Black Girls Read Book Club

Join me at 57th Street Books, where I will be in conversation with Chicago native Catherine Adel West about her new novel Strangers Behind Closed Doors! A Q&A and book signing will follow the discussion, so you'll have the chance to meet Catherine and ask her questions. RSVP HERE if you plan to attend. (This event is organized by 57th Street Books.)
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About the Book: When No One is Watching meets The White Lotus in this captivating thriller about a woman who disappears after a public fight with her former best friend, the head concierge at a famous luxury hotel, and the female detective who believes the case is tied to the unsolved disappearances of other Black women in the city.

Giovanni Mason has worked her entire life to become the first Black head concierge at the glamorous and exclusive Ivory Hotel, a five-star luxury resort in Chicago. It's a job that requires patience, perfection, and above all, self-control. But when Giovanni reunites with her former best friend, make-up influencer Natalie Moore, things get heated--a mending of fences morphs into an ugly, public argument in the hotel restaurant, and Giovanni loses her cool. Then, Natalie goes missing that night, and all signs--including a blood-spattered, ransacked hotel room and a witness statement--point to Giovanni.

Beleaguered detective Redding Stark is the only one who thinks Giovanni isn't the culprit. A series of unsolved disappearances have been haunting the city, all involving Black women, and Detective Stark believes this case is connected. As she and Giovanni investigate, they're drawn deep into a labyrinth of power, privilege, and betrayal within the iconic hotel.

Will Giovanni and Detective Redding find Natalie or join the missing?

About the Author: Catherine Adel West was born and raised in Chicago, where she currently resides. She graduated with both her Bachelors and Masters of Science in Journalism from the University of Illinois - Urbana. Author of Saving Ruby King and The Two Lives of Sara, Catherine was named one of USA Today's Black Authors You Should Know.

About the Interlocutor: Cynthia Okechukwu is an attorney and avid reader who has proudly called Chicago home for thirteen years. She is the founder of Black Girls Read Chicago, an in-person book club and online platform that centers books by Black women writers. By collectively elevating and celebrating the work of Black women writers, Black Girls Read Chicago affirms that our stories matter.

***Support Black Girls Read Chicago by purchasing The Wedding from Bookshop or from LibroFM (affiliate links).***

About the book: In her final novel, Dorothy West offers an intimate glimpse into the Oval, a proud, insular community made up of the best and brightest of the East Coast’s Black bourgeoisie on Martha’s Vineyard in the 1950s.

Within this inner circle of “blue-vein society,” we witness the prominent Coles family gather for the wedding of the loveliest daughter, Shelby, who could have chosen from “a whole area of eligible men of the right colors and the right professions.” Instead, she has fallen in love with and is about to be married to Meade Wyler, a white jazz musician from New York. A shock wave breaks over the Oval as its longtime members grapple with the changing face of its community.

With elegant, luminous prose, Dorothy West crowns her literary career by illustrating one family’s struggle to break the shackles of race and class.

***Support Black Girls Read Chicago by purchasing Unapologetic from Bookshop or from LibroFM (affiliate links).***

About the book: A manifesto from one of America’s most influential activists which disrupts political, economic, and social norms by reimagining the Black Radical Tradition.

Drawing on Black intellectual and grassroots organizing traditions, including the Haitian Revolution, the US civil rights movement, and LGBTQ rights and feminist movements, Unapologetic challenges all of us engaged in the social justice struggle to make the movement for Black liberation more radical, more queer, and more feminist. This book provides a vision for how social justice movements can become sharper and more effective through principled struggle, healing justice, and leadership development. It also offers a flexible model of what deeply effective organizing can be, anchored in the Chicago model of activism, which features long-term commitment, cultural sensitivity, creative strategizing, and multiple cross-group alliances. And Unapologetic provides a clear framework for activists committed to building transformative power, encouraging young people to see themselves as visionaries and leaders.