Mia Sosa, author of The Worst Best Man
Named one of the Best Romances of 2020 by EW, Cosmo, OprahMag, Buzzfeed, Insider, and NPR!
Mia Sosa delivers a sassy, steamy #ownvoices enemies-to-lovers novel, perfect for fans of Jasmine Guillory, Helen Hoang, and Sally Thorne!
A wedding planner left at the altar? Yeah, the irony isn’t lost on Carolina Santos, either. But despite that embarrassing blip from her past, Lina’s offered an opportunity that could change her life. There’s just one hitch… she has to collaborate with the best (make that worst) man from her own failed nuptials.
Marketing expert Max Hartley is determined to make his mark with a coveted hotel client looking to expand its brand. Then he learns he’ll be working with his brother’s whip-smart, stunning—absolutely off-limits—ex-fiancée. And she loathes him.
If they can nail their presentation without killing each other, they’ll both come out ahead. Except Max has been public enemy number one ever since he encouraged his brother to jilt the bride, and Lina’s ready to dish out a little payback of her own.
Soon Lina and Max discover animosity may not be the only emotion creating sparks between them. Still, this star-crossed couple can never be more than temporary playmates because Lina isn’t interested in falling in love and Max refuses to play runner-up to his brother ever again...
Aya de Leon, author of Side Chick Nation
Fed up with her married Miami boyfriend, savvy Dulce has no problem stealing his drug-dealer stash and fleeing to her family in the Caribbean. But when she gets bored in rural Santo Domingo, she escapes on a sugar daddy adventure to Puerto Rico. Her new life is one endless party, until she's caught in Hurricane Maria—and witnesses the brutal collision of colonization and climate change, as well as the international vultures who plunder the tragedy for a financial killing, making shady use of relief funds to devastate the island even more. Broke, traumatized, and stranded, Dulce’s only chance to get back to New York may be a sexy, crusading journalist who’s been pursuing her. But is she hustling him or falling for him?
Meanwhile, New York-based mastermind thief Marisol already has her hands full fleecing a ruthless CEO who’s stealing her family’s land in Puerto Rico, while trying to get her relatives out alive after the hurricane. An extra member in her crew could be game-changing, but she’s wary of Dulce’s unpredictability and reputation for drama. Still, Dulce’s determination to get justice draws Marisol in, along with her formidable Lower East Side Women’s Health Clinic’s heist squad. But their race-against-the-clock plan is soon complicated by powerful men who turn deadly when ex-side chicks step out of the shadows and demand to call the shots . . .
Sulma Arzu Brown, author of Bad Hair Does Not Exist
Bad Hair Does Not Exist!/"Pelo Malo No Existe!" - is a book with an anti-bullying message that reinforces respect for individualism. Hispanic and Black children are exposed to the divisive and bullying term, "bad hair," within their own communities.
The term "bad hair" or "pelo malo" is used to describe hair that is usually of curlier texture or of a thick and coarse density. This is irresponsible and often contributes to a child's low self-esteem, dividing both communities and families. The book's purpose is to empower all children by giving them alternate terms to describe their hair, and teaching them the importance of respecting one another's differences.
Ariana Brown, Author of We Are Owed
We Are Owed. is the debut poetry collection of Ariana Brown, exploring Black relationality in Mexican and Mexican American spaces. Through poems about the author's childhood in Texas and a trip to Mexico as an adult, Brown interrogates the accepted origin stories of Mexican identity. We Are Owed asks the reader to develop a Black consciousness by rejecting U.S., Chicano, and Mexican nationalism and confronting anti-Black erasure and empire-building. As Brown searches for other Black kin in the same spaces through which she moves, her experiences of Blackness are placed in conversation with the histories of formerly enslaved Africans in Texas and Mexico. Esteban Dorantes, Gaspar Yanga, and the author's Black family members and friends populate the book as a protective and guiding force, building the "we" evoked in the title and linking Brown to all other African-descended peoples living in what Saidiya Hartman calls "the afterlife of slavery."
Jamie Figueroa, author of Brother, Sister, Mother
In the tourist town of Ciudad de Tres Hermanas, in the aftermath of their mother's passing, two siblings spend a final weekend together in their childhood home. Seeing her brother, Rafa, careening toward a place of no return, Rufina devises a bet: if they can make enough money performing for privileged tourists in the plaza over the course of the weekend to afford a plane ticket out, Rafa must commit to living. If not, Rufina will make her peace with Rafa's own plan for the future, however terrifying it may be.
As the siblings reckon with generational and ancestral trauma, set against the indignities of present-day prejudice, other strange hauntings begin to stalk these pages: their mother's ghost kicks her heels against the walls; Rufina's vanished child creeps into her arms at night; and above all this, watching over the siblings, a genderless, flea-bitten angel remains hell-bent on saving what can be saved.
Eric Velasquez, author of Octopus Stew
The octopus Grandma is cooking has grown to titanic proportions. “¡Tenga cuidado!” Ramsey shouts. “Be careful!” But it’s too late. The octopus traps Grandma! Ramsey must use both art and intellect to free his beloved abuela.
Then the story takes a surprising twist. And it can be read two ways. Open the fold-out pages to find Ramsey telling a story to his family. Keep the pages folded, and Ramsey’s octopus adventure is real.
This beautifully illustrated picture book, drawn from the author’s childhood memories, celebrates creativity, heroism, family, grandmothers, grandsons, Puerto Rican food, Latinx culture and more.
With an author’s note and the Velasquez family recipe for Octopus Stew! Now also available in Spanish!
Aja Monet, author of My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter
My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter is poet Aja Monet’s ode to mothers, daughters, and sisters—the tiny gods who fight to change the world.
Textured with the sights and sounds of growing up in East New York in the nineties, to school on the South Side of Chicago, all the way to the olive groves of Palestine, these stunning poems tackle racism, sexism, genocide, displacement, heartbreak, and grief, but also love, motherhood, spirituality, and Black joy.
Circe Moskowitz, author of Good Mourning
Circe Moskowitz writes science fiction, fantasy and horror. She is the author of Good Mourning and the editor of No Harm Done. Her work has also appeared in the anthology Reclaim the Stars. She currently lives in Kentucky.
Good Mourning: Coming Fall 2024 from Penguin Random House.
Pitched as Schitt's Creek meets HGTV, Black vampire Theo trades in the city and her coven for a quiet, New England inn only to find it more rundown than advertised. After (accidentally!) murdering the current owner, Theo places herself in charge and ends up falling in(n) love: with running a bed and breakfast . . . and with Ronnie, the handywoman, who knows Theo's vampiric secret.
Denise Adusei, author of Cesaria Wears No Shoes
Denise Rosario Adusei grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, making forts, climbing trees, and playing soccer. When she's not writing children's books, she serves as a professional imagineer for preschoolers in Harlem. Her debut picture book, Cesaria Wears No Shoes. is set for publication in spring 2023. In addition to writing children's books, Denise serves as the founding director of a Harlem-based preschool. As a founding member of both #BlackCreatorsInKidlit and #LatinxPitch, Denise is committed to increasing diverse representation in children's literature.
Cesaria Wears No Shoes is coming in 2023
Maya Motayne, author of Nocturna
The first in a sweeping and epic debut fantasy trilogy—set in a stunning Latinx-inspired world—about a face-changing thief and a risk-taking prince who must team up to defeat a powerful evil they accidentally unleashed. Perfect for fans of Tomi Adeyemi and Leigh Bardugo.
Jasminne Mendez, author of Josefina’s Habichuelas
Young Josefina gives up sweets for Lent and then learns how to make her Dominican family’s traditional Easter dessert.
Hilda Eunice Burgos, author of The Cot in the Living Room
Night after night, a young girl watches her mami set up a cot in the living room for guests in their Washington Heights apartment, like Raquel (who’s boring) and Edgardo (who gets crumbs everywhere). She resents that they get the entire living room with a view of the George Washington Bridge, while all she gets is a tiny bedroom with a view of her sister (who snores). Until one night when no one comes, and it’s finally her chance! But as it turns out, sleeping on the cot in the living room isn’t all she thought it would be.
Alyssa Reynoso Morris, author of Plátanos are Love
Alex Borbolla at Atheneum has acquired world rights to Plátanos are Love by debut author Alyssa Reynoso-Morris, illustrated by Mariyah Rahman, a picture book about a young girl who learns the cultural significance of plantains while cooking alongside her abuela. Publication is scheduled for Spring 23. Kaitlyn Sanchez at Context Literary Agency represented the author, and Christy Ewers at The CAT Agency represented the illustrator.
Plátanos are Love coming 2023
Lorraine Avila, author of Malcriada & Other Stories
In the middle of the Caribbean Sea, aboard an illegal voyage from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico, a twelve year old learns her name; a former cacao farmer finds a constellation on his lover’s thighs; best friends become strangers and find the essence of themselves in the face of deception; an old man exchanges his homeland for a New York City bodega storefront; preteen boys grapple with authority; female cousins come to terms with their first shared sexual experience; an alcoholic woman finds serenity at the bottom of the sea; feminism is deconstructed by opposing views; on the back of a motorcycle, self awareness is found; and a woman discovers that healing is a series of choices.
Darrel Alejandro Holnes, author of Stepmotherland
Winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, Stepmotherland, Darrel Alejandro Holnes’s first full-length collection, is filled with poems that chronicle and question identity, family, and allegiance. This Central American love song is in constant motion as it takes us on a lyrical and sometimes narrative journey from Panamá to the USA and beyond. The driving force behind Holnes’s work is a pursuit for a new home, and as he searches, he takes the reader on a wild ride through the most pressing political issues of our time and the most intimate and transformative personal experiences of his life. Exploring a complex range of emotions, this collection is a celebration of the discovery of America, the discovery of self, and the ways they may be one and the same.
Naima Coster, author of What’s Mine and Yours
A community in the Piedmont of North Carolina rises in outrage as a county initiative draws students from the largely Black east side of town into predominantly white high schools on the west. For two students, Gee and Noelle, the integration sets off a chain of events that will tie their two families together in unexpected ways over the next twenty years.
Elizabeth Acevedo, author of Inheritance: A Visual Poem
In her most famous spoken-word poem, author of the Pura Belpré-winning novel-in-verse The Poet X Elizabeth Acevedo embraces all the complexities of Black hair and Afro-Latinidad—the history, pain, pride, and powerful love of that inheritance.
Saraciea J. Fennell, Editor of Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed
In Wild Tongues Can’t Be Tamed, writers from across the Latinx diaspora interrogate the different myths and stereotypes about this rich and diverse community. From immigration to sexuality, music to language, and more, these personal essays and poems are essential additions to the cultural conversation, sure to inspire hope and spark dialogue.
The bestselling and award-winning contributors include Elizabeth Acevedo, Cristina Arreola, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Naima Coster, Natasha Diaz, Khalil Haywood, Zakiya Jamal, Janel Martinez, Jasminne Mendez, Meg Medina, Mark Oshiro, Julian Randall, Lilliam Rivera, and Ibi Zoboi.
