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Raven Leilani, author of Luster

Edie is stumbling her way through her 20s --- sharing a subpar apartment in Bushwick, clocking in and out of her admin job, making a series of inappropriate sexual choices. She is also haltingly, fitfully giving heat and air to the art that simmers inside her. And then she meets Eric, a digital archivist with a family in New Jersey, including an autopsist wife who has agreed to an open marriage --- with rules. As if navigating the constantly shifting landscapes of contemporary sexual manners and racial politics weren’t hard enough, Edie finds herself unemployed and invited into Eric’s home --- though not by Eric. She becomes a hesitant ally to his wife and a de facto role model to his adopted daughter. Edie may be the only Black woman young Akila knows.

Week of June 7, 2021

Paperback releases for the week of June 7th include DAYLIGHT, David Baldacci's third Atlee Pine thriller, in which the FBI agent’s search for her sister clashes with a military investigator's high-stakes case, leading them both deep into a global conspiracy --- from which neither of them will escape unscathed; DARK TIDES, Philippa Gregory's evocative historical novel tracking the rise of the Tidelands family in London, Venice and New England; FIFTY WORDS FOR RAIN by Asha Lemmie, a sweeping, heartrending coming-of-age novel about a young woman's quest for acceptance in post-World War II Japan; THE SECOND HOME, an assured and affecting first novel from Christina Clancy that captures the ache of nostalgia for summers past and the powerful draw of the places we return to again and again; and CULT OF GLORY, Doug J. Swanson's 21st-century reckoning with the legendary Texas Rangers that does justice to their heroic moments while also documenting atrocities, brutality, oppression and corruption.