Roxane Gays writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeneys, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, West Branch, Virginia Quarterly Review, NOON, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Time, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Rumpus, Salon, and many others. She is the co-editor of PANK. She is also the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, Bad Feminist, and Hunger, forthcoming from Harper in 2016.
Dominion (2025) Addie E Citchens "This is one hell of a novel. Dominion is about two women who see what they want to see, until they no longer can. The storytelling is layered and beautiful and ugly at the same time, and beneath the story there is the other story about small communities and secrets and powers and how feeling like you have to live up to unspoken expectations can destroy you and everyone around you from the inside out. It captures church community and the South and the gulf between the haves and have-nots with precision and keen observations. This novel will grab you in the gut and hold you there. It's absolutely outstanding. Once I entered this world I didn't want to leave."
The Original Daughter (2025) Jemimah Wei "Utterly engrossing....elegantly composed...I loved this almost claustrophobic novel about the ways unrealized ambition can turn everything someone holds dear to rot...I cannot put this damn book down."
The Bang-Bang Sisters (2024) Rio Youers "If you're looking for a fun, thrilling read, look no further. The Bang-Bang Sisters is a rip-roaring delight of a novel - pulpy, fast-paced, and absolutely unputdownable."
The Great Divide (2024) Cristina Henríquez "The Great Divide is a beautifully written novel that is, at first glance, about the construction of the Panama Canal, but really, it's about the people whose lives were changed in ways good and bad, by man's insatiable desire to conquer - land, other people, the frailties of the human body. The prose offers both intimacy and the expansiveness of a sprawling epic. From the first page to the last, I found myself deeply invested in each of the characters so full of want, so willing to do everything and anything to satisfy those yearnings."
Land of Milk and Honey (2023) C Pam Zhang "The way Zhang writes about food and desire and human failings is exquisite - sensually detailed, at times visceral. This is a tremendous novel that explores the way people will break when the world itself is broken. Land of Milk and Honey is truly exceptional."
All the Sinners Bleed (2023) S A Cosby "An excellent, gritty novel about how eventually, all sins must be reckoned with... The action is nonstop and Titus has real depth... Layered. Dark. True."
A Dangerous Business (2022) Jane Smiley "The forthcoming Jane Smiley novel, A Dangerous Business, is so outstanding. Her sentences are sublime."
Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions (2022) Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi "I couldn't put this book down and I loved spending time in the lives of Nonso, Remi, Aisha, and Solape. Truly this book will grab hold of your heart and mind and everything in between."
Trust (2022) Hernán Diaz "Sublime, richly layered novel. A story within a story within a story. Elegantly written."
Manywhere (2022) Morgan Thomas "Wonderful stories. Impressive range. Delightfully, compellingly queer."
Blue Skinned Gods (2021) SJ Sindu "The richness of this story will take hold of you and never let go."
My Monticello (2021) Jocelyn Nicole Johnson "It is a rare breed of writer who can tell any kind of story and do so with exquisite deftness. Jocelyn Nicole Johnson is one such writer. Her debut collection, My Monticello, is comprised of six stories of astonishing range and each one explores what it means to live in a world that is at once home and not. She dissects the unbearable burdens of such displacement. The crowning glory of this collection is the title story, a novella about a world that has fallen apart and a small band of people who take refuge in Monticello, among the old ghosts of the former plantation, how they become family, and how they try to make a stand for their lives, for the world the way it once was. This collection is absolutely unforgettable and Johnson's prose soars to remarkable heights."
Dear Miss Metropolitan (2021) Carolyn Ferrell "Sometimes, to write about a horrifying trauma and its resounding effects, you have to write toward the heart of the matter in unexpected ways. Carolyn Ferrell does just that in her remarkable, challenging debut novel Dear Miss Metropolitan. This is the story of three girls stolen from their lives by a sadistic man, but it is also about a community that failed each of the girls and what it can be like to emerge from a very dark, damaged place on fragile footing. Dear Miss Metropolitan is a story told in brilliant, jagged fragments. It is a story that will make you uncomfortable and it will make you ache and make you rage. Ferrell's novel is a monumental provocation and heralds great things to come from an immensely talented writer."
Things We Lost to the Water (2021) Eric Nguyen "I was captivated. The writing is absolutely gorgeous . . . The voice is strong and this is a powerful novel . . . Well worth a read. Really enjoyed."
Sorrowland (2021) Rivers Solomon "A fantastical, fierce reckoning ... Sorrowland is gorgeous, and the writing, the storytelling, are magnificent. This country has a dark history of what it's willing to do to black bodies, and Rivers Solomon lays that truth bare in a most unexpected, absolutely brilliant way."
Of Women and Salt (2021) Gabriela Garcia "Gabriela Garcia captures the lives of Cuban women in a world to which they refuse to surrender and she does so with precision and generosity and beauty."
The Office of Historical Corrections (2020) Danielle Evans "With the seven brilliant stories in The Office of Historical Corrections, Danielle Evans demonstrates, once again, that she is the finest short story writer working today. These stories are sly and prescient, a nuanced reflection of the world we are living in, one where the rules are changing, and truth is mutable and resentments about nearly everything have breached the surface of what is socially acceptable. These stories are wickedly smart and haunting in what they say about the human condition… Her language is nimble, her sentences immensely pleasurable to read, and in every single story there is a breathtaking surprise, an unexpected turn, a moment that will leave you speechless, and wanting more."
Thin Girls (2020) Diana Clarke "A stunning debut novel…gorgeously crafted…From one sentence to the next, Clarke leaves her readers splayed open, throbbing with the most beautiful, necessary ache. She writes with unyielding honesty and breathtaking tenderness. Thin Girls is a brutal, and unrelenting examination of what it means to be a woman in a body, wanting, needing, wanting, needing so much. With her assured, elegant prose Clarke makes you hope against all hopes that both Rose and Lily can find a way to satiate and save themselves and each other."
Royal Holiday (2019) (Wedding Date , book 4) Jasmine Guillory "What a charming, warm, sexy gem of a novel. I couldn't put The Wedding Date down. I love a good romance and this delivered from the first page to the last... One of the best books I've read in a while."
We Cast a Shadow (2019) Maurice Carlos Ruffin "Set in the post-post-racial South, We Cast a Shadow tells the story of a man--one of the few black men at his law firm--desperate to pay for his biracial son to undergo demelanization, desperate to 'fix' what he sees as his son's fatal flaw. It is this desperation that haunts this novel and, in this desperation, we see just how pernicious racism is, how irrevocably it can alter how a man sees the world, himself, and those he loves. It is a chilling, unforgettable cautionary tale, and one we should all read and heed."
A Princess in Theory (2018) (Reluctant Royals, book 1) Alyssa Cole "This book was a lot of fun, sexy, with a compelling story. I really enjoyed the romance as it developed between Ledi and Thabioso, both interesting characters together and as individuals. Lots of erotic tension and a deeply satisfying ending. Definitely dive into this one."
Eat Only When You're Hungry (2017) Lindsay Hunter "The frailties of the human body and the human heart are laid bare in Lindsay Hunter's utterly superb novel Eat Only When You're Hungry. There is real delicacy, tenderness, and intelligence with which Hunter tackles this portrait of a broken family of people who don't realize just how broken they are until they are forced to confront the fractures between them and within themselves. With this novel, Hunter establishes herself as an unforgettable voice in American letters. Her work here, as ever, is unparalleled."
Made for Love (2017) Alissa Nutting "There is no one who negotiates the absurd as vigorously yet poignantly as Nutting. In her second novel... there are sex dolls and a senior citizen trailer park and brain chips and a con man who loves dolphins and still, the story makes sense ... Brilliant, dense, hilarious writing."
The Book of Joan (2017) Lidia Yuknavitch "Lidia Yuknavitch is a writer who, with each ever more triumphant book, creates a new language with which she writes the audacious stories only she can tell. The Book of Joan is a raucous celebration, a searing condemnation, and fiercely imaginative retelling of Joan of Arc’s transcendent life."
I Almost Forgot About You (2016) Terry McMillan "The warmth and wisdom we have come to expect from Terry McMillan are on full display and you won't be able to walk away from Georgia and her exuberant life. This is that thrilling kind of novel that reminds us how sometimes, fairy tales happen when we least expect them, if only we open ourselves to possibility."
