Akashic Books Ignition: 146 books

A British businessman woos a Caribbean woman—and her disapproving family—in this “engrossing novel” (Insight). Nathaniel Jones, a middle-aged businessman from England, travels to the Caribbean island of Anguilla to spend a fortnight on holiday—and finds himself captivated by a brilliant...

A novel of family, privilege, and poverty, described as “King Lear in the Caribbean” (O, The Oprah Magazine). A New York Post Must-Read Book Peter Ducksworth, a Trinidadian widower of English ancestry, retires to Barbados, believing he will find an earthly paradise there. He decides...

“Deftly explores family strife and immigrant identity . . . expressive prose and convincing characters that immediately hook the reader.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review   Winner of the PEN Oakland Award for Literary Excellence Long-listed for the IMPAC Dublin International Literary Award   When...

“Traverses Texas, finding evidence of the hard boiled, sultry, and disreputable throughout the state . . . Think of the book as a sort of criminal travelogue.” —Booklist If everything is bigger in Texas, then that includes the boldness of the criminals who call the state home. From large...

“To travel through the 19 works of poetry and prose in this remarkable anthology is to experience Trinidad and Tobago through a kaleidoscopic lens.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review Two of Trinidad’s top writers masterfully curate this literary retrospective of the nation’s best...

A woman struggles with love, work, and identity in a novel by “one of the finest and most necessary voices in contemporary American and Caribbean fiction” (Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin).   Anna, a Caribbean American immigrant, is eager to assimilate in her new country—but...

This tale of a singer’s kidnapping in 1920s Harlem is “the best kind of historical mystery” (Lee Child). Lanie Price, a Harlem society columnist, witnesses the brutal nightclub kidnapping of the “Black Orchid,” a sultry, seductive singer with a mysterious past. When hours pass without...

“A richness of language and observation pervades this collection of short stories by a black writer about real black people” (The New York Times Book Review).   Award-winning playwright Ed Bullins received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for his play The Taking of Miss Janie, and is also...

A “funny, relentless, haunting, and highly readable” novel about one man’s desperate gambling addiction (ForeWord Magazine).   P is a school bus driver in Florida, and six month ago he won a hundred grand at the casino. What his wife and family don’t realize is that the money is long gone....

This tale of a little-known revolt in the Caribbean is “part literary thriller, part revolutionary study, part epic historical narrative”****(Joe Meno, author of The Boy Detective Fails).   A sympathetic and often humorous account of an obscure episode in the history of the remote island of Anguilla,...

This novel about a violently obsessed fan is “part journal, part suicide note and part psychological suspense story” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).   Set in the late 1980s, and shifting between the points of view of an eighteen-year-old girl who is in prison for murdering a soap actress...

This quirky tale of two young artists in love in 1990s Chicago is “a gorgeous little indie romance . . . A sweetheart of a novel” (Kirkus Reviews). In the last year of the twentieth century, Odile is a lovely twenty-three-year-old art-school dropout, a minor vandal, and a hopeless dreamer....

“Featuring short, edgy fiction on the Emerald City’s seamy underbelly . . . seedy characters, private detectives and the like from all over urban Seattle.” —Kitsap Daily News Early Seattle was a hardscrabble seaport filled with merchant sailors, longshoremen, lumberjacks, rowdy saloons,...

“Stories of murder, passion, betrayal . . . grounded very firmly and specifically in Toronto—Dundas Square, The Beach, Dufferin Mall, Yorkville, etc.” —BlogTO   A multicultural nexus, Toronto hosts Indian, Portuguese, African, Italian, and Chinese communities that provide fertile backdrops...