After the troubling winter, we have finally come into the warm and safety of the spring season. Spring represents the beauty of renewal, reinvention and room for a fresh start.
It’s a time when we are trying to spring clean our spaces and change our intentions and review our goals for the rest of the year. These goals can include eating better, changing wardrobe style or spending more time with family.
In the meantime, exercising your mental space can be as simple as grabbing a good book to fulfill your literary needs. Reading books can give you a sense of urgency, acceptance and appreciation for your life.
You might be looking for a digital romance that makes you root for the characters from the beginning, or a passionate, melancholy story about n stifled painter in New York getting over the artist block.
It might even be a sculpted collection of stories getting through trauma and motivation to keep moving forward. Whatever you’re looking for, there are many more to come.
Luster
By: Raven Leilani
Leilani’s first highly awarded novel introduces us to Edie, a 23-year-old struggling painter who works at a publishing company in New York. She gets into a relationship with a married white man named Eric and she ends up living with his family and his adopted black daughter, Akila.
Readers in their 20s will enjoy this novel because it shows the struggle of an age demographic that is not usually shown in the literature realm. Moreover, it can appeal to you if you want to renew your talents by finding different ways to strike.
Take a Hint, Dani Brown
By: Talia Hibbert
Black romance novels are making a huge comeback and Talia Hibbert’s Brown Sisters series is part of this resurgence.
Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert is the second novel in the three-book series that centers around Danika Brown, an intellectual driven woman who doesn’t see the purpose of romance for her life at the moment.
That is, until, she meets Zaf, an attractive former rugby player and they enter into a fake relationship for Zaf’s career. He tries to convince her to pursue a real relationship but will Danika melt her ice walls for him?
Romance fans will enjoy the banter of Zaf and Danika and the accidental love that Danika experiences with him.
His Only Wife
By: Peace Adzo Medie
If you are looking for drama and cultural critique in your life, His Only Wife is the novel to read. His Only Wife takes place in Ghana where Afi Tekple, a seamstress, has to marry a wealthy business man, Elikem.
She agrees to marry him for her mother’s financial gain and success, but she doesn’t want to fulfill the traditional duties of a wife. When she moves to the vibrant city of Accra, Ghana with her husband, she learns of his secrets.
Readers who love daring heroines will love this book because the main character defies the rules of her culture to live her own life.
After the Rain
By: Alexandra Elle
Elle’s self-care memoir shares stories of her trauma and how she works through it in her journey. After the Rain expresses the beauty and pain of this life that we all embark on. She writes affirmations and lessons that every reader can relate to and digest for years to come.
Even though she writes about her own struggles and triumph, she also provides different guides to make her readers feel safe, sad and love in their own lives. The stories have soulful mediations with themes that involve self-care, self-love and acceptance.
The Writer’s Creative Workbook
By: Joy Kenward
This is for the aspiring and seasoned writers that need some inspiration for their new project, or practice to hone your writing skills. The Writer’s Creative Workbook helped me immensely with creating my writing style and with improving my skills as a writer.
Moreover, this book has helpful tips and guides for every path that you are on in your writing career. It has personal development prompts to train your mind as a writer.
At the end of the day, you have to have self-awareness and a purpose to write in order for your writing to be important to you.
Reflect & Refresh 