Lifestyle
8 hot new love stories from a stellar lineup of Black authors
When the Essence Festival of Culture celebrated its 30th anniversary in New Orleans earlier this month, organizers showcased a stellar lineup of Black romance authors — from trailblazing pioneers like Beverly Jenkins and Brenda Jackson to newer stars Kennedy Ryan, Natasha Bishop and Danielle Allen. In spite of barriers, optimistic, swoony love stories by African American authors are an increasingly sought-after commodity, as we’ve been tracking, finding audiences outside of traditional pathways.
This summer’s most exciting new releases take us from the streets of 1816 London to the NASA Space Center in Houston to Athens. The challenge is whittling your reading options down to a manageable number of contenders. Relying on bestseller lists, algorithms and TikTok means you might be missing some of the best the genre has to offer. Fortunately, we love the process of discovery. We’ve compiled a list of some hot new romance novels by Black authors, starting with a timely debut that finds readers at the Olympics.
Let the Games Begin
With the Paris games fast approaching in July, this Olympics set comedy is the perfect prelude. Rufaro Faith Mazarura is a British Zimbabwean writer making her debut with a story about two 20-somethings in Athens. Olivia and Zeke are British citizens and the high achieving offspring of Zimbabwean immigrants. She’s a focused college grad with a dream internship with the Olympics that she hopes to parlay into a permanent position. He’s Team Britain’s popular track star shooting for gold after previously earning silver. While they run headfirst into their attraction, neither one can afford the distraction. Vibe: Sweet and inspiring.
A Love Like the Sun
Beautifully blending beloved tropes and smooth, often lyrical prose, A Love Like The Sun by Riss M. Neilson, centers childhood friends fake dating their way toward a deeper connection. The magic of this convention is in the permission it conveys to go with attraction under the guise of doing it for show. “Always braver together,” Laniah and Issac have been ride-or-die besties since they were little. Now in their 20s, Laniah is struggling and Issac is GenZ’s perfect internet boyfriend: a mixed media artist/model /brand ambassador/influencer with an enviable online following and clout to spare. Part of his appeal is that “people love watching a beautiful shirtless man use his hands to make sculptures while listening to music.” The other ingredient is uniquely Issac: a sweet and handsome guy who “believes firmly in soulmates” and is in touch with the feminine perspective. Facing the loss of her business she runs with her mother, Laniah agrees to give her natural hair care business a boost through their “fake” romantic association. Along the way, the two lovers navigate challenges related to mental health, racial identity, grief, and a chronic illness. Heightening the tension, despite being bffs with an electric attraction, Laniah and Isaac are kind of opposites. She’s a hermit uncomfortable with public attention; he lives his life on the internet and his fans think they own him. I had a hard time letting go of these two! Vibe: Unabashedly swoony, angsty and pining.
A Gamble at Sunset
Blending history and fairy-tale like romance, Vanessa Riley’s latest centers a wealthy Black family teetering on the edge of ruin entangled with England’s most unusual duke. When the 19th-century Black daughters of a self-made “King of Coal” fake an engagement to avoid ruination, their champion is a duke connected to Russia’s Peter the Great. As grand as that sounds, like most of Riley’s work, the first novel in her “Betting Against the Duke” series is sweepingly romantic and grounded in the hidden Black figures of Europe’s past – real people, who, as Riley explains, defy expectations and are often forgotten. Marriage to a titled aristocrat was supposed to be the Wilcox sisters’ golden ticket to respectable London society. Instead, eldest sister Katherine’s noble husband, an inveterate gambler, lay waste to their fortune. On his deathbed, Viscount Hampton tries to turn his vice into virtue, challenging his long lost friend the Duke of Torrance to one last wager: “Jahleel. Bet . . . five pounds you can’t love ’em like I.” The plea draws the part Russian, part British, part African duke (a fictional descendant of the real Gen. Abram Gannibal) and his friend Lord Mark Sebastian close to the family. While the widowed Katherine spars with the duke, Sebastian is fascinated with middle sister Georgina. Mark and Georgina’s risky behavior leads to a fake engagement to save Georgina’s reputation, but there’s nothing false about their attraction. This is striking return to historical romance after Riley’s stint consulting for The Hallmark Channel’s multiracial adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and three critically praised novels including Island Queen. Vibe: Brontes meet Bridgerton: light on steam and high on thought-provoking twists and juicy drama.
The Kiss Countdown
In this sweet and steamy romance by first-time author Etta Easton, the sparks are undeniable as a nerdy, sexy astronaut enters into a mutually beneficial arrangement with an event planner in need of a fresh start. When Houstonite Amerie Price loses her boyfriend and her job in a dismally short space of time and runs into that ex at a cafe with his shiny new girlfriend, she’s so desperate to save face that she pretends to be dating the nearest handsome stranger. The cooperative bystander turns out to be a real life hero, who needs his own kind of rescue. Their town is home to the billion-dollar Johnson Center, NASA‘s Mission Control headquarters, and every guy in Houston seems to claim he’s an association. But Ahmad is really an astronaut. They strike up a friendship and a bargain– she’ll pretend to be his girlfriend to thwart his matchmaking mama while he preps for a major mission, and he’ll provide a rent-free refuge where she can get her event planning business off the ground. That win-win situation gets complicated when red hot attraction and feelings get involved. Vibe: Sweet and sexy — fake dating and close proximity are a stellar recipe for love.
A Little Kissing Between Friends
Chencia Higgins (The Vow and Wolves of West Texas) is a dynamic young writer who has amassed a following and a healthy backlist as an indie author of contemporary and paranormal romance. Her lauded traditionally published debut D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding featured two women faking an engagement and falling in love on a reality TV show. In A Little Kissing Between Friends, longtime friends are reluctant to risk their connection on a chance at love. Cyn is a successful Houston-based music producer with a big supportive family. Single mom “Jucee” Juleesa is the best friend Cyn has been crushing on. Having seen each other through health crises and breakups, there’s a lot on the line. That said, this is a quintessentially summery read — more heart and positive vibes than conflict. Vibe: Sweet and steamy. Undistilled Black joy.
Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places
At Hennessy House guests are greeted with five rules. One is a warning: “Do not explore the house for any reason.” To secure her dream job on the set of a haunted house reality show, Lucky Hart has to survive in the eerie dwelling, adhere to those five simple prohibitions, and avoid catching feelings for the show’s empathetic star Maverick Phillips. That’s easier said than done when “meeting him felt like the thrill of a lifetime.” Lucky is gifted; she has a kind of extra sensory perception that enables her to read people, and her reaction to him is shocking: “Hearing him say her name like that threatened to send her gasping into the afterlife. So strange. So bizarre. So dangerously against her nature that she felt a little lightheaded…” Claire Kann’s first adult contemporary romance, The Romantic Agenda, was equal parts poignant and frothy and frequently named as one of the best romances of 2022. A tender and specific writer with broad appeal, Kann explored the challenge of finding love when you’re deeply romantic and also asexual. Her new novel recreates that winning formula while adding a haunted house setting and magic to the mix. Vibe: Swoony and spooky.
Curvy Girl Summer
Indie publishing’s Black romance queen Danielle Allen is among the best and most beloved to wield a pen or laptop. Hotter than the sands of Negril, her first traditionally published novel delivers big — big spice, big hair, big hips, big laughs and BIG heart. More Michelle Buteau than Bridget Jones, Curvy Girl Summer is fat-positive and complicated. When IT professional Aaliyah makes it her mission to find a long term romantic partner and squash her family’s constant carping on her single status before her 30th birthday, her parade of dates are more comic relief than romantic connection. Great for a laugh; not so much for the heart. More and more, what she looks forward to is what happens after the dates are done: spending time with her favorite bartender and friend Ahmad. Vibe: Unabashedly sexy and grown. The literary Survival of The Thickest.
One and Done
Determined to be America’s first openly gay Black university president, the last thing Dr. Taylor James needed was a handsome, sharp-dressed diversion from his goals. A one time only, no-strings attached tryst is what the doctor wants, and the guy hitting on him at his usual brunch spot is giving all the wrong signals. Dustin McMillan is handsome, professional and complicated. He has a tortured relationship with the Oakland family he worked so hard to escape. But hiding that past cost him a chance with this man who seems tailor made for him. With this romance set in academia, author Frederick Smith is writing what he knows. By day he’s a senior university administrator and it shows in the convincing characterization of the workplace and consistently crisp writing. This Bay Area romance is addictive reading. Vibe: Deliciously messy. A wry grown-up take on academia by way of The Office: It’s Looking meets The Chair.
Carole V. Bell is a cultural critic, researcher of media, politics and identity, and co-host of Season Four of the Black Romance Podcast.
You want to see some real fashion ingenuity? Watch the N.F.L. draft.
I’m not saying it’s all good, but where else are you going to see someone in a double-breasted suit made by a company better known for making yoga pants? Or an Abercrombie & Fitch suit jacket so short that it exposes the belt loops on the pants beneath?
On the whole, the style on display at the N.F.L. draft last night was very overeager senior formal: a lot of suits in colors beyond basic blue. The quarterback Ty Simpson wore a custom suit by the athleisure label Alo, which, I have to say, looked better than I would have envisioned had you said the words “Alo Yoga suit” to me.
I thought it might have been from Suitsupply, but the conspicuous “Alo” pin on his right lapel put that idea to rest. Simpson, smartly, unfastened that beacon before appearing onstage as the 13th pick to the Los Angeles Rams. He had, perhaps, satisfied his contractual obligations by that point.
Earlier in the evening, as the wide receiver Carnell Tate threw up his arms in exaltation after being picked fourth by the Tennessee Titans, his cropped Abercrombie & Fitch jacket revealed a swatch of rib cage. He looked like a mâitre d’ who had just hit the Mega Millions.
During the N.B.A.’s extended fashion awakening, its draft has become a sandbox for luxury brands to cozy up to would-be endorsers. The Frenchman Victor Wembanyama broke a kind of cashmere ceiling when he wore Louis Vuitton to go first overall in the 2023 N.B.A. draft.
The N.F.L. draft has none of that. The brands you see are often not brands at all, but custom tailors that reach the league’s neophytes through a whisper network among players. The draft is also a platform to raise the curtain on longer-term brand deals that better suit these rookies. We may, for instance, never see Simpson in a suit again. Nearly every photo from his time at Alabama shows him in a T-shirt or hoodie. It makes sense for him to sign with Alo.
Football is the most mainstream of American cultural entities. And it’s one that still hasn’t, in spite of the league’s best efforts, taken off overseas. Few players, save some quarterbacks and a tight end who happens to be engaged to a pop star, feel bigger than the game itself. If you’re a new-to-the-league linebacker, you’ll most likely never harness the star power to grab the attention of Armani, but you might have just the right pull for Abercrombie.
The N.F.L. draft is therefore one of the few red carpets where the brands worn by the athletes may also be worn by those watching at home. How many people watching the Oscars will ever own clothes from Louis Vuitton or Chanel? People may comment online about Lady Gaga wearing Matières Fécales to the Grammys, but how many of those fans and viewers could afford to buy clothes from it?
The Japanese designers changing fashion
Yesterday, I published a deep dive into how a newish crop of Japanese designers are soaking up all the attention in men’s fashion right now. This was a piece I was writing in my head long before I sat down and finally started typing. I remember sitting at a fashion show in Paris over a year ago — I believe it was Dior — and being asked by my seatmate if I’d made it over to a showroom in the Marais to check out A.Presse. That Tokyo-based brand is now part of a vanguard of Japanese labels that, on many days, seems to be all anyone in fashion wants to talk about. I spent months talking with designers, store owners and big-time shoppers to make sense of why these brands have kicked up so much buzz and, more than that, what makes their clothes so great. You can read the story here.
Other things worth knowing about:
Thirty years ago, comedian and actor Tig Notaro didn’t have a clear direction in life, so she followed some childhood friends who wanted to get into entertainment to Los Angeles. Secretly wanting to do stand-up, Notaro decided to try her luck at various outlets in town, which became the start of her successful career.
“I stayed on my friends’ couch near the Hollywood Improv on Melrose, and a couple months later, got my own studio apartment in the Miracle Mile area,” Notaro says. “I love all the options for everything in L.A. — the entertainment, the restaurants. I like to stay active. So many people love the hiking options in Los Angeles, and I’m one of them.”
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
Notaro appears in Season 3 of Apple TV’s “The Morning Show” and is a series regular on Paramount+’s “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy,” as she was on “Star Trek: Discovery.” She’s also a touring stand-up comic and hosts “Handsome,” a comedy podcast, with Fortune Feimster and Mae Martin. The trio will be taping a live show May 4 at the Wiltern with the cast of Netflix’s “The Hunting Wives.” The live shows include interviews, but also “incorporate some ridiculous things,” she says. For example, upon hearing that some of the hosts always wanted to learn to tap dance, Notaro “hired a tap instructor to come to our live show in Austin and teach us how to tap dance in front of the audience.”
Notaro lives near Hollywood with her wife, actor Stephanie Allynne, their 9-year-old fraternal twin boys, Max and Finn, and three cats, Fluff, Linus and Skip. When she’s not touring, her ideal Sundays include sampling vegan restaurants, wandering through bookstores or museums, and doing something physically active with the family.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
6 a.m.: Up with the kids
Because we have active children, we still wake up at 6 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, but there’s not as much of a rush to get going. Stephanie and I will often have coffee and chat in the living room together. I love that part of the day. Stephanie may cook breakfast, but Max and Finn are pretty self-sufficient and can make certain little meals for themselves. Max is really starting to take an interest in cooking, so he’d make breakfast for himself. Our family is vegan, but he eats eggs, so he makes himself an egg sandwich with avocado a lot of times.
9 a.m.: Daily morning walk
After breakfast, we usually have a morning walk around our neighborhood. That’s a daily thing I like to do, regardless of what’s going on. Now that I’m not touring as much, tennis is back on the schedule. So I’d go to Plummer Park in West Hollywood and play for a while, then join the family for lunch.
11:30 a.m.: Hike with a side of chickpea sandwich
I love Trails, a cafe in Griffith Park, where you can eat outdoors. It serves simple food, and has good vegan options. I usually get their chickpea salad sandwich. The food there is great. Afterward, we’d visit Griffith Observatory, where there’s lots to see. There are lots of great trails in the park, so we’d go for an hour hike before leaving.
3 p.m.: Browse the shelves for rock biographies
Bookstores are fun, so we’d head downtown for the Last Bookstore, which is in a historic building with lots of vintage books. I really love all things plant-based, and I’m a very big music fanatic. So I love to look for vegan books, nutrition books, rock biographies and autobiographies. It’s just fun to browse around the stacks.
If we didn’t go to the bookstore, we’d probably go to LACMA. Our sons are huge fans of art and want to go for each new exhibit. They love Hockney, Basquiat and Picasso, to name a few.
4 p.m.: Cuddle with cuties at a cat cafe
We’d then make a quick stop at [Crumbs & Whiskers], a kitten and cat cafe on Melrose for coffee, snacks and to pet the cats. It’s best to make reservations in advance. There’s cats all around the place that need to be adopted. You can visit and pet them, or find a new roommate. I’d love to take some home, but we already have three.
5:30 p.m. Italian or sushi, but make it vegan
We’re an early dinner family. One restaurant we like is Pura Vita in West Hollywood. It’s the greatest vegan Italian food, and for non-vegans, nobody ever knows the difference. It’s the first 100% plant-based Italian restaurant in the United States. They make an incredible kale salad and I love the San Gennaro pizza. It’s got cashew mozzarella, tomato sauce, Italian sausage crumble and more.
Then there’s Planta in Marina del Rey. It’s right on the harbor and you can sit outside and look at the boats coming in and out. They have sushi, salads and other plant-based entrees. They’ve got a really great spicy tuna roll that’s made out of watermelon. They are magicians.
Or there’s Crossroads Kitchen in West Hollywood. They play the best classic rock, and the atmosphere is upscale, fine dining. The appetizers that we always get are called Moroccan Cigars, which are vegan meat substitutes fried in a rolled batter. I really like the grilled lion’s mane steak, their mushroom steak with truffle potatoes, or the scallopini Milanese, that has a chicken or tofu option. I get the chicken with arugula on top. I always love to have a decaf espresso with dessert, which is either a brownie sundae or banana pudding.
7:30 p.m.: Comfort watch or word games
After dinner, the kids often like to watch an episode of “Friends,” a show that all ages enjoy, sports or “The Simpsons.” Or we’d play a game where each of us will add a word to a sentence and create a weird or funny long sentence until one of our sons says period. Then they’ll try and remember the whole sentence and repeat it back.
9:30 p.m.: Bubble bath then bed
The boys usually go to bed at 8:30 p.m. and bedtime for us is 9:30 p.m. Stephanie and I would read or chat. I like to take a bubble bath, if people must know. The best Sundays for me mean finding a good balance of relaxing and being active. I feel very lucky that my family and I can do those things together.
When Marian Sherry Lurio and Jonathan Buffington Nguyen met at a mutual friend’s wedding at Higgins Lake, Mich., in July 2022, both felt an immediate chemistry. As the evening progressed, they sat on the shore of the lake in Adirondack chairs under the stars, where they had their first kiss before joining others for a midnight plunge.
The two learned that the following weekend Ms. Lurio planned to attend a wedding in Philadelphia, where Mr. Nguyen lives, and before they had even exchanged numbers, they already had a first date on the books.
“I have a vivid memory of after we first met,” Mr. Nguyen said, “just feeling like I really better not screw this up.”
Before long, they were commuting between Philadelphia and New York City, where Ms. Lurio lives, spending weekends and the odd remote work days in one another’s apartments in Philadelphia and Manhattan. Within the first six months of dating, Mr. Nguyen joined Ms. Lurio’s family for Thanksgiving in Villanova, Pa., and, the following month, she met his family in Beavercreek, Ohio, at a surprise birthday party for Mr. Nguyen’s mother.
Ms. Lurio, 32, who grew up in Merion Station outside Philadelphia, works in investor relations administration at Flexpoint Ford, a private equity firm. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in history and psychology.
Mr. Nguyen, also 32, was born in Knoxville, Tenn., and raised in Beavercreek, Ohio, from the age of 7. He graduated from Haverford College with a bachelor’s degree in political science and is now a director at Doyle Real Estate Advisors in Philadelphia.
Their long-distance relationship continued for the next few years. There were dates in Manhattan, vacations and beach trips to the Jersey Shore. They attended sporting events and discovered their shared appreciation of the 2003 film, “Love Actually.”
One evening, Mr. Nguyen recalled looking around Ms. Lurio’s small New York studio — strewed with clothes and the takeout meal they had ordered — and feeling “so comfortable and safe.” “I knew that this was something different than just sort of a fling,” he said.
It was an open question when they would move in together. In 2024, Ms. Lurio began the process of moving into Mr. Nguyen’s home in Philadelphia — even bringing her cat, Scott — but her plans changed midway when an opportunity arose to expand her role with her current employer.
Mr. Nguyen was on board with her decision. “It almost feels like stolen valor to call it ‘long distance,’ because it’s so easy from Philadelphia to New York,” Mr. Nguyen said. “The joke is, it’s easier to get to Philly from New York than to get to some parts of Brooklyn from Manhattan, right?”
In January 2025, Mr. Nguyen visited Ms. Lurio in New York with more up his sleeve than spending the weekend. Together they had discussed marriage and bespoke rings, but when Mr. Nguyen left Ms. Lurio and an unfinished cheese plate at the bar of the Chelsea Hotel that Friday evening, she had no idea what was coming next.
“I remember texting Jonathan,” Ms. Lurio said, bewildered: “‘You didn’t go toward the bathroom!’” When a Lobby Bar server came and asked her to come outside, Ms. Lurio still didn’t realize what was happening until she was standing in the hallway, where Mr. Nguyen stood recreating a key moment from the film “Love Actually,” in which one character silently professes his love for another in writing by flashing a series of cue cards. There, in the storied Chelsea Hotel hallway still festooned with Christmas decorations, Mr. Nguyen shared his last card that said, “Will you marry me?”
They wed on April 11 in front of 200 guests at the Pump House, a covered space on the banks of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River. Mr. Nguyen’s sister, the Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen, who is ordained through the Unitarian Universalist Association, officiated.
Although formal attire was suggested, Ms. Lurio said that the ceremony was “pretty casual.” She and Jonathan got ready together, and their families served as their wedding parties.
“I said I wanted a five-minute wedding,” Ms. Lurio recalled, though the ceremony ended up lasting a little longer than that. During the ceremony, Ms. Nguyen read a homily and jokingly added that guests should not ask the bride and groom about their living arrangements, which will remain separate for the foreseeable future.
While watching Ms. Lurio walk down the aisle, flanked by her parents, Mr. Nguyen said he remembered feeling at once grounded in the moment and also a sense of dazed joy: “Like, is this real? I felt very lucky in that moment — and also just excited for the party to start!”
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