Riot baby (2020)

Brown Girl in the Ring

Nalo Hopkinson

1998 · 250 pages · 1 review

Others: Positive

Set in Toronto after the turn of the millennium, Brown Girl in the Ring focuses on "The Burn," the inner city left when Toronto's economic base collapsed. Young Ti-Jeanne lives with her grandmother, who runs a trade in herbal medicine that is vital to the disenfranchised of The Burn. A fascinating cast of characters combined with the dark world of Afro-Caribbean magic create an altogether original and compelling story by an intriguing new voice.

The Deep

Rivers Solomon

2019 · 184 pages · 10 reviews

Others: Overwhelmingly positive

Yetu holds the memories for her people—water-dwelling descendants of pregnant African slave women thrown overboard by slave owners—who live idyllic lives in the deep. Their past, too traumatic to be remembered regularly is forgotten by everyone, save one—the historian. This demanding role has been bestowed on Yetu. Yetu remembers for everyone, and the memories, painful and wonderful, traumatic and terrible and miraculous, are destroying her. And so, she flees to the surface escaping the memories, the expectations, and the responsibilities—and discovers a world her people left behind long ago. Yetu will learn more than she ever expected about her own past—and about the future of her people. If they are all to survive, they’ll need to reclaim the memories, reclaim their identity—and own who they really are.

The prey of gods

Nicky Drayden

2017 · 381 pages · 6 reviews

Others: Overwhelmingly positive

The Stone Sky

N.K. Jemisin

2017 · 464 pages · 10 reviews

Others: Overwhelmingly positive

Humanity will finally be saved or destroyed in the shattering conclusion to the post-apocalyptic and highly acclaimed NYT bestselling trilogy that won the Hugo Award three years in a row. The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women. Essun has inherited the power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every orogene child can grow up safe. For Nassun, her mother's mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.

How Long 'Til Black Future Month

N.K. Jemisin

2018 · 400 pages · 3 reviews

Others: Overwhelmingly positive

In these stories, Jemisin sharply examines modern society, infusing magic into the mundane, and drawing deft parallels in the fantasy realms of her imagination. Dragons and hateful spirits haunt the flooded city of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow south must figure out how to save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated novella “The City Born Great”, a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis’s soul. Content: The Ones Who Stay and Fight (2018) The City Born Great (2016) Red Dirt Witch (2016) L'Alchimista (2004) The Effluent Engine (2011) Cloud Dragon Skies (2005) The Trojan Girl (2011) Valedictorian (2012) The Storyteller's Replacement (2016) The Brides of Heaven (2007) The Evaluators (2017) Walking Awake (2014) The Elevator Dancer (2016) Cuisine des Mémoires (2016) Stone Hunger (2014) On the Banks of the River Lex (2010) The Narcomancer (2007) Henosis (2017) Too Many Yesterdays, Not Enough Tomorrows (2004) The You Train (2007) Non-Zero Probabilities (2009) Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters (2010)

Blood over Bright Haven

M. L. Wang

2023 · 448 pages · 16 reviews

Others: Mostly positive

Magic has made the city of Tiran an industrial utopia, but magic has a cost—and the collectors have come calling. An orphan since the age of four, Sciona has always had more to prove than her fellow students. For twenty years, she has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry. When she finally claws her way up the ranks to become a highmage, however, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant. What neither Sciona nor her peers realize is that her taciturn assistant was once more than a janitor; before he mopped floors for the mages, Thomil was a nomadic hunter from beyond Tiran’s magical barrier. Ten years have passed since he survived the perilous crossing that killed his family. But working for a highmage, he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the Tiranish in power. Through their fractious relationship, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first. Sciona has defined her life by the pursuit of truth, but how much is one truth worth with the fate of civilization in the balance? A standalone dark academia brimming with mystery, tragedy, and the damning echoes of the past. For fans of Leigh Bardugo, V. E. Schwab, and Fullmetal Alchemist.