Our regular Book Digest segment spotlights new books from Gaelle Belem, Cheryl S. Ntumy, Patrice Caldwell, and Zainab Uche Imam.
Sud Sauvage by Gaelle Belem
Publisher: Editions Gallimard
Date: April 3, 2025
Genre: Fiction
Language: French
Where to find it: Editions Gallimard
Gaelle Belem
Gaëlle Bélem is a French writer of Réunionese extraction known for the prize-winning coming-of-age novel Un monstre est là, derrière la porte, and the historical novel Le fruit le plus rare: ou la vie d’Edmond Albius.
Sud Sauvage
A creature watches you every night. Thousands of slaves are missing. A mother and her daughter have only a handful of days left to live. Light shines from an abandoned house. A man discovers seven heads one Sunday morning. Thirteen short stories set on Reunion Island. Thirteen stories depicting women and men confronted with strange, intriguing, and extraordinary phenomena that shake their Cartesian beliefs. Are laws and beings unknown to us interfering with our reality? Is there something where our eyes see nothing? In this collection, the author recounts disturbing or fantastical events that occurred on Reunion Island, an island anchored in an ocean of fears and mysteries.
Where Shadows Meet by Patrice Caldwell
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Date: April 1, 2025
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Macmillan,
Patrice Caldwell
Patrice Caldwell is a former children’s book editor turned literary agent and author, born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas. She has been named a Forbes “30 Under 30” as well as a Publishers Weekly Star Watch honoree. Patrice is also the editor of A Phoenix First Must Burn and Eternally Yours. After years of living in New York City, she moved back to Texas with her two adorable cats and so many books.
Where Shadows Meet
You have no idea what I’ve done for love. Just as you have no idea what you may one day do. Once long ago, a girl named Favre sacrificed her wings for love. Thana, the young goddess she so willingly gave them up for, sacrificed that same love for power. But everything has a cost. Favre never got over the loss of her wings. And Thana’s choices led to a life of eternal night, and later, their destruction. Favre has bided her time ever since, waiting for the chance to resurrect the girl she loves who turned her into the creature she hates. Now, a thousand years later, Leyla, the crown princess of a vampire nation, must travel to Nekros, the island of the dead, when her best friend is captured during an attack on her nation’s capital. But nothing is as it seems. The closer she gets to her goal, the more her body seems to work against her, and the more she risks awakening an ancient evil and destroying everything she holds dear. Set in the aftermath of a war between vampires, humans, and the gods that created them, Patrice Caldwell’s devastatingly romantic fantasy debut, Where Shadows Meet, centers the heart-wrenching pain of loss and the struggle of self-discovery to ask: do we choose our fates, or do our fates choose us?
Black Friday: Short Stories from Africa by Cheryl S. Ntumy
Publisher: Flame Tree Collections
Date: April 15, 2025
Genre: Fiction, anthology
Language: English
Where to find it: Flame Tree Collections, Simon and Schuster
Cheryl S. Ntumy
Cheryl S. Ntumy is a Ghanaian writer of short fiction and novels of speculative fiction, young adult fiction and romance. Her work has appeared in FIYAH Literary Magazine; Apex Magazine; World Literature Today; Best of World SF Vol. 3 and Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2022, among others. Her work has also been nominated for the Nommo Award for African Speculative Fiction, the British Science Fiction Association Award, the Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize and the Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship. She is part of the Sauútiverse Collective, which created a shared universe for Afrocentric speculative fiction, and a member of Petlo Literary Arts, an organisation that develops and promotes creative writing in Botswana.
Black Friday: Short Stories from Africa
A stunning collection in a stunning book, Cheryl S. Ntumy’s fantasy and near-future sci-fi is powerful and unique.
Love, Lagos & Other Complications by Zainab Uche Imam
Publisher: Narrative Landscape Press
Date: March 27, 2025
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Narrative Landscape Press
Zainab Uche Imam
Zainab Uche Imam is a Nigerian writer, born and raised in Lagos. She holds a Master’s in Media and Communications from Bournemouth University and a Bachelor’s in Performing Arts from Canterbury Christ Church University.
Love, Lagos & Other Complications
Ṣemilore “Ṣemi” Coker, a brilliant product developer, is having a rough day, made worse by an infuriating encounter with Toluwalashe “Lashe” Williams, a privileged entrepreneur. Their paths cross again that evening at a Lagos bar, and despite initial sparks of irritation, a deeper connection begins to form.
As Ṣemi and Lashe navigate their growing feelings, they must confront more than just their clashing first impressions. Family expectations, personal traumas and cultural divides threaten to stand in their way. But in the vibrant chaos of Lagos, love can be as surprising as it is complicated.
Can Ṣemi and Lashe find common ground in their differences, or will their love story be another dream left unfulfilled?
Love, Lagos & Other Complications is Zainab Uche Imam’s debut novel.
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