Our regular Book Digest segment spotlights new books by Cynthia Marangwanda, Frances Mensah Williams, Kalynn Bayron, and Karavan Press.
The Toppling by Cynthia Marangwanda
Publisher: Carnelian Heart Publishing
Date: September 26, 2025
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Carnelian Heart Publishing
Cynthia Marangwanda
Cynthia Marangwanda is a poet, writer, and cultural heritage activist. She is committed to decolonizing Zimbabwean sacred sites, and her work is heavily influenced by ancestral heritage and the experience of African womanhood. It is concerned with the intersections and conflicts between the traditional and the modern, the local and the global, the spiritual and the material. As a spoken word poet, she has performed at festivals and events in Zimbabwe, the Netherlands, Lesotho, and South Africa. Her poems have been published in a number of anthologies and literary magazines. Marangwanda lives and works in Harare, Zimbabwe.
The Toppling
In Cynthia Marangwanda’s The Toppling, just like in her first offering, Shards, a terrible beauty is born… simultaneously horrifying and aesthetically pleasing, evoking a mixture of awe, fear, and admiration. Marangwanda still has the same incredible ability to turn history inside out. On meeting Cecil John Rhodes in an out of body experience, a young woman embarks on a whole quest to right the wrongs from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe.
Sorry, Not Sorry by Frances Mensah Williams
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Date: September 28, 2025
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Boldwood Books
Frances Mensah Williams
Frances Mensah Williams is the author of acclaimed contemporary fiction novels, including Imperfect Arrangements, set in contemporary Ghana, and Strictly Friends, set in the Caribbean. She is an entrepreneur, consultant, executive coach, and TEDx speaker, and was awarded a CBE in 2020 for services to Africans in the UK and in Africa.
Sorry, Not Sorry
Relationship Expert. Emotional Disaster.
Trainee relationship counsellor Delilah Braithwaite is better at breaking couples up than bringing them together. But after one break-up too many, she’s suspended and ordered to get to grips with her own baggage if she hopes to get her job back.
Desperate to prove she’s not the problem, Delilah accepts a challenge from her sister: track down five exes and make amends for dumping them all with no good reason. But when she runs into Noah – the fiancé she left at the altar – her plans take a complicated turn.
While Delilah seeks redemption, her own therapy sessions begin to unearth hidden secrets and painful truths she’s long avoided. But only when she’s forced to confront the trauma of her past does she begin to understand that love means a whole lot more than just saying sorry.
Sorry, Not Sorry is a heartwarming, feel-good and hilarious journey of healing, second chances, and the courage it takes to face the honest truth about yourself.
Burning Down the House edited by Mbali Mazibuko, Shakeelah Ismail, Charisse Louw, Ijeoma Chidi Opara & Stella Viljoen.
Publisher: Karavan Press
Date: September 2025
Genre: Anthology, Feminism
Language: English
Where to find it: Karavan Press
Contributors
Ijeoma Chidi Opara, Shakeelah Ismail, Mbali Mazibuko, Chan Croeser, Aneeqa Abrahams, Simphiwe Rens, Cassidy Robinson, Imologang M. Morulane, Nada Faleni, Waratwa Zanokuhle Miya, Ché Adams, Chelsea Holland, Charisse Louw, Kiasha Naidoo, Ernst van der Wal, and Joy Watson.
Burning Down the House
Burning Down the House is a collection of anarchic essays written by a new generation of everyday thinkers, activists and scholars who are figuring out their relationship to feminism. It is a radical appraisal of the home and a call to critically rethink the mechanisms that govern the ‘private’. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the home as a decolonial space.
Make Me a Monster by Kalynn Bayron
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
Date: September 30, 2025
Genre: Fiction, Horror
Language: English
Where to find it: Bloomsbury YA
Kalynn Bayron
Kalynn Bayron is the New York Times and indie bestselling author of young adult novels Cinderella Is Dead, This Poison Heart, This Wicked Fate, You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight and Sleep Like Death, and the middle grade Vanquishers series. She is a classically trained vocalist, and she grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. When she’s not writing you can find her listening to Ella Fitzgerald on loop, attending the theatre, watching scary movies, and spending time with her kids. She currently lives in Ithaca, New York, with her family.
Make Me a Monster
New York Times bestselling author Kalynn Bayron is back with a Frankenstein-tinged horror romance.
Meka is used to death. After all, it’s the family business.
As a newly certified mortician’s assistant at her parents’ funeral home, her days are not for the faint of heart. Luckily her boyfriend Noah isn’t squeamish, and Meka is finally feeling ready to say the three little words that will change everything.
But then tragedy strikes, and Meka’s world is torn apart. Nothing makes sense, especially the strange things start happening. Ravens are circling her home. Strangers are following her. Someone is leaving mysterious items at her door. And worst of all…
The dead don’t seem to be staying dead.
Meka thought she understood death better than anyone. Turns out, the family business is a bit more complicated than it seems. And Meka isn’t the only one desperate to unearth their secrets… because the truth may be worth dying for.
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