10 notable books of 2010

by Carleen Brice

AND THE WINNER IS...Nicole! Please send me your mailing address and I will send you a signed copy of my book. Hope you like it! Thanks for leaving comments everyone!

First, I must send you all over to my other blog to celebrate National Buy a Book By a Black Author and Give it to Somebody Not Black Month. Author-friends are suggesting great books for gift ideas AND giving away signed books. I'll wait while you go check it out.

You're back? Ok, now I can offer you a signed copy of my book over here. Just leave me a comment letting me know you checked out said other blog and I'll randomly pick a winner at 5 pm MST Friday Dec. 10 to send a signed copy of Children of the Waters.

2010 was a wonderful year for book releases by black women. Brava sister-writers! (Of course, our own Lori L. Tharps and Ernessa T. Carter had great debut novels this year!) Here are 10 others that stand out and would make great holiday gifts for readers:

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans: Debut short story collection that is one of Alan Cheuses' tops of winter 2010.

Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin: 2nd in an amazing fantasy trilogy.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky by Heidi Durrow: national-bestselling story of a young mixed-race girl who survives a family tragedy.

Glorious by Bernice McFadden: glorious story about the Harlem Renaissance and an Oprah-magazine pick.

Moonshine by Alaya Johnson, who mixes prohibition mobsters and vampires to create a mighty brew.



Uptown by Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant: Speaking of timely, this is a story about real estate and family drama.



Wading Home by Rosalyn Story: I'm impressed by writers and impressed by musicians. A writer who is also a musician? Wow! Father-son drama set in New Orleans as Katrina hits.

Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez: Heartwrenching novel about four women friends and their lovers (who also happen to own them) who visit a real-life resort right before the Civil War.

What Mother Never Told Me by Donna Hill: Like mother-daughter stories? Check this "good read" out!

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor: Another one for fantasy lovers. Amazon picked this as one of their top 10 of 2010.

Read this: Playing the Hand You're Dealt (psst, I'm giving away a copy!)

Hello new blog readers! My name is Carleen Brice. Like everyone else blogging here, I'm a woman novelist looking to hook up with women readers. My first novel Orange Mint and Honey is a mother-daughter story (and premiered on LMN as "Sins of the Mother," which airs again on September 11). My second novel Children of the Waters is a story about two women, one white and one black, who discover they are sisters. I hope you'll check them both out if you haven't already.

I also can be found blogging at White Readers Meet Black Authors where I try to introduce authors to a wider readership (On Tuesday, I'm running a Q&A with Lori Tharps, author of the new "nanny novel" Substitute Me). In that vein, I thought I'd kick off my first blog post here by telling you all about a book I recently finished that comes out on August 24th. It's called Playing the Hand You're Dealt by Trice Hickman. I have to confess it's not a book I would have picked up on my own (I don't typically lean toward romance), but the publisher sent it to me and I read it. And I really liked it. The characters were fresh, interesting and believable and the story was just an enjoyable, easy read.

It's about two women (see perfect for the Girlfriends Book Club!) who meet in college and have been best friends ever since. The only hitch is that one of the women is in love with the other's father. Here's a snippet:

"Emily's my very best friend in the world. She was right there in the deliver room when CJ was born, holding my hand, reminding me to breathe. But even before he took his first breath, we both knew that motherhood wasn't my thing. I remember thinking that she should've had him, not me. She cradled him with love while I looked on, too scared to hold my own child because I thought I'd do something worng. When CJ was six months old my job transferred me to New York, and that's when we decided that CJ would be better left in her care. So Emily raised my son for the first four years of his life. See, I told you she was a selfless person.

I knew I'd never find anyone who accepted me the way she did. And it was funny because we were as different as caviar and catfish, with one exception--we were born on the exact same day. But here's the rub, she was born in the wee hours of the morning and I was born in the late hours of the night...."

The book opens on the cusp of the women's 30th birthdays and all kind of juicy stuff happens. Kind of romance-y, kind of women's fiction-y, Playing the Hand You're Dealt makes a great end-of-summer escape. As I said, it pubs Tuesday and I hope you'll pick up a copy.

To promote our new blog and to promote books by women, I'm giving away my advance copy of Playing the Hand You're Dealt. Post about Girlfriends Book Club or tweet or Facebook about it and leave me a note here in the comments on this post and I'll enter you to win. I'll randomly pick from the comments on August 31 at 5 pm MST and will announce the winner in the comments thread on this post. Good luck!