Book cover of Sweetbitter

Book description

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award


Gibbons's first novel takes place in east Texas in 1910 during the time of white rule-not by law but by lynch mob. Amid the suffocating racism and fear, half-Choctaw, half-white Reuben Sweetbitter and Martha Clarke, a white woman, fall in love. Forbidden to be…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Sweetbitter as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is a poet's novel, but it plunges me into a world that is all too real; East Texas a century ago, and at the same time the problems of identity and prejudice and cruelty that still haunt us today.

It is also a moving love story. Half Choctaw, half white, the conflicted hero finds the woman of his dreams; but she is white, and they must flee a lynching. Revised and republished, this book combines delicate psychological and historical insights with searing suspense.

If you love Sweetbitter...

Book cover of The Rosewood Penny

The Rosewood Penny by J.S. Fields,

2023 Queer Indie Award Nominee!

The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.

On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…

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