Must-Read Books by Black Authors to Add to Your Summer Reading List 2025Like this list

26 items

• All the Men I've Loved Again

  a Novel

  Pride, Christine

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  Second-chance romance that flips through decades of almost-loves until fate finally lets the right one stick. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: the vibe is “reminiscing on the porch with a glass of sorrel” energy, messy, nostalgic, and perfect for…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Plus Size Player

  Allen, Danielle

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  It’s giving “reminiscing on the porch with a glass of sorrel” energy—messy, nostalgic, and perfect for late sunsets. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: Allen’s witty, body-positive heat pairs perfectly with poolside spritzers.

• A Mastery of Monsters

  Sambury, Liselle

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  Caribbean-rooted fantasy where family secrets have literal teeth. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: Ancestral magic + summer thunderstorms = binge-read lightning.

• Black Cherokee

  a Novel

  Downing, Antonio Michael, 1975-

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  Coming-of-age tale of a Cherokee Freedmen descendant fighting for belonging in South Carolina. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: Lyrical, rebellious, and ideal for long-weekend road trips that make you question “home.”

• No Ordinary Love

  a Novel

  Ariel, Myah

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  Pop star in a messy divorce teams up with an MLB heart-throb for a fake-dating PR stunt, cue fireworks. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: Feels like a ’90s Mary J. Blige track on repeat under the stars.

• King of Ashes

  a Novel

  Cosby, S. A.

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  Southern crime epic: Wall-Street money man returns to his Virginia hometown and dives into blood, loyalty, and betrayal. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: Dark, sweaty noir that reads like bourbon neat, sip slow but steady.

• Jamaica Road

  a Novel

  Smith, Lisa

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  Set in 1970s London, this gripping novel follows a young Jamaican woman as she navigates racism, betrayal, and love while trying to survive and carve out her identity in an unforgiving world. It's a story of migration, resistance, and the haunting…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Only Because It's You

  Fisseha, Rebecca, 1980-

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  Best-friends-to-lovers marriage-of-convenience so a Toronto actor keeps his visa, cue culture clash and heart melt. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: Ideal cottage-weekend rom-com: warm, witty, Ethiopian-Canadian flavour.

• Can't Get Enough

  Ryan, Kennedy

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  Book 3 in Skyland: fab-life Hendrix meets her match and the sparks are electrical. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: Kennedy + consent + high-heat = hammock-worthy swoons, there's so much to love about this one.

• Love Forms

  a Novel

  Adam, Claire

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  Trinidadian-British mother searches for the daughter she surrendered decades ago. Quiet ache, big heart. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: For reflective evenings when the sun’s down but your feelings aren’t.

• Sweet Heat

  a Novel

  Babalola, Bolu

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  Kiki Banjo’s podcast queen era meets ex-bae filmmaker in this second-chance love with London spice. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: It’s the late-summer rom-com that tastes like mango pepper sauce, sweet, sharp, unforgettable.

• A Summer for the Books

  a Novel

  Lindo-Rice, Michelle

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  Dual-timeline reunion of estranged besties, bookstore dreams, amnesia twists, and buried secrets. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: Bookish drama for rainy-day reading with iced coffee and feels.

• The Girls Who Grew Big

  a Novel

  Mottley, Leila, 2002-

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  Three Florida teens navigate motherhood, friendship, and the messy miracle of girlhood. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: Raw, poetic, and perfect for group-chat debates during beach sunsets.

• The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery

  a Novel

  Haynes, Clarence A.

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  Glam NYC publicist discovers her life is literally haunted. An urban fantasy with queer Latinx psychic flair. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: Think Devil Wears Prada meets Practical Magic, a page-turner for balmy midnight reads.

• Blood in the Water

  Jackson, Tiffany D.

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  This is a Middle-grade murder mystery on Martha’s Vineyard—JAWS vibes, Black-girl grit. But although it's a middle-grade book it still packs a punch the way only Tiffany Jackson can. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: The “creepy beach read” of 2025:…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Dream Count

  a Novel

  Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi, 1977-

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  Four women across continents chase love, grief, and desire in Adichie’s long-awaited return to fiction. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: The literary event to flex in every patio conversation, gold-standard storytelling.

• Pugs and Kisses

  Rochon, Farrah

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  Rescue-shelter rom-com: best-friends-to-lovers, adorable pups, second chances in NOLA. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick: Light, fluffy, and guaranteed to make you grin like a pug in the sun.

• Black in Blues

  How a Color Tells the Story of My People

  Perry, Imani, 1972-

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  This evocative cultural memoir explores how the colour blue has been woven through Black history, from indigo-dyed fabrics to Billie Holiday’s haunting blues, and into the politics of style, identity, and resistance. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer pick:…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Book of Possibilities

  Words of Wisdom on the Road to Becoming

  Quammie, Bee,

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  In this debut novel, a woman navigating grief and personal upheaval rediscovers herself through unexpected connections, complicated friendships, and a search for healing. Bee Quammie brings her signature insight and tenderness to this story about…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Coded Justice

  a Thriller

  Abrams, Stacey

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  A tech-driven legal thriller that unpacks racial bias in algorithms, cyber-justice, and power plays in politics and the courtroom. A Black tech genius and a relentless attorney must take on forces bigger than they imagined. ☀️ Why it’s a HOT summer…Read moreRead more of this annotation