27th June 2025
Books Spotlight Black Publishing
Titles in this Spotlight are to be published between June 2025 and July 2026 Previews
Rewriting the canon with fresh takes on familiar stories
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Our expert, their picks
Natasha Onwuemezi
Natasha is a freelance writer, editor and strategist with more than 10 years’ experience working across print and digital. She guest edits the Black Issue of The Bookseller, an annual focus on Black writers and publishing professionals.
Pemi Aguda One Leg On Earth Virago, 7th May, £16.99, 9780349018270
Set in a mesmerising, menacing Lagos, Aguda’s debut follows newly pregnant Yosoye as she begins working for a and uncovers a chilling epidemic: pregnant women are being drawn to water and jumping tragically to their deaths... The famed short story writer weaves themes of capitalism, motherhood and decay into a dazzling, original novel, which was awarded the Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award in 2020, judged by Sarah Perry, Max Porter and Ian Rankin.
Françoise Ega,
Emma Ramadan (trans) Notes to a Black Woman Yale University Press, March, £15, 9780300270297
In the 1960s, hundreds of young girls and women travelled from French colonies in the West Indies to France to become domestic servants for white families. After hearing tales of Caribbean domestic workers, Ega took a position as a cleaning woman in a wealthy French home in order to chronicle these abuses and unveil them to the world. Notes to a Black Woman is a piercing denunciation of the ongoing legacies of colonialism and slavery and an intimate archive of friendship, joy, solidarity, motherhood and hope.
Jackson Brown The Reaper Del Rey, 7th October, £16.99, HB, 9781529907193
From the founder of the Black Girl Writers mentoring programme comes a dark and gripping urban fantasy, set in the heart of a hidden world beneath the streets of London. The story follows weapon-for-hire Gerald Reaper and empath Amy St Clair as they solve fantastical mysteries while maintaining the secrecy of the city’s underground supernatural community. It is one of Del Rey’s big debuts of the year, with a marketing and publicity focus to make Brown the “next big name” in British fantasy.
Dorcas Gwata The Street Clinic: Stories of Gangs and Violence, Care and Compassion
Picador, 19th February, £18.99, HB, 9781035006915
In 10 powerful stories of young people’s lives, award-winning mental-health nurse Gwata tackles the traumatic aftermath of youth violence on London’s troubled streets. With compassion and clarity, Gwata draws on 25 years on the NHS frontline to explore the brutal realities of youth violence, trauma and social inequality and London: its multicultural population, wealth inequalities, tireless healthcare professionals and an NHS that does not always work for everyone.
Leodora Darlington The Exes Michael Joseph, 26th February 2025, £16.99, HB, 9780241725603
Natalie has a string of bad exes. The one thing they have in common? They all ended up dead. But now, The One – her loving husband, James. So, why does she have a knife in her hand? Natalie does not want to murder him. She wants her marriage – and her husband – to survive. But old habits die hard… From Orion publishing director Darlington, this shocking debut thriller was acquired following a hotly contested
or Black writers, this coming year is shaping up to be one of reimaginings, retellings – or “untellings” – and reclamations. Ayana Gray casts Medusa as a Black woman in
I, Medusa (Zaffre), while Elle Machray reframes Dickens through a feminist lens in Havisham (HarperNorth) and Alayo Akinkugbe’s Reframing Blackness (Merky Books) interrogates Western art history with a fresh, incisive perspective. Windrush narratives also take centre stage. Highlights include Kuba Shand-Baptiste’s rich debut Soon Come (Dialogue Books), Marcia Hutchinson’s tender novel The Mercy Step (Cassava Republic), and the late, great Benjamin Zephaniah’s vivid graphic novel Windrush Child (Scholastic), illustrated by Markia Jenai.
In non-fiction, memoirs and manifestos blend the personal with the political: Matt Hutchinson’s Are You Really the Doctor? (Blink) explores racism in the NHS; Janet Alder’s Defiance (Dialogue Books) is a searing account of her brother’s death in police custody; and Djamila Ribeiro’s Where We Stand (Yale University Press) delves into Black feminist thought and how social position shapes voice and visibility. In children’s, we see stories grounded in
adventure. Look out for Make Me a Monster by Kalynn Bayron (Bloomsbury YA), a Frankenstein- tinged horror romance; adventure story Wild Magic: Journey of the Lost Elephant by Abiola Bello (Simon & Schuster); and the return of Isi Hendrix’s Afro-fantasy heroine in Adia Kelbara and the High Queen’s Curse (Usborne).
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