From fiction debuts to memoirs, we’re sharing a list of our most anticipated book releases of 2022 through the first five months of the year. These authors and their works tackle race, identity, immigration, and motherhood.

Be sure to let us know which ones you’ll be adding to your TBR list!

Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades

Nadira, Gabby, Naz, Trish, and Angelique come of age in the vibrant and eclectic New York City borough of Queens. They roam the city, singing Mariah Carey, pine for crushes that don’t know they exist while also breaking hearts and trying to be the obedient daughters their mothers want them to be.

But, as the girls become women, their paths diverge. And where some choose to remain loyal to familiar streets, others’ lives transform into something unrecognizable. It’s a profound debut novel about women of color forging their place in the world today.

Publication date: January 4, 2022

 

Wahala by Nikki May

Ronke wants her happily ever after, and she hopes Kayode is the “one”. But her friends think he’s just another in a long line of Nigerian boyfriends.

Boo has the life Ronke wants: a kind husband and a gorgeous child. But Boo is frustrated and wracked with guilt. Desperately trying to remember who she used to be.

Simi is the successful one. But she’s secretly crippled by imposter syndrome, and if her boss mentions her “urban vibe” one more time, she might just quit.

When Isobel descends on the group like a lightning bolt, at first, it looks like she’s bringing out the best in each of the women. But the more she inserts herself into their lives, the more chaos erupts.

Publication Date: January 11, 2022

 

Violeta by Isabel Allende

Violeta Del Valle’s life spans 100 years, beginning in 1920, a life marked by heartbreak, passionate affairs, poverty, and immense joy.

The first girl born into a family of sons, extraordinary events define Violeta’s life. Effects of the Great War are still lingering as the Spanish Flu arrives on the shores of South America. Luckily, her family makes it through the pandemic unscathed but meets another crisis, the Great Depression. Violeta’s life in the city transforms as her family loses everything. Finally, the Del Valle’s move to a beautiful and remote part of the country, where Violeta’s coming-of-age story begins.

Allende brings to life one woman’s experience of the 20th and 21st centuries through humor, passion, and determination.

Publication date: January 25, 2022

 

Black Girls Must be Magic by Jayne Allen

The second installment in the Black Girls Must Die Exhausted series finds Tabitha Walker coping with more of life’s challenges. But this time there is a happy surprise: a baby.

After being told that she could not have children, Tabitha discovers she is pregnant. She dives into the world of “single mothers by choice” and soon finds herself juggling her job responsibilities, doctor’s appointments, and preparing for the baby.

Just when it seems she’s found a flow, complaints about her hair surface at her job and threaten her job security and identity. And then Marcus, her on-again-off-again ex, resurfaces with surprising demands.

Tabitha turns to the women in her life for guidance on raising her baby, handling Marcus, and finding her voice at work.

Publication date: February 1, 2022

 

Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow

When Joan is 10-years-old, she, her mother, and her younger sister flee her father’s violent temper, seeking refuge in her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. But, unfortunately, it’s not the first time violence has altered the family’s trajectory. Just fifty years prior, Joan’s grandfather built this beautiful home in the historic Black community of Douglass, only to be lynched a few days after becoming the city’s first Black detective.

Joan finds solace in her artwork, creating portraits of her community in Memphis. Her favorite subject is Miss Dawn, who claims to know a little something about curses. Her stories about the past help Joan see how her mother, her mother’s mother, and the mothers before them made impossible choices so that she wouldn’t need to define her life by loss and anger.

Publication date: March 1, 2022

 

Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu

It’s 1938, and Meilin’s future in China looks bright. But, the Japanese army is approaching, and soon she and her four-year-old son Renshu must flee across the country with nothing more than their wits and an illustrated handscroll of ancient fables.

Years pass and Renshu is now Henry Dao living in America. His daughter, Lily, is desperate to understand her heritage, but Henry refuses to talk about his childhood. Henry struggles to keep his family safe in this new land amidst the weight of his history as the exploration of stories unfolds. And how can Lily learn who she is if her father won’t share her family’s story?

Publication date: March 15, 2022

 

Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

It’s 1973, and Civil Townsend is fresh out of nursing school and looking to make a difference in the African-American community in her new role at the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic in Montgomery, Alabama.

During her first week on the job, she meets her new patients, India and Erica. They’re pre-teens who have never even kissed a boy, but they’re poor and black, and, according to those in charge of their welfare benefits, that’s reason enough to place the girls on birth control. Civil is shocked to realize the situation she’s now a part of, taking the girls and their family into her heart. But one day, she arrives at their door to find a tragedy that will change all of their lives forever.

Publication date: April 12, 2022

 

Hope and Glory by Jendella Benson

When Glory Akindele returns to London from her glamorous L.A. life to mourn the sudden death of her father, she finds that in her absence, her close-knit family has fallen apart. Her brother, Victor, is in jail and won’t talk to her because she didn’t come home for his trial. Her older sister Faith, a once independent and ambitious young woman, seems to be throwing all her focus into molding the perfect suburban family. And their mother, Celeste, is headed towards a breakdown following the death of her husband and the incarceration of her son.

Glory decides to stay in London to try and bring her family back together, a tall order when her life isn’t going according to plan either. After a chance reunion with Julian, a man she knew in her teens, she gains the courage to begin questioning why her obsessively private Nigerian immigrant family is the way it is. But her questioning reveals a massive secret that threatens to shatter her fragile family.

Publication Date: April 19, 2022

 

Ain’t That a Mother by Adiba Nelson

Adiba takes readers for a wild ride on her journey from pasties to postpartum depression – this is not your average motherhood memoir!

No one says motherhood is easy. Afro-Latina Adiba Nelson’s journey into the ‘hood starts with a “big bang” after a chance encounter with a “tall-ish, brown-skinned brotha” at Ruby Tuesdays. The stars aligned at closing time when a Jill Scott song and the right time of the month collided, and Adiba found herself pregnant. But, unfortunately, she also found herself mimicking the same relationship patterns of the matriarchs before her.

A new mom to a baby with high medical needs and a magnet for hardship herself, Adiba never loses heart or humor along the way. This love story is about a woman learning to love herself enough to change her own life for the better.

Publication Date: May 3, 2022