Authors: Spring 2023

Monarch Book Recommendations

KATY HESSEL
The Story of Art Without Men

This story has never been told before. Guided by Katy Hessel, an art historian and the founder of the Great Women Artists, discover more than 300 works of art, including the glittering paintings by Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, the radical work of Harriet Powers in the 19th century, and the astonishing work of post-war artists in Latin America.

JUAN GABRIEL VASQUEZ
Retrospective

From the Spanish Civil War to the exile of his family to Latin America and from the Cultural Revolution in China to the guerrilla movements of 1960s Colombia, Sergio and his family’s experience is extraordinary by any standards. Equal parts family saga and epic historical novel, Retrospective reveals the story of one man and his family—based on real people and events—and a devastating portrait of the forces that shaped their lives and, for half a century, turned the world upside down.

MARY MONROE
Love, Honor, Betray

Award-winning New York Times bestselling author Mary Monroe delivers the latest thrillingly scandal-filled novel in her Depression-era saga of a church-going lady and her oh-so-upstanding husband racing to cover up their many sins—and gambling on one scheme to the next. Two men of the cloth, Jessie and Hubert, maintain a façade of respectable standing in the church as they struggle to maintain their down-low relationship.

LOIDA LEWIS
Why Should Guys Have All the Fun? An Asian American Story of Love, Marriage, Motherhood, and Running a Billion Dollar Empire

The true story of resolute immigration lawyer and activist Loida Lewis is an adventure-packed Philippine upbringing. A torrid love affair with brilliant, irascible financier Reginald Lewis follows, as does regal living in Manhattan and Paris and gut-wrenching loss, all before Loida shockingly commandeers a multibillion-dollar, multinational conglomerate and leads it with aplomb. You’ll learn how she dealt with her husband’s untimely death at the age of 50 and how she managed to raise two independent daughters even as she shepherded a multinational corporation to record earnings.

KEVIN POWELL
The Kevin Powell Reader

Kevin Powell is one of the most prolific and acclaimed American writers, thinkers, activists, and public speakers of the past three decades. His new book, The Kevin Powell Reader, is an electric and deeply inspiring selection from Powell’s lifework, spanning the Reagan-Bush years of AIDS and crack epidemics to our current era framed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the tragic killing of George Floyd, the #MeToo movement, and much more. In a journey that has produced fifteen books, countless cover stories, hundreds of published pieces, and definitive writings on iconic figures like Stacey Abrams, Dave Chappelle, Kerry Washington, Sidney Poitier, bell hooks, Tupac Shakur, Aretha Franklin, and Kendrick Lamar, Powell is a voice for our times and a voice that is timeless.