The newest winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, this insightful and enchanting debut by Jamila Minnicks offers a fresh perspective of the story about a Black woman doing whatever it takes to protect all she loves at the beginning of the civil rights movement in Alabama. Through Alice Young’s unforgettable voice, the fictional town of New Jessup, Alabama, is rendered as a loving, thriving, and complex community where social progress and self-reliance are intertwined.

Moonrise Over New Jessup has been named a most-anticipated book of 2023 by Buzzfeed, Essence, Goodreads, Bookclubs.com, Book Riot, Electric Literature, Chicago Review of Books, and many more. And a who’s who of bestselling authors has been raving about it:

“With compelling characters and a heart-pounding plot, Jamila Minnicks pulled me into pages of history I'd never turned before.” —Barbara Kingsolver, New York Times bestselling author and founder of the Bellwether Prize
 
“I’m not exaggerating when I say that it’s a masterpiece and Jamila Minnicks is one of the best new writers to come along in a generation.” —Robert Jones, Jr., author of the New York Times bestseller The Prophets

“You will fall in love with New Jessup: the town and the book." —Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of The Revisioners
 
 "Elegant and nuanced, Moonrise Over New Jessup is an incandescent work of art through-and-through, from a powerful new voice." —Jason Mott, author of National Book Award winner Hell of a Book
 

Read an excerpt now.

Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge: Libertie Sampson comes of age in a free Black community in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, where she tries to parse what freedom actually means for a Black woman, and struggles with where she might find it—for herself and for generations to come.

A New York Times Best Historical Fiction Pick of 2021 and a Washington Post, TIME, and Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year.  “A stunning look at what freedom really means.” —The New York Times

The Good Negress by A.J. Verdelle: First published in 1995, this novel remains an important, relevant part of the literary canon, the portrait of a Black family in 1960s Detroit and a glimpse into an era told through the unforgettable voice of young Denise Palms. Denise leaves her grandmother’s home in rural Virginia to reunite with her mother, stepfather, and older brothers, and discovers scarce opportunity beyond cooking, cleaning, and raising her mother’s new baby. But an idealistic, demanding teacher opens Denise’s eyes to a future she has never considered, and soon she begins to question the limits of the life prescribed to her. Winner of the Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

“Forced labor, secret escapes, government spies, and political intrigue. No, this isn’t a thriller—it’s all true.” —Apple Books

The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America by visionary labor organizer Saket Soni sure reads like a thriller, though. That’s because Soni takes us inside the harrowing and heroic story of one of the largest human trafficking cases in United States history. Hundreds of Indian workers were lured to the U.S. after Hurricane Katrina with the promise of good jobs and a green cards, paying their life savings for this opportunity. Instead, they were kept in captivity, living in squalid conditions in Mississippi labor camps. Soni and the workers devise an extraordinary escape, a march on foot to Washington DC—and a heroic journey to justice.

“It’s paced like a thriller, written like a poem, and full of vivid characters who’d enliven any novel, but it’s the true story one of the largest modern-day trafficking incidents in recent history and how Saket Soni and his crew went after the powerful perpetrators. A story as important as it is riveting to read.” —Rebecca Solnit, author of Orwell’s Roses

An Amazon and Apple Books Best Book of the Month selection, The Great Escape will be available January 24, wherever books, e-books, and audiobooks are sold.
 

Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
Coming March 14
 
The internationally bestselling author of The Mountains Sing takes us back to Việt Nam, both during the war and in the present day, and gives us a suspenseful and moving saga about family secrets, hidden trauma, and the overriding power of forgiveness.
 

Nightbloom by Peace Adzo Medie
Coming June 13

The author of Reese’s Book Club Pick His Only Wife returns with a moving novel about the unbreakable power of female friendship.  After two inseparable young friends in Ghana become estranged, one moving to the U.S., only a crisis can bring them back together and reconnect their bond.
 

We Must Not Think Of Ourselves by Lauren Grodstein
Coming August 8
 
From the New York Times bestselling author of A Friend of the Family and Our Short History comes a vibrant and intimate novel of love and Jewish defiance set inside the Warsaw Ghetto, inspired by the actual archives people kept at the time so their stories would survive World War II. “A masterpiece.” —Madeline Miller, author of Circe