These themes will vary! It could be based off of some book mail I just received, pop culture, something personal to me, a headline from the news, a trend I noticed when I was buying books for my library system, etc. I hope you stick around to see all the themes and book recs I come up with!
Today’s Theme: Sundown Towns
According to Britannica, a sundown town in U.S. history, is a town that excluded nonwhite people—most frequently African Americans—from remaining in town after sunset. More generally, sundown town is used to describe a place where the resident population was through deliberate action made to be overwhelmingly composed of white people. In this one, the main character goes on vacation with her family. As it turns out, the town they go to used to be a sundown town. She figures out through research that it used to be a sundown town. She also runs into a ghost who she joins with to help her figure out the current case of the missing Black girls in this town. Every time I read this synopsis I think, “Why in the world would anyone go on vacation there?” lol Especially a Black person smh lol I can’t wait to read this closer to publication day! [This is a YA book and will release on 01/27/26]
I love Marie Arnold, so it was no question that I added this to my TBR. And then I read the synopsis and saw that this one too was about a sundown town. In this one, the main character lives there. They are trying to diversify a certain part of town and some aren’t happy with that, triggering violent protests. During one, the main character has a vision. Seeing that this is set in Texas is just an added layer. I think this is maybe magical realism or something? It sounds amazing and I can’t wait to get my hands on it! [This is a YA book and will release on 9/9/25]
Well, there you go! Here I’m just going to talk about why I grouped these two books together. I hope you enjoyed a look at this small part of the books. For a full synopsis of the book or to add it to your TBR, click the picture and it will take you to their Storygraph. The link on the caption will take you to it’s Goodreads.
What about you? Have you read either of these? Have you heard of any of these? Do you know of anymore books with sundown towns? Let me know in the comments!