MATEO ASKARIPOUR was a 2018 Rhode Island Writers Colony writer-in-residence, and his writing has appeared in Entrepreneur, Lit Hub, Catapult, The Rumpus, Medium, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn, and his favorite pastimes include bingeing music videos and movie trailers, drinking yerba mate, and dancing in his apartment. Black Buck is his debut novel. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @AskMateo.--This text refers to the hardcover edition.
Who Knows You by Heart (2025) C J Farley "With prose as provocative as it is entertaining, WHO KNOWS YOU BY HEART brings readers face-to-face with AI in fiction's most original and visceral way yet. A story about the cost of getting ahead without selling your soul, Farley's latest shows that machines are not inert, but living reflections of our own society. This novel couldn't have come at a better time."
Leverage (2025) Amran Gowani "With Leverage, Amran Gowani blows off the facade of high finance, revealing a world that is even more depraved than most think, where 'profits over people' is the rule of the day. Armed with years of Wall Street experience, the skill to weave a compulsively readable tale, and prose that'll make you go 'WHOA!', Gowani reminds us that the most valuable commodity on Earth isn't oil or gold, but the unshakable spirit to do better and be better which dwells within us all. A bell-ringing debut with high ROI."
When the Music Hits (2025) Amber Oliver "A decibel-raising debut thatcompellingly and hauntingly amplifies the unending conflict between striving for more and not losing your soul in the process."
Old School Indian (2025) Aaron John Curtis "Aaron John Curtis's audacious debut is not just a novel. It is personal and collective history dancing on the page to wake us to the world around us. By examining the colonization of a body and a people, Old School Indian addresses our festering wound of a need to heal, challenging us to use memory as a remedy and our purpose as a cure. You'll laugh, you'll think, you may even shed a few tears and sit in wonder at the ingenuity and sheer balls of this work and author. An instant classic that will continue to beat in readers' hearts for generations."
Sky Full of Elephants (2024) Cebo Campbell "Replete with airline-less airports, sprawling mansions up for grabs, and an Alabaman monarchy, Sky Full of Elephants is a supremely imaginative exploration of family, loss, and the many roads to healing. Cebo Campbell gifts us a vivid odyssey full of possibility, proving that liberation doesn't reside in the rejection of history, but in our embrace of it. This is a debut that dares us to tap into frequencies of freedom, to view ourselves as what we truly are and always have been: beings full of light worthy of love."
Colored Television (2024) Danzy Senna "Twisty, turny, and refreshingly relatable. You'll read and wonder, 'Is she in my head?' I adore this novel."
Cinema Love (2024) Jiaming Tang "Gracefully crisscrossing China and New York City's Chinatown, Cinema Love lays bare that which so many of us feel: the struggle against loneliness, attempts to forge a life beyond betrayals large and small, and the fact that liberation for some means loss for others. Featuring characters full of wit, humor, and longing, Jiaming Tang's debut navigates the complexities of intimacy with the utmost care, while also affirming that in order to build a better future, we must first make peace with the past. Hear me now: this is a book that'll stay with you long after the last page."
Bunyan and Henry (2024) Mark Cecil "With the might of a hammer and the slice of an axe, Bunyan and Henry takes aim at a host of societal blights, from capitalism to climate change, and smashes them all to smithereens. Mark Cecil has crafted an unforgettable cast of characters who will make you shout with joy and rage in anger, and a plot so romping and rollicking you'll feel like you're there. This isn't your typical bedtime fable; it's packed with searing social commentary delivered in the most delectable way. Cecil's debut is an undeniably bright light to behold in a world sometimes full of so much dark, inspiring all of us to follow our own beautiful destinies. What a marvel."
Dead in Long Beach, California (2024) Venita Blackburn "Utterly original and bitingly funny, Dead in Long Beach, California is one of the most riveting compendiums of what makes us tick and ticked off. Hair, online dating, grief, ghosts, mental health, death, global warming, childrearing, and relative fame are only a handful of the topics that Venita Blackburn tackles with ease, revealing a mind that is truly one-of-a-kind. And this novel is a testament to the belief that, despite our world's madness and mayhem, we can and will do better. Blackburn's presence in this literary landscape isn't only refreshing, it's necessary."
Lucky Girl (2023) Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu "Stimulating the heart and mind, Lucky Girl is an irresistible novel that captures the immense pressure - to be perfect, to live on our own terms, to love and be loved - of our times. Fiery conversations around race, belonging, and differing cultures give this debut its vibrant energy, but the hard-won wisdom is what allows it to soar. Most brilliantly, Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu shows us what it means to live in balance, and how duties and dreams don't always have to be at odds, especially when love is involved. Surprises abound, Lucky Girl is the literary gift we all need, making us the lucky ones."
Your Driver is Waiting (2023) Priya Guns "Priya Guns's Your Driver is Waiting is so real it's scary. A young woman, living in a nameless city where new causes pop up daily like pubescent pimples, struggles to decide where her true duty - to self, family, humanity - resides. Guns expertly exposes the palpable dangers of 'well-meaning' white folks and calls into question who, if anyone, is to be held accountable for the growing ills of modern society. However, she also shows us that a brighter world isn't in our rear-view, but right in front of us, so long as we choose to drive on. You'll want to take this ride."
The Survivalists (2023) Kashana Cauley "The Survivalists is a gun blast of a book. With enough power to keep a whole city running, Kashana Cauley questions what it means to live in fear, or through it, and how much of ourselves we sometimes have to lose in order to reveal our most brilliant parts. Even more impressive is her masterful precision in capturing something we've all felt: the need for escape from everyday monotony. This is a delightfully irreverent novel that will leave you feeling alive, prepared for anything, and, most important, understood."
Everything Abridged (2022) Dennard Dayle "With Everything Abridged, Dennard Dayle innovates form as much as he does content, creating a work that is funny and familiar, no matter if he's writing about comedians from Mars, battery-powered humans, or radicalized comic book writers. Combining wit, humor, and an uncanny ability to get to the heart of what can both plague and save us, Dayle is a writer who isn't ruffling feathers, but plucking the bird bare, and I am grateful as hell for it. Without a doubt one of the best collections I've ever read."
The Odyssey (2022) Lara Williams "I have never read anything like this... Deliciously unpredictable, a testament to Lara Williams' fearlessness in diving into the absurd, cringeworthy, and downright uncomfortable aspects of life."
What the Fireflies Knew (2022) Kai Harris "Combining complex characters, writing that instantly penetrates your heart, and the restorative power of nature, What the Fireflies Knew is a luminous reminder that sometimes the only true path to healing is through facing our painful histories, and that we don't have to do it alone. With a debut novel this remarkable, Kai Harris is a writer I hope is around for a long, long time."
