Speaking of Summer: A Novel / Kalisha Buckhanon

"Speaking of Summer gives us a powerful song about what it means to survive as a woman in America.” ―Jesmyn Ward, National Book Award winner and author of Sing, Unburied, Sing

"Raise[s] universal questions about mental illness, racism, and love . . . Fiercely astute."―Tayari Jones, O, The Oprah Magazine

Named a Best Book of the Summer by USA Today, O: The Oprah Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, BuzzFeed, TIME, Cosmopolitan, Minneapolis Star Tribune, New York Post, CrimeReads, Essence, Bustle and more.

On a cold December evening, Autumn Spencer’s twin sister, Summer, walks to the roof of their shared Harlem brownstone and is never seen again. The door to the roof is locked, and the snow holds only one set of footprints. Faced with authorities indifferent to another missing Black woman, Autumn must pursue the search for her sister all on her own.

With her friends and neighbors, Autumn pretends to hold up through the crisis. But the loss becomes too great, the mystery too inexplicable, and Autumn starts to unravel, all the while becoming obsessed with the various murders of local women and the men who kill them, thinking their stories and society’s complacency toward them might shed light on what really happened to her sister.

In Speaking of Summer, critically acclaimed author Kalisha Buckhanon has created a fast-paced story of urban peril and victim invisibility, and the fight to discover the complicated truths at the heart of every family.

"Kalisha Buckhanon has created a narrative voice that’s authentic, emotionally charged and wise... [A] deeply moving psychological mystery with twists that come in unhurried moments like the small notes the sisters buried in bottles in their garden shed. I’m going to be talking about Summer for a while." ―Carole E. Barrowman, Minneapolis Star-Tribune