The Bookish Mindset

For the second year I’ve been a shortlist judge for the Diverse Book Awards and it’s always an honour. I get to read some incredible books, new genres and I always end up finding new favourites.

While I can’t reveal where I ranked each of these, I now can tell you how I found them! Just tap on the titles to get more info from Bookshop.org and to support my work. So in no particular order:

Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Onyi Nwabineli. Adored everything Nwabineli has written. This one centres what a lifetime on social media can do to raising children.

Alter Ego by Helen Heckety . Lots loved this and I thought it was fine. Hattie up sticks and moves to the middle of nowhere after being fed up of people pitying her and her condition.

Godzilla and the Songbird by Manzu Islam . Centring friendship and their love of cinema, this is for the historical fiction lovers. It started too slow for me.

Ground by Jadelin Gangbo. I struggled with the pacing of this but I do think others will love it. Literary fiction centring the children of a family are regularly left by parents to live on their own.

Lost Love Songs by Ingrid Persaud. Listened on audio and it definitely elevated it, but not as great as Love After Love. The tale of four women with varying levels of relationship with local gangster, Boysie Signh.

Northern Boy by Iqbal Hussain. I struggled with the pacing of this and it felt very slumdog millionaire but just didn’t do it for me. Definitely a me problem!

Only Here, Only Now by Tom Newlands. This one is also a me problem, sorry! Coming of age novel, set in Fife with our protagonist who is still figuring herself out.

Rinsing Mũkami’s Soul by Njambi McGrath. Sad but utterly brilliant, absolutely one for the literary lovers. A young girls mistakes are held against her and fate has never been on her side.

The Ballad of Jacquotte Delahaye by Briony Cameron. This one was a lot of fun! Sapphic pirates and all the drama. Definitely recommend.

The House of Broken Bricks by Fiona Williams. A new favourite author for me. I cried. Literary masterpiece. A mixed race family move to Somerset and nothing will be the same again.

The Thirty Before Thirty List by Tasneem Abdur-Rashid. This was fun but very predictable. Not my favourite concept but very readable. Strangers meet on the underground and could it be fate?

The Witness by Alexandra Wilson. I surprised myself with this one – I don’t normally like thrillers but I raced through it. A young black man is arrested for murder but Rosa knows that isn’t all there is to it.

Vengeance by Saima Mir. It’s not my genre so I’m sure others will love it but it just wasn’t for me. Jia has been running her father’s crime business but are traitors close?

Yorùbá Boy Running by Biyi Bándélé. Historical fiction and lots of hard to read scenes. The structure wasn’t my favourite but I still enjoyed it. Story centring Nigerian slavery.

Have you planned to pick any of these up? I’d love to know!

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And don’t forget to check out my other blogs and reviews – you can find books with similar themes in the same folder link below, or click back onto blogs to see the whole offering.

Last updated 10/09/2025