I Only Shout So You Can Hear Me

"But I honestly believe you don't know who I am. You see a version of me. You have an idea. I'm the party guy, the wild guy, the guy who says those three words ("Yeah!" "What?" "Okay!") ~ 2%

"Yeaaaaaaah!" is the distinct shout of Grammy Award-winning producer, hype-master, and King of Crunk, Lil Jon. He takes his high energy to the page in a new memoir appropriately titled I Only Shout So You Can Hear Me. It begins with him as a kid in the suburbs of Atlanta—he was just Jonathan Smith back then—to his musical evolution. He opens up about creative burnout, personal struggles, heartbreak, his passion for DJing, being a parent, and reinventing himself as a multifaceted artist.

"Good music is like a release valve; you hear it and it takes you somewhere else." ~ 87%

What I love most about reading memoirs are intimate details that have not been shared publicly and little known facts. There is so much I learned about Lil Jon from this book! For example, he made the beat for Too $hort's "Blow the Whistle" in a session for E-40. I am quite impressed with all he's accomplished, pioneered, and survived—including the tragic loss of his son. Lil Jon gives an inspiring message to up-and-coming artists, entrepreneurs, and music fans. The message to embrace change and find success on your own terms is loud and clear.

Happy Pub Day to Lil Jon! I Only Shout So You Can Hear Me is officially on shelves.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins. ~LiteraryMarie

Title: I Only Shout So You Can Hear Me
Author: Lil Jon with Paul Cantor
Published: October 2026
Pages: 304
Edition: Galley
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤

Beignets and Big Feelings

"Enjoy where you are right now. " ~ 42%

A Black funeral ain't a Black funeral without a surprise. When Grandma Olivia Hollis passes away, her funeral reunites four generations of heirs. She orchestrated a weeklong scavenger hunt in an effort to bring her family back together. If someone isn't game, no one gets a dime. 

Beignets and Big Feelings has a host of colorful characters and a vivid setting. The heirs find themselves on a Mississippi River jazz cruise, a bayou swamp tour, old cemeteries, and more. Amid delicious beignets, crispy popcorn shrimp and snippy alligators, the women discover real treasure in each other. 

Great setting. Characters with big personalities. Family drama to the nth degree. All the makings of a good book, right? But it took me the longest time to get from the opening reading of the will scene to the one big messy family happy ending. There were many characters and personalities to keep up with. The short chapters had its opposite effect where it was easy to put the book down often. Maybe I prefer Leslie Gray Streeter's nonfiction. I still remember pieces of Black Widow from over six years ago but don't ask me what I just read in Beignets and Big Feelings because I'm drawing a blank.

Happy Pub Day to Leslie Gray Streeter! Beignets and Big Feelings is officially on shelves.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins. ~LiteraryMarie

Title: Beignets and Big Feelings
Author: Leslie Gray Streeter
Published: October 2026
Pages: 235
Edition: Galley
Genre: Grown Women Fiction
Rating: 🖤 🖤

Friends and Family

"The problem isn't that Black people are always thinking about race, it's that white people refuse to." ~ 79%

From the author of Queen Sugar, comes a new novel of family dynamics, friendship and loyalty. Babs and Nora became friends through their kids. For over a decade, they've taken morning walks, shared family secrets and gossip. Most of all, Babs (a Black woman) has given suggestions to Nora (a white woman) on how to raise Nathan, her adopted Black son.

Their worlds are turned upside down and the dynamics of their friendship change when the kids have an unfortunate interaction with the police. The aftermath pushes Nathan closer to Babs' family where race, identity and culture is always a conversation. But Nora's boundaries are being pushed. The events that unfold makes readers' question what it means to be a loyal friend and ally.

"White people aren't free either." ~45%

Friends and Family explores themes on themes on themes: race, loyalty, perception, stereotypes, transracial adoption, police brutality, trust and friendship. It may sound overwhelming but the story was surprisingly not all over the place. In fact, it took a while to reach the climax. But when it does, the intensity of the plot builds and holds readers' tight until the end. Well done, Baszile.

I recommend Friends and Family to allies, parents and book clubs. It will spark good conversation on the themes referenced above.

Happy Pub Day to Natalie Baszile! Friends and Family is officially on shelves.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins. ~LiteraryMarie

Title: Friends and Family
Author: Natalie Baszile
Published: October 2026
Pages: 384
Edition: Galley
Genre: Grown Woman Fiction
Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤

Series Sunday: Murder with a Side of Red Velvet

(Honeybee Diner #2) 

My Series Sunday pick is Murder with a Side of Red Velvet, the second book in the Honeybee Diner Mysteries series by Skylar Warren. We are back to Willow Bluff, Georgia, for a blazing summer with chef Jessie Haynes. She has prepared a tasty wedding buffet. Love is in the air when groom Tommy Prescott takes a bite of the tiered red velvet cake decorated in pearly-white icing. He immediately slumps to the floor dead leaving a shocked young bride. His wedding toast becomes his eulogy.

"She'd learned long ago that folks in Willow Bluff didn't trade in truth; they traded in tales." ~ 8%

Back at Honeybee's Diner, Jessie is fixin' to find the killer fast but the investigation won't be a piece of cake. There are many suspects. The sobbing bride? One of the groom's grown children fearing they would lose their inheritance? Or the wedding planner?

Unfortunately, this second book was too cookie cutter. I love a cozy culinary mystery but this was way too formulaic. Swap the victim's name, a few suspects, and it was like re-reading book one of this series. Same type of murder. Same sleuth tactics. Same gossip. I'm a bit disappointed but not enough to stop reading the series. I'm planning to try reading the next installment in spring 2027 before giving up on Honeybee Diner mysteries.

Happy Early Pub Day, Skylar Warren! Murder with a Side of Red Velvet will be available Tuesday, October 6.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins. ~LiteraryMarie

Title: Murder with a Side of Red Velvet

Author: Skylar Warren

Published: October 2026

Pages: 354

Edition: Galley

Genre: Mystery

Rating: 🖤 🖤

Ms. American Dream

"The American dream is all about aspiration, wanting and striving for better than you already have." ~ 30%

From the star of BET's The Ms. Pat Show, comes a raw and hilarious new memoir of struggle, survival and success. If you read her previous memoir, Rabbit, then you know a bit about Ms. Pat before the Netflix specials, the sold out tours, the stand-up comedy shows, and TV fame. She was a 15-year-old eighth-grade dropout with two babies in one of Atlanta's poorest neighborhoods. Before legal drinking age, she was married and raising six kids. Then one day a stranger dropped some jewels about the American Dream.

With no mentor, no plan but to survive and own a home, Ms. Pat made a way out of no way. This new memoir picks up where Rabbit left off. She goes into detail from Section 8 housing where she proved her place in the neighborhood to television deals and worldwide fans. She outmaneuvered hustlers, bill collectors, caseworkers and judgy folks. She hustled to make it in the comedy scene.

"It's not easy to climb the ladder of success. Especially when you start your journey in the basement. It's even harder when no one believes in your dream except you." ~ 93%

Ms. American Dream is LOL funny. I saw Ms. Pat live at a Detroit stand-up show so read the entire book in her voice in my head. I appreciate her openness and candid conversation with readers. Most importantly, I picked up the message that Ms. Pat was putting down: celebrate your wins with a laugh. This memoir is entertaining, motivating, and downright hilarious with serious shit included at the right moments. I recommend it to Bookhearts that are Ms. Pat fans and those interested in a Black's woman's journey to the American dream.

Happy Pub Day to Ms. Pat! Ms. American Dream is officially on shelves.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins. ~LiteraryMarie

Title: Ms. American Dream
Author: Patricia Williams-Lee aka Ms. Pat
Published: October 2026
Pages: 224
Edition: Galley
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤

Anger Is Only a Shadow

"Going whole days not having a single person in the world look at you with sugar in their smile is a worse sentence than what any judge can give you." ~ 7%

Lil is a rebellious teen caught in the juvenile detention system. More than anything, she wants to be free. With an ankle monitor weighing heavily on her, along with guilt and trauma, she cannot shake that pinned-down feeling. The only person who might understand is her big brother, Aldwin. But he's miles away in college and something's been off with him. He doesn't respond like usual, seems distant and manic. After receiving strange texts, Lil puts her own freedom at risk to save her brother's.

Mental health is a sensitive topic to tackle. It is close to my heart and I feel very passionate about mental health awareness. I'm also very judgy of how it is represented in literature—fiction or otherwise. So when I saw this story going down the path, my interest piqued and I was all in. 

Acevedo wrote Anger Is Only a Shadow with so much care. I appreciate how she tackled the realities of the juvenile detention system, probation and schizophrenia episodes. Through the author's prose, she expressed the emotions and decisions that loved ones face. At one point, onions entered the chat and I felt tears running down my face. The writing is simply beautiful!

"For the ways book pages pull out a chair for us and tell us to sit for a while." ~ 63%

Now I usually don't like difficult teens with attitudes. But I knew immediately there was more to Lil's story. Although after finishing, I still don't know what triggered her behavior. It seemed she was troubled before the events surrounding her brother but it was never explicitly stated why. She's battling all this internal anger but what was the original trauma? Maybe I missed it or the implication went over my head. For this reason alone, it did not feel like a complete read. However, I still rate it 4 hearts and recommend it to Bookhearts. 

Happy Pub Day to Elizabeth Acevedo! Anger Is Only a Shadow is officially on shelves.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins. ~LiteraryMarie

Title: Anger Is Only a Shadow
Author: Elizabeth Acevedo
Published: September 2026
Pages: 336
Edition: Galley
Genre: Young Adult; Family Drama
Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤

Dear Dealer

"How long have you been cutting heroin with fentanyl? You sucker-punch people, you know. My sister didn't see it coming." ~ 31%

Dear Dealer is a love letter, hate mail, a ransom note, a monologue, a diary of obsession addressed to the dealer Nadia Bowers is on a mission to find. It's the guy she holds accountable for the fentanyl overdose death of her sister, Sasha. Through processing her grief, she uncovers the truth of how Sasha died alone in her car in 2015. It was a crime the police won't seriously investigate so Nadia makes it her life's purpose, her sisterly duty to find the one responsible.

"The choice to love isn't weak. It's not a surrender. It's the strongest thing." ~ 97%

This memoir is an expansion on her viral 2018 This American Life piece. I heard the buzz surrounding it back then but now it is even more powerful and relevant given the massive number of fentanyl overdoses today. While reading I felt empathy, rage, confusion, and understanding. It is poetic. It is raw honesty. It is confronting. It is a sister's deep thoughts fueled by grief and pain, written so beautifully. Whew—I had to take a deep breath after finishing because it's such an intense read.

I recommend Dear Dealer with caution. Bookhearts, be prepared to feel the words through the page. 

Happy Early Pub Day to Nadia Bowers! Dear Dealer will be available Tuesday, September 15.

Disclaimer: An advance copy was received directly from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own and would be the same if I spent my hard-earned coins. ~LiteraryMarie

Title: Dear Dealer
Author: Nadia Bowers
Published: September 2026
Pages: 256
Edition: Galley
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 🖤 🖤 🖤 🖤