Debutiful included Peter C. Baker’s forthcoming novel PLANES on its list of “10 Can’t Miss Debut Books You Should Read in May.” They praise: "Using a major and global event as the backdrop, Baker focuses in on how the event changes the lives of individuals in subtle ways. Baker effortlessly tackles what it means to be human in the face of inhumane events." Knopf will publish the book on May 31, 2022.

The Los Angeles Times interviewed Colleen Kinder after selecting LETTER TO A STRANGER as its May book club pick. Interviewer Martin Wolk praises the essay collection for “remind[ing] us of the wondrous ways can strike when we leave familiar surroundings behind…[i]n a season when many pandemic-weary humans are daring to travel again, or at least dreaming of long-delayed adventures. Kinder herself said the book “feels like something of a time capsule,” adding: “So many of these essays conjure up a pre-COVID era, when we didn’t even realize how free we were.” Meanwhile, later this month, travel writer Christopher Richards will be in conversation virtually with Kinder and three of the book’s contributors: Pico Iyer, Maggie Shipstead and Michelle Tea. Algonquin Books published the collection on March 22, 2022.

Roxane Gay continues to laud Rio Cortez’s forthcoming debut poetry collection, GOLDEN AX. In a Goodreads review, Gay praised the collection as “outstanding,”adding: “The poetry in these pages is intelligent, lyrical, as invested in the past as the present and future with witty nods to pop culture.” The collection also received a glowing blurb from Ross Gay, which reads: “I love—I mean, I love this book—for its sensuous, chiseled language; ...for its weird and brainy sense of humor; for its palpable yearning and need; and for its entangled, complicated, unfixable, and unfixing blackness... I am so grateful for this book, and this voice, and this heart, in the world.” Penguin Books will publish GOLDEN AX on August 30, 2022.

Daniel Loedel’s debut novel HADES, ARGENTINA was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Riverhead Books published the book on January 12, 2021.

The mass market edition of NINE LIVES by Danielle Steel debuted at #1 on The New York Times Mass Market Monthly Bestseller list for May 2022. Delacorte Press originally published the hardcover edition on July 6, 2021, and Dell published the mass market edition on March 29, 2022.

NERUDA ON THE PARK by Cleyvis Natera continues to accumulate positive press in the weeks leading up to its release. The novel was selected as a must-read title for May by TIME magazine (“Natera deftly explores what it means to call a place home, especially when that place is under threat”), Goodreads (“This extremely buzzy debut novel from author Cleyvis Natera…is earning affectionate early reviews for its compelling story and lyrical prose”), and Bustle (“A Dominican American mother and daughter clash when gentrification arrives on their doorstep in this stellar debut”). It was also chosen as Book Riot’s May Astrology Book Club pick for Leos. Ballantine Books will publish the novel on May 24, 2022.

James Han Mattson’s celebrated psychological thriller REPRIEVE was shortlisted for the 32nd Annual Reading the West Book Award, in the Fiction category. The winners will be announced on June 7 via a virtual ceremony on Zoom. William Morrow published REPRIEVE on October 5, 2021.

THE MOVEMENT MADE US by David Dennis, Jr. in collaboration with his father, David Dennis, Sr., is accumulating a wealth of great press in the weeks leading up to its publication. The book received a starred review from Library Journal, where reviewer Ahliah Bratzler praises: “This memoir of survival is critical to understanding the movement from the perspective of the people on the ground. Moving, evocative, and haunting, this father-son perspective on the civil rights movement is a necessary read and a great addition for all library collections.” Meanwhile, The Atlantic published a moving essay adapted from the book, titled “The Day the Civil Rights Movement Changed: What my father saw in Mississippi.” Harper will publish THE MOVEMENT MADE US on May 10, 2022.

Publishers Weekly wrote a glowing review of COLLECTION PLATE author Kendra Allen’s forthcoming memoir, FRUIT PUNCH. The review praises the memoir as a “wholly original and unsparing work,” adding: “Allen’s prowess comes through in her blunt rendering of the powerlessness she struggled against as a Black woman navigating race and sexuality in the South… Indeed, the narrative rarely lets up in its frank or discomfiting depictions, but it yields a refreshingly authentic look at what it means to create oneself in a contradictory world.” Ecco will publish the book on August 9, 2022.

SIRENS & MUSES by Antonia Angress was awarded a starred review from Publishers Weekly. The reviewer praises: “A quartet of artists negotiate love, ambition, and politics during the 2011 Occupy movement in Angress’s winning debut…Angress sweeps everything toward a wonderfully complex conclusion. This is a standout.” Ballantine Books will publish the novel on July 12, 2022.

BROTHER, SISTER, MOTHER, EXPLORER by Jamie Figueroa was shortlisted for the 32nd Annual Reading the West Book Award, in the Debut Fiction category. The winners will be announced on June 7 via a virtual ceremony on Zoom. Catapult published the novel on March 2, 2021.

PARIS IS A PARTY, PARIS IS A GHOST by David Hoon Kim was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Farrar, Straus and Giroux published the novel on August 3, 2021.