February global fiction: Six new novels from around the world investigate the human experience

All information sourced from publishers.

Kin, Tayari Jones

Vernice and Annie are “cradle friends”, born days apart in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, both destined never to know their mothers. The girls are inseparable, bound by a friendship far deeper than sisterhood. But this is the American South in the 1950s. Black girls like Vernice and Annie have to fight for every opportunity they can, and neither one can build the future they hope for in Honeysuckle.

Gradually, inevitably, the girls drift apart. Vernice pursues her education; Annie is lured by the promise of a heady first love affair and a growing obsession with finding her mother. But her search pulls her even further into a world of danger that soon leaves her oldest friend battling to save her.

She Made Herself a Monster, Anna Kovatcheva

Yana, a vampire hunter, rides into Koprivci promising salvation. The village’s curse has endured for many years and rumour has it that Anka – whose parents died on the night of her birth – is to blame. But enduring the villagers’ suspicion is the least of Anka’s worries; now she has reached womanhood, she can no longer avoid the odious marriage that seems to be her only option.

When animal corpses start to appear in the village square and...

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