...But Make It Books

Join Niccara as she welcomes Natalie Baszile, author of Queen Sugar and We Are Each Other's Harvest, to the pod! We talk about her new novel Friends and Family, the 2016 phone call on a plane that planted the seed for the story, and the invisible suitcase each of us carries into our friendships. We also get into the difference between "a white girl" and "a girl who happens to be white," what it means to be perceived versus truly seen, and what we pass down to our children through our nervous systems. All spoiler-free, of course. Perfect for readers who appreciate stories about interracial friendship, motherhood and adoption, the limits of allyship, race and class in America, and the hard work of showing up for the people we love. Make sure you pick up Friends and Family from where you get your books! Follow Us: @butmakeitbookspod | @thebookishhottie | bookishlyhealing.com Follow & Find Natalie Baszile: nataliebaszile.com | @nataliebaszile Shop With Us: Use our Mahogany Books link with code BMIB Don't forget to rate, subscribe and review!

Join Niccara as she welcomes Charlotte B. Plumb, UK fantasy author, to the pod from across the pond! We talk about her debut gothic romantasy Reap and Sow, how an episode of Peaky Blinders sparked a world where people trade years of their lives to demons instead of money, and why the most dangerous figures in Blackbridge aren't the monsters but the ones wearing a bishop's robes. Charlotte opens up about writing a heroine underestimated by her own brothers, the twisted comfort Eda finds in the demon who owns her family's debt, and why Kit, a demon who adores humanity, might be exactly who a disillusioned human needs. Perfect for readers who love Faustian bargains, sharp banter in dark places, morally complicated villains, found-family tension, and romance that makes you laugh out loud. Make sure you pick up Reap and Sow from where you get your books! Follow Us: @butmakeitbookspod | @thebookishhottie | bookishlyhealing.com Follow & Find Charlotte B. Plumb: @charlottebplumb (Instagram & TikTok) Don't forget to rate, subscribe and review! Mentioned in this episode: The Seven Daughters of Dupree Pre-Order Offer Nikisha Elise Williams, the host of the Black and Published podcast, is celebrating the release of her forthcoming novel, The Seven Daughters of Dupree. This historical fiction novel is about the secrets kept between mothers and daughters over the course of seven generations and is told backwards in time from 1995 to 1860. The Seven Daughters of Dupree will be released on January 27th, 2026, but is available for pre-order now at MahoganyBooks.com. Please consider pre-ordering The Seven Daughters of Dupree today. African Ancestry We are the pioneers of genetic ancestry tracing for Black people globally, reconnecting you to your specific African roots–the country and the people. Our scientists compare your DNA markers to the largest African reference database in the world in order to find your African origin up to 2000 years ago. African Ancestry African Ancestry We are the pioneers of genetic ancestry tracing for Black people globally, reconnecting you to your specific African roots–the country and the people. Our scientists compare your DNA markers to the largest African reference database in the world in order to find your African origin up to 2000 years ago. African Ancestry

Join Niccara as she welcomes the incomparable Bernice L. McFadden — national bestselling, award-winning author of Sugar, The Book of Harlan, and Praise Song for the Butterflies — to the pod for a tender, wide-open conversation about First Born Girls, her first memoir. After a lifetime of writing other people's stories, Bernice finally turns the pen on herself, and we sit with everything that excavation asks of you. We talk about opening the book with her mother literally resurrecting her, the craft choice of calling her elders by their given names so she could tell the whole truth, and tracing her maternal line all the way back to 1822 Georgia. We get into eldest-daughter syndrome and the gift and the weight firstborn girls carry, writing with her ancestors and not just about them, disassociation as protection while confronting the page every day for three and a half years, questioning and unlearning religion, and why history doesn't repeat — it rhymes. Perfect for readers who appreciate ancestral reverence, maternal legacy, generational trauma and healing, spiritual reckoning, and the courage it takes to finally tell your own story after telling everyone else's. Make sure you pick up First Born Girls from where you get your books! Follow Us: @butmakeitbookspod | @thebookishhottie | bookishlyhealing.com Follow & Find Bernice L. McFadden: bernicelmcfadden.com | @bernicelmcfadden Shop With Us: Use our Mahogany Books link with code BMIB Don't forget to rate, subscribe and review!

Join Niccara as she welcomes Amena Brown, poet, comedic storyteller, and author of Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl to the pod! We talk about her new essay collection, reclaiming "Black girl" as a verb and not just a noun, turning wash day from a rushed chore into a rest-day ritual, and unlearning the good-girl church conditioning that taught us to be ashamed of our bodies. Perfect for readers who appreciate stories centered on Black womanhood and self-definition, natural hair journeys, body liberation, faith deconstruction, reality TV as cultural anthropology, and Black girl joy as an act of resistance. Make sure you pick up Never Tell a Black Girl How to Black Girl from where you get your books! Follow Us: @butmakeitbookspod | @thebookishhottie | bookishlyhealing.com Follow & Find Amena Brown: amenabrown.com | @amenabee Shop With Us: Use our Mahogany Books link with code BMIB Don't forget to rate, subscribe and review! Mentioned in this episode: The Seven Daughters of Dupree Pre-Order Offer Nikisha Elise Williams, the host of the Black and Published podcast, is celebrating the release of her forthcoming novel, The Seven Daughters of Dupree. This historical fiction novel is about the secrets kept between mothers and daughters over the course of seven generations and is told backwards in time from 1995 to 1860. The Seven Daughters of Dupree will be released on January 27th, 2026, but is available for pre-order now at MahoganyBooks.com. Please consider pre-ordering The Seven Daughters of Dupree today. African Ancestry We are the pioneers of genetic ancestry tracing for Black people globally, reconnecting you to your specific African roots–the country and the people. Our scientists compare your DNA markers to the largest African reference database in the world in order to find your African origin up to 2000 years ago. African Ancestry African Ancestry We are the pioneers of genetic ancestry tracing for Black people globally, reconnecting you to your specific African roots–the country and the people. Our scientists compare your DNA markers to the largest African reference database in the world in order to find your African origin up to 2000 years ago. African Ancestry

Join Niccara as she welcomes Amy DuBois Barnett — former editor-in-chief of Honey and Teen People, and now the debut novelist developing If I Ruled the World into a Hulu series with Lee Daniels — to the pod! We talk about her late-90s New York media and music world, why she catapults readers straight into the mess of Nikki Rose's journey, and the reckoning threaded through it all — misogyny, sexual coercion, and the complicity of silence. We get into Nikki's hair as a whole race conversation, being "too much over here and not enough over here," the men who love an idea of you instead of the real you, and how forgiveness — of your friends, and of yourself — becomes the work. And yes, it's still a fun, sexy, glamorous page-turner and a love letter to the city, to hip hop, and to ambitious women. Perfect for readers who appreciate stories centered on Black women's ambition, self-reclamation, grief and healing around the choices of our twenties, institutional critique, and the courage it takes to take your power back. Make sure you pick up If I Ruled the World from where you get your books! Follow Us: @butmakeitbookspod | @thebookishhottie | bookishlyhealing.com Follow & Find Amy DuBois Barnett: @amyduboisbarnett Shop With Us: Use our Mahogany Books link with code BMIB Don't forget to rate, subscribe and review!