Author: Erica Ezeifedi

Beignets are one of the many foods you should try if you ever visit New Orleans. They’re also really good when you make them! Imma shows us to glory here.

Credited as the first Honkaku writer, Taro Hirai wrote under the pen name Edogawa Rampo. His character, detective Akechi Kogoro, starred in several of Hirai’s mysteries, and became a popular character in Japan. Here, the character isn’t the well-dressed finished product he would become known as. But, with a style that was inspired by Sherlock Holmes, his skills are on full display in these stories — women disappear at a bathhouse, abductions and robberies threaten a city, a human hand falls out of a person’s pocket.

The K apartments are being moved intact and the whole event is being publicized as a major accomplishment in engineering. But there are secrets the building holds — like a child’s body that lies buried in a communal bath under the building, the kidnapping of the son of an American officer, and more. As these secrets come to light, who is behind the scenes controlling things still remains a mystery.

This is one of the most popular books of the genre that introduced another of Japan’s well-known literary detectives, the bedraggled Kosuke Kindaichi. In 1937, the well-respected Ichiyanagi family will host a grand wedding for their son, but the positive hype surrounding the event are marred by talks of a masked man who’s been asking questions around town. When the wedding night comes, so does a scream and a murder, with the only clue being a bloody samurai sword in the snow.

This is more of a psychological thriller, but the author is part of the Honkaku Mystery Writers Club of America. Yuki, Akiko, Sae, and Maki were only girls when a stranger tricked them into leaving their friend Emily alone. Later Emily is found murdered and the girls were never able to give a useable description of the person to the police. Fifteen years after Emily’s death, readers see how the trauma of losing their friend has affected the now women.

I saw something saying that Curry Katsu (essentially a Japanese-style curry accompanied by a fried chicken cutlet) was considered the best meal of the year. I had never tried Japanese curry before this, but have loved Indian and Jamaican curry since forever. Y’all. This was so good, I had to make it twice (the picture is what I actually made!).

The dish is pretty simple, but I feel like it takes a little getting used to because of its somewhat disparate parts. Here’s a recipe by Yumiko, but I also have tips. I mostly followed the recipe on the curry box that I got from Amazon, but when it came to the cutlets, I made sure to season both sides with salt, black pepper, and a little garlic powder before letting them hit the flour + egg + panko station.

Published in 1859, this was the first novel to be published in the U.S. by a Black American. Technically, it is the second one written by a Black American, as the first is Clotel; or, The President’s Daughter by William Wells Brown, but the latter was first published in England. It was only after Wilson’s book was published in America that Brown’s book came stateside.

Sketches is essentially auto fiction, and details Wilson’s life as a person of mixed (Black and white) heritage who gets abandoned by her mother once her father dies, going on to live a hard life indentured to a white northern family with an abusive matriarch. The book, and the identity of its writer, was lost in antiquity until Henry Louis Gates, Jr. found it in the early ’80s and fleshed out the history surrounding it.

*Note: The full title basically contains a slur, so I chose to leave it out here.*

Brooks was the first Black American to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize (1950), and it was for her her 1949 collection of poems titled Annie Allen. The collection was inspired by epics Iliad and Aeneid, and followed the life of a Black girl growing up in Chicago’s South Side. The original is very hard to come by now, but there are snippets of it in her Selected Poems, which I have linked.

With this book came the ushering in of a new era. Toomer’s Cane sat at a kind of crossroads. On the one hand, it was an experimental book told in three parts. Its mixed narrative forms — poems, vignettes, and a short play — subverted readers’ stereotypical expectations. In doing this, though, Toomer’s southern Black characters seemed to live stereotyped lives, even as he added nuance to their plight.

This was the book that started the Harlem Renaissance (I wrote a little more about it here). Alice Walker said of it “It has been reverberating in me to an astonishing degree. I love it passionately, could not possibly exist without it.”

The Conjure Man Dies was published in 1932 and is thought to be the first mystery novel by a Black American. It’s set in the time it was written — 1930s Harlem — and follows Frimbo, a man from Africa who has made his home in the U.S. In Harlem, he’s known as a conjure man, and one day his friends find him dead under mysterious circumstances. This serves as a look into the ’30s by someone actually alive during that time, and as a mystery that’s still entertaining. It’s a shame that the talented Fisher, a doctor, musician, and (obvious) writer, died when he was only 37.

I was really feeling like comfort food (when am I not) and wanted something sweet. What’s more comforting than a s’more cookie!? The Salty Marshmallow (fitting name) tells us how to get these glorious things here.

Stella is brilliant with numbers — which has resulted in a pretty sizable salary — but clueless when it comes to romance. She thinks that, as someone with little to no life experience and Asperger’s, it just makes sense to hire a professional to teach her the ways of love. That’s where Michael Phan’s fine self comes into the picture. The escort will teach Stella everything from kissing to beyond missionary *wiggles eyebrows*, but their arrangement soon starts to feel comfortable in a new way.

Kris is looking for her big break through a reality show, while D’Vaughn is looking for an exaggerated way to finally come out to her mom. To achieve these goals, the two decide to be on the reality show Instant I Do, which means they’ll have to plan their wedding in six weeks, and convince their loved ones that they’re actually in love with each other. Then they’ll get the $100,000 grand prize and all the other goodies. Of course, the cash prize isn’t the only thing at stake by the time that six week marker comes around.

Michelle is a graphic designer who is doing pretty well for herself…career-wise. Romantically, it’s a little dry. And Gabriel, her ex boo thang from when she still lived in the Bronx, is also doing pretty well as a co-owner of a celebrity gym in L.A. When Michelle gets brought on for a marketing campaign for Gabriel’s gym, those old feelings resurface, but some things have to be worked out before the relationship can really flourish.

Jessica P. Pryde is a contributor at Book Riot! She is one of our resident Romance experts and, here she has edited a collection of essays that both uplift and examine romance through the Black gaze. Contributors include everyone from Jasmine Guillory to Beverly Jenkins, Kosoko Jackson, and more.