Kalisha Buckhanon

"Speaking of Summer gives us a powerful song about what it means to survive as a woman in America." --Jesmyn Ward, National Book Award winner and author ofSing, Unburied, Sing "Raise[s] universal questions about mental illness, racism, and love . . . Fiercely astute."--Tayari Jones,O, The Oprah Magazine Named a Best Book of the Summer byUSA Today, O: The Oprah Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, BuzzFeed, TIME, Cosmopolitan, Minneapolis Star Tribune, New York Post, CrimeReads, Essence, Bustle and more. On a cold December evening, Autumn Spencer's twin sister, Summer, walks to the roof of their shared Harlem brownstone and is never seen again. The door to the roof is locked, and the snow holds only one set of footprints. Faced with authorities indifferent to another missing Black woman, Autumn must pursue the search for her sister all on her own. With her friends and neighbors, Autumn pretends to hold up through the crisis. But the loss becomes too great, the mystery too inexplicable, and Autumn starts to unravel, all the while becoming obsessed with the various murders of local women and the men who kill them, thinking their stories and society's complacency toward them might shed light on what really happened to her sister. InSpeaking of Summer, critically acclaimed author Kalisha Buckhanon has created a fast-paced story of urban peril and victim invisibility, and the fight to discover the complicated truths at the heart of every family. "Kalisha Buckhanon has created a narrative voice that's authentic, emotionally charged and wise... [A] deeply moving psychological mystery with twists that come in unhurried moments like the small notes the sisters buried in bottles in their garden shed. I'm going to be talking about Summer for a while." --Carole E. Barrowman,Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Speaking of Summer

A Novel

Upstate

"Baby, the first thing I need to know from you is do you believe I killed my father?" So begins Upstate, a powerful story told through letters between seventeen-year-old Antonio and his sixteen-year-old girlfriend, Natasha, set in the 1990's in New York. Antonio and Natasha's world is turned upside down, and their young love is put to the test, when Antonio finds himself in jail, accused of a shocking crime. Antonio fights to stay alive on the inside, while on the outside, Natasha faces choices that will change her life. Over the course of a decade, they share a desperate correspondence. Often, they have only each other to turn to as life takes them down separate paths and leaves them wondering if they will ever find their way back together. Startling, real, and filled with raw emotion, Upstate is an unforgettable coming-of-age story with a message of undeniable hope. Brilliant and profoundly felt, it is destined to speak to a new generation of readers.

In the same vein of Kalisha Buckhanon's critically-acclaimed debut novel Upstate, again she shares an emotionally beautiful story about today's youth that magnifies the unforgettable power of hope and the human spirit. Buckhanon takes us to Chicago, 1992, and into the life of fifteen-year-old Shivana Montgomery, who believes all Black women wind up the same: single and raising children alone, like her mother. Until the sudden visit of her beautiful and free-spirited Aunt Jewel, Shivana spends her days desperately struggling to understand life and the growing pains of her environment. When she accidentally becomes pregnant by an older man and must decide what to do, she begins a journey towards adulthood with only a mysterious voice inside to guide her. When she falls in love with Rasul, a teenager with problems of his own, together they fight to rise above their circumstances and move toward a more positive future. Through the voice of the unborn child and a narrative sweeping from slavery onward, Buckhanon narrates Shivana's connection to a past history of Black women who found themselves at the mercy of tragic circumstances.

Kalisha Buckhanon

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