The long January is finally over (we thought it would never end)! And with it comes February’s new releases and that loving feeling that comes around the middle of the month, *wink, wink*. Fall in love with one of these brand new titles today — whether you’re into debut fiction, historical fiction with a twist, or straight up history, we’ve got you covered! Check ’em out below!
A Black Women’s History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross
In centering Black women’s stories, two award-winning historians, Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross, seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women’s unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism.
A Black Women’s History of the United States reaches far beyond a single narrative to showcase Black women’s lives in all their fraught complexities. Berry and Gross prioritize many voices: enslaved women, freedwomen, religious leaders, artists, queer women, activists, and women who lived outside the law. The result is a starting point for exploring Black women’s history and a testament to the beauty, richness, rhythm, tragedy, heartbreak, rage, and enduring love that abounds in the spirit of Black women in communities
Come out and learn more when we host one of the authors, Professor Daina Berry from UT Austin, to discuss this landmark history on February 21st at 7PM!
Half Broke by Ginger Gaffney
Last year, our booksellers fell head over heels for Lara Prior-Palmer’s Rough Magic – the story of one woman’s solitary journey across the Mongolian steppe in the world’s longest and toughest horse race. If you enjoyed that story and are looking for more of that dazzling spirit with an equestrian theme, then you’ve got to look into Ginger Gaffney’s Half Broke. It is Gaffney’s gorgeous, life-affirming memoir about resiliency and healing.
At the start of this remarkable story Ginger Gaffney answers a call to help retrain the troubled horses at an alternative prison ranch in New Mexico, a facility run entirely by the prisoners. The horses are scavenging through the dumpsters, kicking and running down the residents when they bring the trash out after meals. One horse is severely injured.
The horses and residents arrive at the ranch broken in one way or many: the horses are defensive and terrified, while the residents, some battling drug and alcohol addictions, are emotionally and physically shattered. With deep insight into how animals and humans communicate through posture, body language, and honesty of spirit, Gaffney walks us through her struggle to train the untrainable.
Resonant, smart, and beautifully written, Half Broke tears at the heart of what it takes to find wholeness after years of trauma and addiction and offers profound insight on how working with animals can satisfy our universal need for connection.
Come hear more about this story from Gaffney herself on April 15th at 7PM! She’ll be joined in conversation by Pam Houston, with a signing to follow! See you there!
The Cactus League by Emily Nemens
We get jazzed for debuts here at BookPeople, and this new title from Emily Nemens (editor of The Paris Review) has us doing the wave! The Cactus League is her hilarious and tender look at one team’s roller coaster spring training season.
Here’s what Events Coordinator, Uriel, had to say about it: “Spring Training is here for the LA Lions, bringing a cadre of players, coaches, agents and hangers on to the desert-scape of Arizona. And for nine chapter-long innings we’re taken ’round the diamond looking to get the full story on fading baseball phenom Jason Goodyear from those who know him best and those who don’t, but think they do. It’s a story that, like a season of MLB ball, unfolds incrementally, full of dramatic peaks and valleys, and, when it matters most, reveals the character of those stepping up to the plate.
Emily Nemens hits it out of the park with this no-doubt, moonshot of a debut. The Cactus League brims with heart and a ferocious sense of humor!”
Grab a copy today!
Belle Révolte by Linsey Miller
Enter Linsey Miller’s enchanting, French-inspired fantasy where two young women work together in secret to stay alive and end a war caused by magic and greed before it kills thousands for the sake of the wealthy few
Comtesse Emilie Marchand is more at home holding scalpels than knitting needles and is desperate to escape her noble roots and serve her country as a physician. But society dictates a lady cannot perform such gruesome work.
Annette Boucher, first-born daughter and least-loved child, wants more for her life, desperate to be trained so her magic can reach its full potential. So when a strange noble girl offers Annette the chance of a lifetime, she accepts.
Emilie and Annette swap lives—Annette attends finishing school to become a lady and trained in the ways of divination, while Emilie enrolls to be a surgeon, using her natural magical talent to save lives.
But when their nation is the aggressor in a frivolous war, Emilie and Annette must work together to help the rebellion end a war that is based on lies.
Come out this Saturday, February 8th at 2PM to hear Linsey Miller herself read from and sign Bélle Revolte!
Race Against Time by Jerry Mitchell
Get the book that John Grisham calls “amazing” and “courageous,” Jerry Mitchell”s Race Against Time.
Author and journalist Jerry Mitchell turns back the clock to June 21, 1964, when more than twenty Klansmen murdered three civil rights workers. The killings, in what would become known as the “Mississippi Burning” case, were among the most brazen acts of violence during the civil rights movement. And even though the killers’ identities, including the sheriff’s deputy, were an open secret, no one was charged with murder in the months and years that followed.
It took forty-one years before the mastermind was brought to trial and finally convicted for the three innocent lives he took.
In Race Against Time, Mitchell takes readers on the twisting, pulse-racing road that led to the reopening of four of the most infamous killings from the days of the civil rights movement, decades after the fact. He takes us into every harrowing scene along the way, as when Mitchell goes into the lion’s den, meeting one-on-one with the very murderers he is seeking to catch. His efforts have put four leading Klansmen behind bars, years after they thought they had gotten away with murder.
Race Against Time is an astonishing, courageous story capturing a historic race for justice, as the past is uncovered, clue by clue, and long-ignored evils are brought into the light. This is a landmark book and essential reading for all Americans.
Hear more on February 25th at 7PM, when Mitchell comes to BookPeople for a reading and signing of Race Against Time.
Verge by Lidia Yuknavitch
An eight-year-old trauma victim is enlisted as an underground courier, rushing frozen organs through the alleys of Eastern Europe.
A young janitor transforms discarded objects into a fantastical, sprawling miniature city until a shocking discovery forces him to rethink his creation.
A brazen child tells off a pack of schoolyard tormentors with the spirited invention of an eleventh commandment. A wounded man drives eastward, through tears and grief, toward an unexpected transcendence.
In Verge, her first collection of short fiction, Lidia Yuknavitch turns her eye to life on the margins, in all its beauty and brutality, with prose that is full of heroic grace and empathy. From a writer who has a rare gift for tracing the jagged boundaries between art and trauma, sex and violence, destruction and survival, Verge, is not to be missed.
The Regrets by Amy Bonnaffons
For weeks, Rachel has been noticing the same golden-haired young man sitting at her Brooklyn bus stop, staring off with a melancholy air. When, one day, she finally musters the courage to introduce herself, the chemistry between them is undeniable: Thomas is wise, witty, handsome, mysterious, clearly a kindred spirit. There’s just one tiny problem: He’s dead.
How did we do? Did you find your next favorite read among the list? You can shop for these titles in-store and online now. And be sure to check out all of our new releases when you visit your friendly (and favorite) neighborhood bookstore, BookPeople.
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