On the Bookshelf

Most anticipated fiction of 2023 -Verve’s Choice.

Mark your to-read lists with these upcoming novels! From debuts to new stories from beloved authors, these books will keep you gripped!

River Sing Me Home

Eleanor

Shearer

Rare. Moving. Powerful. This beautiful, page-turning, and redemptive story of a mother’s gripping journey across the Caribbean to find her stolen children in the aftermath of slavery is a remarkable debut.

What Napoleon Could Not Do

DK Nnuro

America is seen through the eyes and ambitions of three characters with ties to Africa in this gripping novel. For these three, their desires and ambitions highlight the promise and the disappointment that life in a new country offers. How each character comes to understand this and how each learns from both their dashed hopes and their fulfilled dreams lie at the heart of what makes What Napoleon Could Not Do such a compelling, insightful read.

A Spell Of Good Things

Ayobami

Adebayo

A dazzling story of modern Nigeria and two families caught in the riptides of wealth, power, romantic obsession, and political corruption from the celebrated author of Stay with Me , “in the lineage of great works by Chinua Achebe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie” (The New York Times).

The Bandit Queens

Parini

Shroff

A young Indian woman finds the false rumours that she killed her husband surprisingly useful – until other women in the village start asking for her help getting rid of their own husbands –in this razorsharp debut.

Your Driver Is Waiting

Priya

Guns

In this electrifyingly fierce and funny social satire – a gender-flipped reboot of the iconic 1970s film Taxi Driver – a rideshare driver is barely holding it together on the hunt for love, dignity, and financial security… until she decides she’s done waiting.