This summer, books from Jamaican and Jamaican-blooded authors are sizzling! As the mercury rises, chill in the shade with these 10 Bookends must-read picks.

House of Plain Truth by Donna Hemans
When Pearline receives grave news about her ailing father, she abruptly leaves Brooklyn for her childhood home in Jamaica. But Pearline isn’t prepared for a tense reunion with her sisters or for her father’s startling deathbed wish that she repair their long-broken family legacy and find the sister and two brothers no one has seen in more than 50 years.
Moving through time and place, from modern-day Brooklyn and Montego Bay to 1930s Havana and back again, The House of Plain Truth is a journey through generational secrets and a family coming to terms with its past.

Broughtupsy by Christina Cooke
Tired of not having a place to land, 20-year-old Akúa flies from Canada to her native Jamaica to reconnect with her estranged sister Tamika. Their younger brother Bryson has recently passed from sickle cell anaemia — the same disease that took their mother 10 years prior — and Akúa carries his remains in a small wooden box with the hope of reassembling her family.
Over the span of two fateful weeks, Akúa and Tamika visit significant places from their childhood, but time spent with her sister only clarifies how different they are, and how years of living abroad have distanced Akúa from her home culture. “Am I Jamaican?” she asks herself again and again. Wandering through Kingston with her brother’s ashes in tow, Akúa meets Jayda, a brash stripper who shows her a different side of the city. As the two grow closer, Akúa confronts the difficult reality of being gay in a deeply religious family, and what being a gay woman in Jamaica really means.

Sweetness in the Skin by Ishi Robinson
Pumkin Patterson shares a tiny two-room house with her grandmother, her mother Paulette and her aunt Sophie. Both her mother and aunt have a tense history and are manipulated by their mother who has always played favourites between both sisters. When Sophie moves to France for work, vowing to send for her niece in a year’s time so they can start a peaceful life together, Pumkin has to figure out how she’ll be able to make the journey. Inspired by her skills in the kitchen she turns to her community in the hope that she can sell enough sweet treats to bake her way out. But when Paulette gets wind of her daughter’s plans, everything Pumkin has been working so hard for might just slipped through her fingers.

Last Reel: Poems by Mervyn Morris
Former Jamaican Poet Laureate Morris’s latest collection of his characteristically tightly constructed poems displays a range of attitudes to creativity, love, sex, time, death, among other human responses. These 42 poems will wash over the reader like clear refreshing water from a spring and he or she will be better for having been in the presence of a literary master at work.

Rasta Revelation by Jah Shakespear
For lovers of thrillers, this Jamaican whodunit, penned by a Belgian and honorary Jamaican aka Karel Michiels, is a reggae murder mystery with a difference. On the trail of the murderer of his white Rasta colleague, Ras Fire, who was killed in Rockfort, hapless Belgian journalist Johan sojourns to Jamaica, via Miami, seeking answers. Amongst many red herrings, the trail leads increasingly towards a Jamaican performer he once managed, and Johan is forced to contemplate different aspects of the message of reggae and Rastafari that has been such a huge part of his life for so many decades.

One of Us Knows by Alyssa Cole
Years after a breakdown and a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder derailed her historical preservationist career, Kenetria Nash and her alters have been given a second chance they can’t refuse: a position as resident caretaker of a historic home. Having been dormant for years, Ken has no idea what led them to this isolated Hudson River island, but she’s determined not to ruin their opportunity.
Then a surprise visit from the home’s conservation trust just as a Nor’easter bears down on the island disrupts her newfound life, leaving Ken trapped with a group of possibly dangerous strangers — including the man who brought her life tumbling down years earlier. When he turns up dead, Ken is the prime suspect.

One of Our Kind by Nicola Coon
Jasmyn and King Williams move their family to the planned Black utopia of Liberty, California hoping to find a community of like-minded people, a place where their growing family can thrive. King settles in at once, embracing the Liberty ethos, including the luxe wellness centre at the top of the hill, which proves to be the heart of the community. But Jasmyn struggles to find her place. She expected to find liberals and social justice activists striving for racial equality, but Liberty residents seem more focused on booking spa treatments and ignoring the world’s troubles.
Jasmyn’s only friends in the community are equally perplexed and frustrated by most residents’ outlook. Then Jasmyn discovers a terrible secret about Liberty and its founders. Frustration turns to dread as their loved ones start embracing the Liberty way of life. Will the truth destroy her world in ways she never could have imagined?

My Story & Other Stories: A Memoir by Hartley Neita
The late Jamaican journalist’s stories have been collected here by Gary and Lance Neita and is a treasure trove for lovers of Jamaican history and are sparkling and riveting vignettes tackling subjects of a personal, national and regional nature.

We Rip the World Apart by Charlene Carr
When 24-year-old Kareela discovers she’s pregnant with a child she isn’t sure she wants, her struggle to understand her place in the world as a person who is half-black, half-white is amplified. Her mother, Evelyn, had fled to Canada with her husband and their first-born child during the politically charged Jamaican exodus in the 1980s, only to realise they’d come to a place where black men are viewed with suspicion. Years later, in the aftermath of her son’s murder by the police, Evelyn’s mother-in-law, Violet, moves in, offering young Kareela a link to the Jamaican heritage she had never fully known. Despite Violet’s efforts to help them through their grief, the traumas they carry grow into a web of secrets that threatens the very family they all hold so dear. In the present day, Kareela, prompted by fear and uncertainty about the new life she carries, must come to terms with the mysteries surrounding her family’s past and the need to make sense of both her identity and her future.

The Boy to Beat the Gods by Ashley Thorpe
Black Brit debut author Thorpe spins a tale about diverse childhood dreams. Yearning to save his sister from the mighty Orishas, Kayode stumbles upon a magical fruit that infuses him with unpredictable powers. With a trickster god, a spiky princess, and a fisherboy by his side, Kayode embarks on an epic adventure to save his sister. But each Orisha is more powerful than the last. Can Kayode control his newly acquired half-god strength before it runs out?
A fast-paced adventure where one brave boy squares off against six formidable gods, this story details the importance of unity in the face of adversity and is ideal for fans of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.