Three Books I'm Reading Now, 6/9/25 Edition

The Books I'm Reading Now

I'm listening to Tochi Onyebuchi's dark, broody fantasy mystery, Harmattan Season; I'm listening to Katie Sturino's upcoming rom-com with body positivity at the center, Sunny Side Up; and I'm reading Janelle Brown's recently published novel, What Kind of Paradise.

What are you reading, bookworms?

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01 Harmattan Season by Tochi Onyebuchi

In Tochi Onyebuchi's newest fantasy mystery novel, main protagonist Boubacar is a war veteran and a private investigator whose cases have been few and far between for a while now.

But when a young woman shows up bleeding at his home, then mysteriously disappears, he is shocked into action and determined to find out what's going on.

Harmattan Season is a dark, broody, mysterious fantasy story that takes place in post-colonial West Africa, with tensions between the indigenous dugulen and the French at the forefront.

Onyebuchi is also the author of Riot Baby and Goliath. I'm listening to this as an audiobook.

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02 Sunny Side Up by Katie Sturino

Sunny Greene is a 35-year-old, recently divorced head of her own PR firm. She's struggling to find clothing to complement her plus-sized figure, and she's determined not to go to her little brother's pending wedding without a date.

She's got deeply loyal and inspiring newly divorced friends to lean on, a body- and sex-positive lifestyle, and some tantalizing dating prospects. So why can't she simply shake off the fact that nothing in the Bergdorf Goodman swimsuit section comes even close to fitting a woman over a size 10?

I received an audiobook version of Sunny Side Up, which is scheduled for publication in all formats June 24, courtesy of Libro.fm and Macmillan Audio.

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03 What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown

The first thing you have to understand is that my father was my entire world.

Jane doesn't remember living in the Bay area, where her mother died. She doesn't remember life with electricity, or neighbors, or technology. In mid-1990s rural Montana, Jane only knows the books her father gives her instead of sending her to school, the woodstove that provides lifesaving heat, and the peacefulness of the familiar woods.

But when Jane becomes a teenager and starts to push her father for freedom--and for answers--she begins to understand that their life has been built on tragedy and lies.

I received a prepublication version of this title, published June 3, courtesy of NetGalley and Random House.

Janelle Brown is also the author of Pretty Things and other novels.