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Agbaje-Williams, Ore. The Three of Us. Putnam. May 2023. 192p. ISBN 9780593540718. $25. LITERARY

Cuffy, Nicole. Dances. One World: Ballantine. May 2023. 288p. ISBN 9780593498156. $27. LITERARY

Denton-Hurst, Tembe. Homebodies. Harper. May 2023. 352p. ISBN 9780063274280. $27.99. LITERARY

Neal, Jennifer. Notes on Her Color. Catapult. May 2023. 336p. ISBN 9781646221196. $27. LITERARY

Nnuro, DK. What Napoleon Could Not Do. Riverhead. Feb. 2023. 368p. ISBN 9780593420348. $27. LITERARY

Oza, Janika. A History of Burning. Grand Central. 400p. ISBN 9781538724248. $29. LITERARY

In Nigerian British author Agbaje-Williams’s auction-hot The Three of Us, a heretofore contented wife discovers the acrimony between her husband and best friend as they dance around her for first place in her attention (75,000-copy first printing). Inaugural winner of the Chautauqua Janus Prize, Cuffy structures Dances according to the basics of ballet as her Black heroine rises to become a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet while struggling with personal issues. From a staff writer at New York magazine’s "The Strategist," Denton-Hurst’s Homebodies features a young Black woman fired from her media job who writes a scorching denunciation of the racism and sexism she encountered in the business that goes viral (75,000-copy first printing). In Pushcart Prize–nominated Neal’s Notes on Her Color a young Black Indigenous woman gifted with the ability to change the color of her skin finds self-respect (and a means of escaping crushing family expectations) with a queer, dark-skinned piano instructor. In What Napoleon Could Not Do, from Ghanian-born Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate Nnuro, Ghanian computer programmer Jacob can’t win permission from the U.S. government to move to Virginia to be with his wife while Jacob’s sister Belinda is married to a wealthy Black Texan who tries to apprise Jacob of the country’s deep-seated racism (50,000-copy first printing). Drawn from her family’s experience, Pushcart Prize–winning Oza’s A History of Burning opens with Pirbhai’s being taken from India to work on the East African Railway for the British and moves toward the expulsion of his descendants from Uganda in 1972 (50,000-copy first printing)

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