Our regular Book Digest segment spotlights new books by Amon Chizema, Yejide Kilanko, Brionni Nwosu, and Marvellous Michael Anson.
The Land Remembers by Amon Chizema
Publisher: Troubador Publishing
Publication Date: November 28, 2025
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Troubador Publishing
Amon Chizema
Amon Chizema, who was born and bred in Zimbabwe, is a Professor of Corporate Governance and International Business at Loughborough University, UK. He has published numerous articles in academic journals. His literary writing is shaped by a lifelong interest in storytelling, travel across more than 40 countries, and a commitment to social justice.
The Land Remembers
For Muntu, Alkebulan Farm is more than just soil – it’s history, identity, and inheritance. But as the once-thriving ancestral land falls into disrepair, so too does Muntu’s grip on his role as father, husband, and heir. As his neighbours close in with deceit, sabotage, and greed, Muntu’s silence risks becoming complicity in his own undoing.
His wife, Tisa, can no longer watch in silence. In desperation, she calls on her brother, Kamau – a man with his own painful past and unfinished conflict with Muntu. Kamau’s return brings both hope and tension, rekindling buried wounds and forcing the fractured family to confront what has been lost… and what can still be saved.
Set against a backdrop of rural uncertainty and communal erosion, this novel explores the cost of pride, the resilience of women, the innocence of children, and the land’s quiet demand for stewardship.
In Alkebulan, survival is not guaranteed – but for those who remember what the soil is worth, it just might be earned.
In Our Own Ways by Yejide Kilanko
Publisher: Narrative Landscape
Date: October 18, 2025
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Narrative Landscape
Yejide Kilanko
Yejide Kilanko was born in Ibadan, Nigeria. She lives in Ontario, Canada, where she practices as a therapist in children’s mental health. Kilanko’s debut novel, Daughters Who Walk This Path, is a Canadian national bestseller. The novel was longlisted for the 2016 Nigeria Literature Prize. Kilanko’s work includes a novella, Chasing Butterflies (2015), and a children’s picture book, There Is An Elephant In My Wardrobe (2019). Kilanko’s short fiction is in the anthology, New Orleans Review 2017: The African Literary Hustle. When she’s not busy dreaming about more stories and poems, you’ll find Kilanko online playing simultaneous games of Scrabble.
In Our Own Ways
In Our Own Ways is a powerful and emotional story of how a young couple’s decision to start a family breaks their marriage apart. After a childhood in the backwaters of a Nigerian fishing town, up-and-comer, Senami Mausi, is proud of the man he has become. His sprawling compound is his castle and the beautiful Fadaka, daughter of the wealthy Silva family, is his queen. Thanks to the right pedigree and connections, Fadaka and Senami are living an enviable life. However, cracks in their marriage begin to appear when they struggle to get pregnant. Family and the secrets behind the conception threaten to destroy them. The joy from the arrival of the long-awaited child is short-lived as their marriage crumbles. A master of self-reinvention, Senami disappears into thin air, taking the child and leaving Fadaka behind to pick up the pieces of her shattered reality. The child becomes the centre of Fadaka’s rage. She faces two choices: stay home and rebuild or fight for what is rightfully hers.
The Wondrous Lives of Nella Carter by Brionni Nwosu
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Publication Date: December 1, 2025
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Hachette
Brionni Nwosu
Brionni Nwosu is a writer, educator, and joyful creative based in the vibrant city of Nashville, where she lives with her husband and their three children. After more than a decade teaching students and mentoring teachers, she shifted her storytelling craft from a side passion to center stage. A 2021 We Need Diverse Books mentee under Rajani LaRocca, Brionni writes bold, heartfelt fiction that explores connection, purpose, and what it means to live a life well.
The Wondrous Lives of Nella Carter
When Death comes to claim Nella May Carter, she catches His interest with her capacity to find beauty and love even amidst the hell of slavery. So Death – bored, disgusted by humanity, and believing the Earth would be greatly improved should humans no longer exist – lures Nella into a Faustian bargain: the chance at immortal life if she proves that Death is mistaken.
The price: Nella must entertain his fascination and challenge his beliefs until he is satisfied… or surrender herself – and the entire human race – to him forever.
Nella’s solution is to never stop travelling and writing, documenting the beauty in every place and person she encounters – from writing in Victorian ladies’ tattlers and reporting in Gilded Age New York, to penning bestselling novels and memoirs under countless noms de plume. Nella experiences joy and loss, passion and pain; she finds love in its many forms with friends, partners, and lovers.
All the while, Death is watching – and waiting for her to surrender.
Nella is almost ready to concede to Death when she meets a handsome professor. Tired of deception, desperate for a real connection, Nella begins to tell him her story – centred on her greatest romances over the centuries. And, in the telling, it becomes clear that Nella’s own story might be the greatest love story of them all.
Firstborn of the Sun by Marvellous Michael Anson
Publisher: Penguin
Date: October 23, 2025
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Penguin
Marvellous Michael Anson
Marvellous Michael Anson has been writing for over a decade and has self-published a thriller, His Dark Reflection, to critical acclaim. She was shortlisted for the Future Worlds Prize in 2023, the 2022 Jericho Writers Friday Night Live Competition and the 2022 Kit De Waal Bursary, was longlisted for the 2023 REVPIT competition, and won the 2023 Jericho Writers’ Self Edit Course Bursary. In addition, Marve is a filmmaker who wrote and produced an award-winning short film in 2016 and is a recipient of the 2017 AFRIFF Film School Scholarship Program. She is a member of the Society of Authors, the World Science Fiction Society and the British Fantasy Society. She is a mentor for Black Girl Writers. Firstborn of the Sun is her debut fantasy novel.
Firstborn of the Sun
In Oru L’ore is the only one without agbára – the ability to harness power from the sun. And must conceal it from everyone. Including her best friend, Alawani.
But when the gods declare Alawani an Àlùfáà, he must be stripped of his power in a brutal trial likely to kill him. Unwilling to bear his death, Lóre vows to rescue him.
But in a desperate attempt to channel agbára an icy magic pours from her hands; a power she learns originated from a forbidden, secret land beyond the walls of Oru.
One where she and Alawani must now seek sanctuary and discover a secret that could bring the Kingdom to its knees . . .
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