Jacqueline Jay | Book reviews and 📸

I have been wanting to reintroduce myself since I hit one year on #bookstagram and so here goes! I still adore reading and sharing the gift of storytelling with others through pictures 📸, cafe visits 🍵 and cozy book chats 🫶🏽💕. You can catch me reading anything from historical fiction, non-fiction, contemporary romance to even a mystery here or there. I am a yoga teacher 🧘🏽‍♀️, CPA 📈, and one heck of a mentor👩🏽‍💼! Swipe for 8 books to get to know me better… 💬 What do you most look forward to when visiting a book influencer page? 🏷️ #gettoknowmechallenge #bookstogettoknowme #bibliophile #diversereads #bookstagrammer #memoirs #blackgirlsread #historicalfiction #contemporary #nonfiction #novels #yoga #bookstack @jacquejreads

My Friends x Fredrik Backman + Neil Smith, translator Literally the most quotable book of the year. A story of friendship and how it brings you out of immense hardship. A story about a story…but you’ll have to read to see if it has a happy ending… Synopsis: Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures. Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives …Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it… 🖼️ “Adults always think they can protect children by stopping them from going to dangerous places, but every teenager knows that’s pointless, because the most dangerous place on earth is inside us.” 🌊“How could the sea be big enough to have room for their hearts? Incomprehensible.” 🖼️ “art is a fragile magic, just like love, and that’s humanity’s only defense against death… Everything beautiful is a shield.” 🌊“Nothing weighs more than someone else’s belief in you.” ❤️“The world is full of miracles, but none greater than how far a young person can be carried by someone else’s belief in them” 💬 With exceptional writing and imagery, this book will break your heart ❤️‍🩹. There are many triggering themes, so get ready with tissues and a yoga mat to dive into @Backmansk ’s stellar book. What was the last translated book you’ve read? 🏷️ #comingofage #MyFriends #FredrikBackman #translatedbook #mentalhealthawareness

Inharmonious x Tammye Huf Blown away…. Heartbreaking Love, sacrifice and undying resiliency… Am emotional portrayal of black soldiers’ service during WWII and the families left behind….An era of injustice. Through all of the pain, as with most stories, love is at the center. Synopsis: When three young Black men enlist in the US Army hoping to serve their country with honor, their lives are forever changed. 1941, Cora’s brother, Benny, rushes to enlist…able to pass as white due to his pale skin and light eyes, Benny reports for duty only to realize he’s been mistakenly enlisted as a white man in a racially segregated military. Lee’s been sweet on Cora so when enlists without telling Cora, she is heartbroken..Meanwhile, family friend Roscoe…offers to marry Cora in order to ensure that she and her mother will be provided for should Benny not make it back…While the war may be over, the fight has only just begun. 🇺🇸“America was toxic for him. He was trying to be a man in a world that called him boy, and he was failing.” ❤️‍🩹“..what’s the point of breathing if one of these days you’re just gonna die. Our life is the point, and how we mean to live it. We are worth the fight.” 🇺🇸“No… the Negro is not too lazy, he is too naive for thinking that bleeding and dying for America will get this country to treat us with the respect and decency that’s our God-given right, declared in the Declaration of Independence and promised in the Constitution.” 💬 @tammyehuf left no breadcrumbs with this one…she explored so many themes such as why blacks enlisted, black veteran struggles postwar, black women in the war, the GI bill, passing, redlining, and of course love. This was not fiction…these are true events I have heard over time woven beautifully in a historical fiction love story. This is a MUST read and important work that I highly recommend you check out! DROP a book that needs more spotlight? 🏷️ #InHarmonious #TammyeHuf #Blackstonepublishing #diversereads #historicalfiction

My first visit to @audible ’s brand new STORY HOUSE and I’m hooked. The Sound of Love: The Rise of Romance in Audio Storytelling - oh what fun! The ladies were phenomenal. The stories and insights they shared with raw, hilarious and real: - Can’t wait to dive into The Missed Connection by @tiawilliamswrites - OUT June 9th - I actually picked up Library of Flowers yesterday so I’m ready to read it @lilychuauthor - & wow after hearing from @alexaster Summer in the City is on my TBR and I’ll be listening on @audible while I stroll thru Central Park One of the best parts was getting to hang with @_completelybooked and chat it up about the next book club! 💬 Head over to 260 Bowery St. NYC and check out Audible STORY HOUSE!

Spring days in NYC… 💭 You’ll always catch me reading with a tote on my arm… Featured bookstore tote: @mcnallyjackson 📍Columbus Circle #bookstagram #blackbookstagram #bookstagrammer #booksbooksbooks #BTS

NOW THEN x Morgan Radford Set it Cuba and on the campus of Harvard University…this propulsive debut will shock your heart and mind. Synopsis: NOW- 1991 Cambridge, MA. Liliana Soto Walker, 18, arrives at Harvard from the humble Appalachian home of her Cuban immigrant mother and Black American father. Lily feels out of place in this new world of privilege, but her roommate Hana and a budding romance with Vikram – a charming Indian-British postdoctoral student – stirs a new sense of belonging. As Lily navigates the complexities of college life, her mother, Marisol, finally begins to reveal her past through heartfelt letters THEN- 1957 Havana, Cuba. Marisol a bright young woman with dreams of becoming a journalist. But as the calls for a government coup reach a deadly crescendo, one deadly night ahead of the Cuban Revolution forces Marisol to flee her homeland, leaving her scarred in ways she has never revealed. 🇨🇺“So many people carry their secrets close: fear of burden, fear of rejection. It’s noble, I guess, but it’s lonely.” 🇨🇺“Life isn’t a plan… It’s a promise. A promise for more: more surprises, more experience, more beauty” 🇨🇺”Love, we know now, is freedom. It is allowing the ones you love most to be swept along with the tide of progress, to ride the current of time, not keeping them trapped inside it. Honor your love by loving yourself enough to experience the joys of this life again.” @morgankradford had me translating Spanish to English, crying 😭 , laughing 😆 and clapping 👏🏽 in the same breath. The interweaving of Lily’s coming of age love story and her mother, Marisol’s sweeping past with the Cuban Revolution was brilliant. A true parallel in feeling and experience. You’ll have to read it to see why it broke my heart ❤️‍🩹 💬 BONUS: About a week ago I had the pleasure of meeting Morgan in all her glory at her McNally Jackson tour kick off with @abbydphillip moderating. Not only was it a great discussion but you could see the love for Morgan pouring out from the audience of family, friends, and fellow bookish buddies. The momentum for this novel is real. What was the last debut that blew you away?

Giveaway!!! ONE LEG ON EARTH x ‘Pemi Aguda ❌ GIVEAWAY CLOSED! Congratulations to @literarysundaeblues 🎉 I was lucky to receive not one but two free copies so I am am giving away a physical copy of @pem.i ’s lastest ONE LEG ON EARTH Synopsis: From the author of the National Book Award finalist Ghostroots, a debut novel that thrills with its eerie mix of folklore and history. Something is haunting the pregnant women of Lagos. Across the city, they are walking into water . . . and drowning. Twenty-three-year-old Yosoye arrives in Lagos ready to start her life. Working for a slick architectural firm, she finds a city of adventure and opportunity. Her new world is one of fancy gallery openings, glamorous friends, and all the shiny potential of the future, encapsulated in projects like Omi City, the ultra-luxury development her company is building, a symbol of the dawn of a brighter Lagos… Yosoye discovers she is pregnant . . . a revelation which puts her on a collision course with an inexplicable force that is as seductive as it is deadly. 🥳 To Enter: - Like and repost this post - Follow @jacquejreads - Tag a friend in the comments - Extra entry if you share in your story 🙌🏾 The winner will be announced this Friday, May 15th. Open to U.S. residents only (sorry international peeps)! *Note that I graciously got these free copies from @w.w.norton but they are not associated with this giveaway 🏷️ #ONELEGONEARTH #PemiAguda #Nationalbookaward #giveaway #winbooks

Black. Single. Mother. x Jamilah Lemieux | real life tales of longing and belonging Unapologetically honest… Raw… Emotional… A memoir manifesto where Black Single Mothers feel seen... A call to action Set in three parts from the story of her own life, to history and the patriarchy, to the stories of 21 additional women, @jamilahlemieux explores Black single motherhood and how it’s culturally represented. It begs the question, what if we changed the narrative to love and celebration? Synopsis: With her signature candid, humorous, and sometimes biting takes, Jamilah Lemieux suffers no fools while also courageously revealing the scars of her own parenting journey and search for self-acceptance in a world that hates “baby mamas.” With a particular verve and relatability—honed in her many years among Black Twitter’s most prominent voices—Lemieux centers the complex reality of Black single motherhood: uncertainty and fierceness alike. The book combines riveting personal essays, infused with whip-smart cultural and historical analysis, with twenty-one intimate first-person testimonies from a spectrum of Black single mothers. ✨“Moynihan’s indictment of Black single mothers has woven itself into the fabric of American life....the report’s insidious AF legacy still frames how Black single mothers are seen and, more tragically, how we often see ourselves.” ❤️‍🩹“What has our community gained from dressing single motherhood in shame?” 🫶🏽“What if we focused our energy instead on surrounding Black single mothers in love?” READ this book for your FAMILIES… READ this book for your FRIENDS… READ this book for a more EMPATHETIC, CARING, and NURTURING community ahead… 💬 22 poignant stories. Which one resonated with you the most? What did you learn? Let me know in the comments 🏷️ #blacksinglemother #jamilahlemieux #diversereads #blackmotherhood #HappyMothersDay

JUNE BABY x Shannon Garvey A life colored by grief…A longing to belong somewhere…anywhere.. to find one’s self. An emotional rollercoaster of love and loss. Synopsis: Some summers never leave you. At seventeen, Ruth lost her mother to cancer, and her father, unable to handle his grieving daughter, shipped her off to Block Island with nothing but a name scribbled on the back of a Diana Beckett. Diana, a renowned photographer, took Ruth in for the summer, and Block Island became Ruth’s refuge, a place of beauty and creativity, a place where she could nurture her dreams of being a writer, a place where she could fall in love for the first time—with Diana’s nephew, Charlie. Now, at twenty-seven… Ruth’s world is upended by tragedy again. Desperate for an anchor, she reaches for the person she’s been pining for since she met him—Charlie—who has his own startling revelation to share. Torn between what to believe about her past, and what her future might hold, Ruth is faced with another choice: does she dare to rewrite her story entirely? 🌊“Ruth had no way of knowing what would happen then, realizing how much her life as she understood it depended on the rhythm of those waves continuing.” 💛 “Their relationship was a smattering of almosts” 🌊“She felt like she had been running a race and for the first time she looked around and realized she was running alone, that she had been running alone the whole time.” 💬 You could not help but be in Ruth’s head, the character development was stellar in this debut @shannonmgarvey . This intimate portrait of the thoughts and grief of Ruth was almost diary style with rich prose.. a great one for fans of Sally Rooney and Lily King | @sallyrooneyofficial + @lilykingbooks BONUS: Take a look back at last week’s celebration with @jennabhager founder of THOUSAND VOICES @thousandvoicesmedia + @caracara_nyc ’s amazing co-founders + debut author Shannon Garvey + some amazing new bookish friends. This one is out this Tuesday MAY 12th! 🏷️ #JuneBaby #ShannonGarvey #ThousandVoices #debut #JennaBushHager

The Curse of Hester Gardens x Tamika Thompson Haunting in the supernatural and real world… Heavy and powerful… A unique look at public housing and the epidemic of gun violence and what one does to survive… Synopsis: Nona McKinley raised 3 boys in the Hester Gardens section of Medford, Michigan, an impoverished community divided by those who follow their faith in God and those who turn to crime to survive. With her drug dealer husband behind bars and her eldest son shot to death at eighteen, Nona has devoted herself to ensuring her other children escape their brother’s fate. Her second son Marcus is on the right path. He’s a valedictorian heading to an Ivy League school. He can get out. But then, strange things start happening to Nona and other mysterious footsteps are heard when she’s alone, people have phantom encounters in the streets, unattended appliances go off at all hours. Even more concerning is the state of Nona’s living sons. Her youngest, Lance, is hanging around with a bad crowd, and Marcus becomes moody and secretive. Nona has her secrets too… She fears that someone—or something— is seeking revenge for an act she made in a moment of weakness to protect her family. And now everyone in Hester Gardens must pay the price... 👻“How ideas and words are such a threat to the ability to reign over a people that the powers that be would kill someone simply for sharing their thoughts. Why? Because thoughts, ideas, have the power to dismantle ... everything.” 💙“Her boys were so used to pain, disappointment, and trauma. Joy was scary.” 👻“Please. Look ahead, ahead, ahead. Only ahead.” 💬 With a unique premise on the epidemic of gun violence, this is an emotional journey that you must be ready to take on as there will be ghosts and gore… but isn’t real life worse? You be the judge as you dive in. What was the last book that took you on a tear stricken journey? Shoutout to @epicureanreads who discovered this book and had me read it with her. I was initially afraid of the horror but we got through it together. 🏷️ #TheCurseofHesterGardens #TamikaThompson #blackhorror #diversereads

Strangers x Belle Burden | a memoir of marriage Utter shock. Cringeworthy. An osprey love story. Synopsis: In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha’s Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together—building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whisky sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of twenty years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume. In Strangers, Burden revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal. Through all of it, she is transformed. The discreet, compliant woman she once was—someone nicknamed “Belle the Good”—gives way to someone braver, someone determined to use her voice. 🪶“The speed of our beginning and the speed of our ending felt like matching bookends. They both came out of nowhere.” 🦅“I had an open wound and needed to say ‘this is why I am bleeding.’ And maybe, even then, I wanted some control over the story. I wanted the truth of what happened to come from my mouth” 🪶“I wonder now, Did I make up the love story, the tale of our commitment to each other, carrying it around under my arm like a prized book?” I originally saw this on @thestackspod and @aniareads25 ’s pages, then a member of my yoga studio @yogasix said the audio was a must listen, so I was ready to dive in. I really enjoyed the audio as @belleburden had a captivating way of drawing us listeners into the story of her marriage. I also appreciated how honest she was in sharing her privilege and heartache throughout the book. 💬 Let me know the last buzz-worthy book you read in the comments 🏷️ #StrangersMemoir #BelleBurden #memoir #nonfiction #marthasvineyard

BOOKS 📚 on my physical TBR for May: 💕The Street x Ann Petry | I saw this on @wellreadandratchet ’s stop on the #blackgirlbookstatour and I’m buddy reading w/ @literarysundaeblues 🔥A BURNING x Megha Majumdar | I snagged this at the @_completelybooked book swap and I loved @megha.maj ’s A Guardian and a Thief 🦋ONE LEG ON EARTH x ‘Pemi Aguda | gifted from @w.w.norton OUT May 5th 🔱 WE MEND WITH GOLD x Kristin T. Lee | ahhh a debut from @ktlee.writes of course I picked it up 🍎 The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman | gifted from @marinerbooks OUT Sept. 29th & I can’t wait to buddy read w/ @naesnextchapter + @charreadsthings 💛 JUNE BABY x Shannon Garvey | gifted from @jennabhager herself! + @thousandvoicesmedia with the lovely @shannonmgarvey so of course I’ll be reading this! OUT May 12th 💬 What books should I add to the list? Tag someone you’ll be reading with this month! 🏷️ #MayHopefuls #bookstagram #diversereads #jacquejreads