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Dive into the beat of Black British life with these sharp, stylish and deeply insightful titles from the one-of-a-kind A Quick Ting On...™ series - from Afrobeats and grime to business, fashion and identity.

Afrobeats by Christina Adofo
Trace the social and cultural development of the eponymous, chart-topping music genre throughout history.

Plantain by Rui Da Silva
An irresistible cultural insight into the fruit that has sparked the long-held Plant-ain vs Plant-in pronunciation debate.

Black Girl Afro by Zainab Kwaw-Swanzy
A comprehensive look at the ways Black women' s hair care and styling have influenced culture and spearheaded authentic self-expression.

Black British Businesses by Tskenya-Sarah Frazer
Journey through the history and future of Black British entrepreneurship, from the 1300's to present day, with exclusive interviews from the trailblazers themselves.

Grime by Franklyn Addo
Journalist and rapper Franklyn Addo relates the powerful story of Grime's past, present, and future, from pirate radio to Glastonbury and beyond.

This curated selection brings to life untold stories and remarkable journeys, from royal mysteries and wartime secrets to the fight for identity and freedom. These pages echo with strength, survival, and the power of reclaiming one's story.

Breaking the Maafa Chain by Anni Domingo
Set in the Nineteenth century, two sisters Fatmata and Salimatu are captured and sold separately into slavery. Can the two sisters reclaim their freedom and identity in a world that is trying to break them down and mold them to its coloniser's will?

Queen Charlotte Sophia by Tina Andrews
Newly crowned King George III must marry, but cannot wed the woman he loves - Catholic Lady Sarah Lennox. And so, a search begins for an appropriate Queen... In comes Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and her not so skin-deep secrets...

A Book of Secrets by Kate Morrison
A revealing and compelling glimpse into a fraught time. Set at the collision of the English Reformation and the eve of the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade, this novel weaves together family legacies and religious tensions for a powerful look at history.

The Book of Harlan by Bernice L. McFadden
Set against the backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance and World War II, this sweeping tale follows Harlan Elliott as he shockingly moves from New York jazz clubs to imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps. It's a gripping, tender story of music, survival, and the echo of forgotten lives.

A powerful collection of memoirs exploring identity, migration, memory, and belonging. From exile and race to tracing musical and ancestral roots, these stories span continents and generations with honesty, humour, and heart. Each voice offers a window into the spaces we carry between past and present, here and home.

Through the Leopard's Gaze by Njambi McGrath
A haunting, lyrical memoir of exile, survival, and the search for identity. Through vivid storytelling, the author traces the scars and strength of a childhood disrupted by colonial violence in Kenya.

Are We Home Yet? by Katy Massey
A moving journey through migration, motherhood, and memory. This memoir charts a path across continents in search of belonging. With tenderness and wit, it explores how we carry 'home' within us.

The Space Between Black and White by Esuantsiwa Jane Goldsmith
A thoughtful look at race, and the fluid nature of identity in Britain today. This memoir challenges rigid labels, creating space for nuance and truth.

Stick To My Roots by Tippa Irie
Spanning Jamaica to Britain, this deeply personal story of music and migration follows the life of Grammy nominated musician Tippa Irie. It's a celebration of resilience, rhythm, and the roots that keep us grounded.

From city lights to island sunsets, the romance stories in this box-set make an adventure of the pursuit of love. With unexpected passion, cultural journeys and the comedy of modern dating, each story offers sharp insight, heartfelt emotion, and unforgettable characters. The perfect set for anyone ready to turn the page and open their heart.

If I Don't Have You by Sareeta Domingo
When a sultry interview sparks an intense connection between a journalist and a mysterious filmmaker, they must decide if this spark will ever become a flame.


Love Again by Rasheda Ashanti Malcolm
When 30-something year old Honey gets tired of her matchmaking mother, she enlists the help of a (not-so) fake boyfriend. The problem is that this time her mama's choice just might be what Honey is looking for...


Symona's Still Single by Lisa Bent
Thirty-seven year old Symona is swiping, dating, and soul-searching through London, trying to make sense of love, friendship, and finding peace in her own company.


From Pasta to Pigfoot by Frances Mensah Williams
Smart, sassy Londoner, Faye, stumbles into romance while on a trip to Ghana to figure her life out. A rom-com that gives new meaning to "home is where the heart is".


Bad Love by Maame Blue
For Londoner Ekuah, love in her twenties seems to be impossible to figure out. In this reflective and compelling novel, Ekuah revisits her tangled past with an unforgettable first love, and what it taught her about choosing herself.

Honour the journey, the resilience and the legacy of the Windrush generation. These books bring together moving testimonies, historic photography and narrative power to tell the story of those who built Britain and the generation that followed. A collection to read, to remember, and to cherish.

Black History Walks by Tony Warner
Discover London's untold Black history in this unique book that offers a one-of-a-kind landmark tour of one of the world's most iconic cities. This is London's Black history revealed!

Finding Home: A Windrush Story by Alford Dalrymple Gardner and Howard Gardner
At age-97 RAF Veteran and Windrush pioneer, Alford Gardner delivers a memoir that imbues warmth and humour in a powerfully personal story of one man's journey from Jamaica to building a new life in Yorkshire.

A Circle of Five by Harris Joshua
Spotlighting the women of the Windrush generation and their invaluable contributions to the country, meet Evelyn, Emma, Irene, Ivy, and Melissa. This is their story, these five women whose journeys to Britain and subsequent lives fundamentally shaped the community today.

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A reimagining of Shakespeare with a Caribbean twist!

Garrick takes Shakespeares's soliloquys and monologues and incorporates Jamaican Patois to make them relevant for a new age and audience. Inventive and engrossing, this collection is imperative and complimentary when teaching the canon.

At a time when medicine is a highly sought-after career for Indian women, it is hard to imagine what it was like for the pioneers. The story of how firmly they were bound in fetters of family, caste and society, and how fiercely they fought to escape, needs to be told. In Lady Doctors, Kavitha Rao unearths the extraordinary stories of six women from the 1860s to the 1930s, who defied the idea that they were unfit for medicine by virtue of their gender.

From Anandibai Joshi, who broke caste rules by crossing an ocean, to Rukhmabai Raut, who escaped a child marriage, divorced her husband and studied to be a doctor; from Kadambini Ganguly, who took care of eight
children while she worked, to child widow Haimabati Sen, who overcame poverty and hardship-these women had a profound and lasting impact. And in their forgotten lives lie many lessons for modern women. In truth, the compelling stories of these radical women have been erased from our textbooks and memories, because histories have mostly been written by men, about men. In an immensely readable narrative, and with impeccable research, Lady Doctors rectifies this omission.

At a time when medicine is a highly sought-after career for Indian women, it is hard to imagine what it was like for the pioneers. The story of how firmly they were bound in fetters of family, caste and society, and how fiercely they fought to escape, needs to be told. In Lady Doctors, Kavitha Rao unearths the extraordinary stories of six women from the 1860s to the 1930s, who defied the idea that they were unfit for medicine by virtue of their gender.

From Anandibai Joshi, who broke caste rules by crossing an ocean, to Rukhmabai Raut, who escaped a child marriage, divorced her husband and studied to be a doctor; from Kadambini Ganguly, who took care of eight
children while she worked, to child widow Haimabati Sen, who overcame poverty and hardship-these women had a profound and lasting impact. And in their forgotten lives lie many lessons for modern women. In truth, the compelling stories of these radical women have been erased from our textbooks and memories, because histories have mostly been written by men, about men. In an immensely readable narrative, and with impeccable research, Lady Doctors rectifies this omission.

An almost-blind mother pawns her daughter off to save her. A grieving son must bury his Muslim father in twenty-four hours in the thick of winter. A doctor battles to save her partner from himself. Desperation makes a young businesswoman seek out a spiritual experience. Domi(natrix) wants to give life to her sexual kinks in her repressive household. The weight of the word "slave" is put to the test during a first date in conservative Idaho. Two men kidnap a White man to fight the infiltration of oil companies in Southern Nigeria. A boy escapes his bipolar mother. A young girl tries to spell out the strange words her parents fight with.
These stories are an excavation of what it means to be at the labyrinthine crossroads of desire, ambition, and tradition. The author explores the indelible erasure of personhood and fitting into all the hard places in a bubble where injustice reigns. As such, she fillets the flesh as these characters try to exercise autonomy in their worlds and swim against the uncontrollable tides that mold their lives. The characters are forced out of their stasis, and the collection contemplates whether they ultimately succeed or fail.

The Longe siblings are really botching their parents' American Dream.

Sola Longe, eldest daughter, estranged from the family, is secretly back home in Chicago for the first time in a decade. She's a newly single and recently disgraced influencer trying to quietly put her life back together again. The other three Longe siblings aren't doing much better.

Anjola is in love with her best friend, who just got engaged to someone else; Karen, a college junior and the baby of the family, is grappling with her sexuality and self-image; and Ola, the golden child with a baby of his own on the way, is questioning his marriage and how to raise a Black son in America.

Sola's unexpected return sets them on a crash course towards each other, and when the four siblings find themselves together again at their Nigerian immigrant parents' Thanksgiving table, a decade's worth of secrets and a lifetime of resentments explode to the fore.

A raw, eye-opening memoir from a North East firefighter, charting her journey into the male dominated heart of the British Fire and Rescue Service.

Lifting the Fire Hydrant Lid follows young, idealistic recruit, Kate Fullen, as she negotiates training school and settles into life on the watch. With incidents and routine tasks woven into the fabric of the story, it describes the consuming pressure, emotional turmoil and unpredictable nature of the job.

Utilising the rare perspective of a northern, queer, working-class female firefighter, Lifting the Fire Hydrant Lid examines the more intricate difficulties experienced by minority groups and gives a voice to a profession that is seldom heard and rarely seen.

Stanley J. Browne is an actor, and he has been an actor all his life. Born to a Jamaican mother in a London suburb, he began rehearsing for the role of survivor from an early age. From birth he knew nothing but a home filled with love and the vibrancy of a Caribbean culture, but this changes when his mother is diagnosed with schizophrenia.

In this honest and gripping memoir, Stanley reflects on a childhood and adolescence torn apart by mental disorder. Because of it, he adopts the mantle of 'man of the house' as he is forced to scavenge for food and miss school, with his two sisters, to care for his baby brother. His life is further fragmented as they yo-yo in and out of the care system and Stanley must face the reality of being separated from his siblings.
An intelligent and sensitive child, Stanley descends into a life of crime and drug abuse. During his time spent in various young offender's institutions and prisons he battles with addiction and slowly begins to turn his life around.
Set against a backdrop of 1970s poverty, racism and hardship, Little Big Man is a powerful story of generational trauma and one man's determination to heal the wounds of the past. Most of all, it is a book about the universal desire for love, belonging and the search to find an authentic voice through the redemptive power of creativity and recovery.

It is 1903. A lame and frail Malangana - 'Little Suns' - searches for his beloved Mthwakazi after many lonely years spent in Lesotho. Mthwakazi was the young woman he had fallen in love with twenty years earlier, before the assassination of Hamilton Hope ripped the two of them apart.

Intertwined with Malangana's story, is the account of Hope - a colonial magistrate who, in the late nineteenth century, was undermining the local kingdoms of the eastern Cape in order to bring them under the control of the British. It was he who wanted to coerce Malangana's king and his people, the amaMpondomise, into joining his battle - a scheme Malangana's conscience could not allow. Zakes Mda's fine novel Little Suns weaves the true events surrounding the death of Magistrate Hope into a touching story of love and perseverance that can transcend exile and strife.

Safe in their love, Tom and Naomi Barnes pursue their dream of family and prosperity as transplants to a London brimming with immigrants and opportunities. Tom works long hours for a super hedge fund and Naomi, while bringing up their boys, is commissioned by fellow prep school mum and immigrant Solange Wolf, to write her memoir. Solange's story of survival and triumph, from the slums in Haiti to becoming an executive with a Fortune 500 company, and inter-racially married to an equally successful man, has a profound effect on Naomi, herself a mixed-race transplant from Colombia married to a white British man full of ambition and potential. Everyone she knows back in Cartagena, including her own mother would kill for a marriage like hers.

As Tom grows in wealth and power, he assumes control over the direction of his family's life, including the direction of Naomi's. She feels herself shrinking into a cardboard cutout of herself, adorned in beautiful clothes, diamond jewelry, and all the trappings of money. She watches Tom create a life that has no need for her as a woman, only as a mother and trophy wife. When Tom tells her, he is voting Brexit to please his boss, Naomi finally decides to take action.

She heads to Solange's house where she finds a heartbroken Solange who declares that her husband has suddenly left her for a younger woman pregnant with his child. Despite the years of hard work, she implores Naomi to burn the manuscript, insisting her entire life has become a lie. With this rash request, Naomi starts to doubt not only Solange's grasp on reality but her own, and although the two women try to heal, their wounds run deep, and London, without the backing of powerful men, is now a strange and alienating backdrop against which they must redefine themselves.

Longlisted for the Center of Fiction First Novel Prize 2025

It's 1999, and best friends Sal and Charo are striving to hold on to their dreams in a New York determined to grind them down. Sal is a book-loving science nerd trying to grow beyond his dead-end job in a new city, but he's held back by tragic memories from his past in Santo Domingo. Free-spirited Charo is surprised to find herself a mother at twenty-five, partnered with a controlling man, working at the same supermarket for years, her world shrunk to the very domesticity she thought she'd escaped in her old country. When Sal finds love at a gay club one night, both his and Charo's worlds unexpectedly open up to a vibrant social circle that pushes them to reckon with what they owe to their own selves, pasts, futures, and, always, each other.

Locating Strongwoman is a portrait of unperformed femininity. Eschewing the stereotypical portrayal of the "Strong Woman" and the even more loaded "Strong Black Woman", these poems invite the reader to interrogate the protagonists and find in their stories a quiet strength.

"...This is a book filled with want, love and the lack thereof, with striking lines like, 'As if he wasn't a bed of nails your love/laid on' and 'The factory of my body works overtime'. It teeters between violence and the razor-blade threat thereof. Straddling the inside and outside worlds on the head of a 'bobbing sewing needle', Locating Strongwoman is visceral and raw, vulnerable and strong. It will leave you thinking and feeling long after you turn its last page".

Peter Kahn, author of Little Kings and co-editor of The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks

"Through Locating Strongwoman, Tolu Agbelusi hosts a black women's sleepover. Where we drink wine and share stories, about the many complexities of navigating our hearts, how we are our mother's daughters and how our mothers are complex women. Strongwoman... The chilling truth behind this collection is that to be woman is to be silent... or silenced.
Both in form and content, Locating Strongwoman is a trace of our mothers' silences and the inevitable release of our own voices. Tolu paints in a language that is familiar and comforting. And how wonderful it is to find yourself, over and over in poetry! As the woman who cannot be pinned into a box and doesn't want to be. To be seen."

Vangile Gantsho, author of Red Cotton and Undressing in Front of the Window; co-founder of Impepho Press

A sparkling satire on international aid and celebrity, Looking for Bono charts one man's accidental quest to bring water to his community.

Baba is a semi-literate man living a simple life centred on the local auto repair shop in Palemo, how he will find his next meal and an obsession with his disinterested, Nollywood star-wannabe wife Munira and her voluptuous body. Baba is acutely aware of the water corruption that has left him, on occasion, without so much as a drop to even brush his teeth. One day on the news, a story about international humanitarian Bono flashes onscreen. Bono is in Africa to do good and like a thunderbolt, Baba decides that Bono is the answer to all of his problems. Once Bono hears about the local water issues he will want to step in and convince the president of Nigeria to end the corruption. Once the water is flowing, Baba can clean up and Munira will set her sights a little closer to home. Before he knows it, Baba is a celebrity being feted by the Lagos media and Munira has turned into his virtuous wife.

Will the ensuing media storm engulf Baba as he is launched into a world of high stakes foreign aid dealings and competing interests? Or will he return to his simple life with water for his community and the renewed affections of his Munira?

WINNER of the James Tait Black Prize 2021 and The Republic of Consciousness Prize 2021.

As seen in Document Journal, Guardian and The White Review

Lush and frothy, incisive and witty, Shola von Reinhold's decadent queer literary debut immerses readers in the pursuit of aesthetics and beauty, while interrogating the removal and obscurement of Black figures from history.

Solitary Mathilda has long been enamored with the 'Bright Young Things' of the 20s, and throughout her life, her attempts at reinvention have mirrored their extravagance and artfulness. After discovering a photograph of the forgotten Black modernist poet Hermia Druitt, who ran in the same circles as the Bright Young Things that she adores, Mathilda becomes transfixed and resolves to learn as much as she can about the mysterious figure. Her search brings her to a peculiar artists' residency in Dun, a small European town Hermia was known to have lived in during the 30s. The artists' residency throws her deeper into a lattice of secrets and secret societies that takes hold of her aesthetic imagination, but will she be able to break the thrall of her Transfixions?

From champagne theft and Black Modernisms, to art sabotage, alchemy and lotus-eating proto-luxury communist cults, Mathilda's journey through modes of aesthetic expression guides her to truth and the convoluted ways it is made and obscured.

Kayo is a young Tokyo housewife and mother. Outwardly, she is no different from other young mothers, but her secret sets her apart. She belongs to a kind of club, which involves luxury, beautiful clothes and accessories.

The club makes it possible for Kayo to escape her tedious life, to become someone else and to embrace a dazzling new world. But it quickly becomes an obsession, a drug, the way to both paradise and hell. Can she find her way out of the dark underworld of debt, lies and prostitution? Or is she doomed to exchange one form of loneliness for another?

A deeply absorbing novel about the "holes" that suddenly appear in women's lives, My Beautiful Shadow is a powerful cautionary tale about consumerism gone mad.

Kayo is a young Tokyo housewife and mother. Outwardly, she is no different from other young mothers, but her secret sets her apart. She belongs to a kind of club, which involves luxury, beautiful clothes and accessories.

The club makes it possible for Kayo to escape her tedious life, to become someone else and to embrace a dazzling new world. But it quickly becomes an obsession, a drug, the way to both paradise and hell. Can she find her way out of the dark underworld of debt, lies and prostitution? Or is she doomed to exchange one form of loneliness for another?

A deeply absorbing novel about the "holes" that suddenly appear in women's lives, My Beautiful Shadow is a powerful cautionary tale about consumerism gone mad.

The new satire from the author of Radio Sunrise.

Who will be the next president of the Society of Journalists in Lagos? Who is qualified to lead the esteemed body of journalists and help uphold professional ethics in the state? Will honesty and integrity be able to beat charisma and misinformation?

When a sick man flies in from a neighbouring country, he becomes Nigeria's first ebola case-patient zero. As the cases rise and journalists across the country vie for the lead in reporting the news on the imminent pandemic, Ifiok and his colleagues must immediately tackle the spread of the virus by raising awareness, sharing information, and supporting the outreach efforts of health workers. Unfortunately, they also have to battle against hysteria, misinformation, corruption and denial. Ifiok's love life could be a much needed escape from the stresses of work, if not for his meddling mother and the outdated traditions of society.

Will Ifiok succeed in his quest to become the next president of the Society of Journalists, win the battle against misinformation and find love along the way?

Simon Weekes becomes an overnight celebrity after his heroics during the 7/7 Bombings. But Simon can't afford the newfound fame and attention - he has too much to lose.

July 7, 2005. Simon Weekes is travelling on the London Underground when his tube carriage is wrecked by a bomb blast. Virtually everyone is killed and almost all the survivors are severely injured. Except for Simon.

Having quickly and calmly organised the small band of survivors out of the wreckage and to safety, word of Simon's heroics get out in the days following the bombing. Now under the full glare of the media spotlight, he becomes an overnight celebrity, hounded for interviews and regularly approached in the street by autograph hunters.

The only thing is, he doesn't want all the attention. He can't afford it. He has too much to lose.

Simon Weekes becomes an overnight celebrity after his heroics during the 7/7 Bombings. But Simon can't afford the newfound fame and attention - he has too much to lose.

July 7, 2005. Simon Weekes is travelling on the London Underground when his tube carriage is wrecked by a bomb blast. Virtually everyone is killed and almost all the survivors are severely injured. Except for Simon.

Having quickly and calmly organised the small band of survivors out of the wreckage and to safety, word of Simon's heroics get out in the days following the bombing. Now under the full glare of the media spotlight, he becomes an overnight celebrity, hounded for interviews and regularly approached in the street by autograph hunters.

The only thing is, he doesn't want all the attention. He can't afford it. He has too much to lose.