast of co-hosts talk about eight books out that week that we’ve read and loved.
- The New Books Newsletter, where we send you an email of the books out this week that are getting buzz.
- Finally, if you want the real inside scoop on new releases, you have to check out Book Riot’s New Release Index! That’s where I find 90% of new releases, and you can filter by trending books, Rioters’ picks, and even LGBTQ new releases!
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