DEBUT At 33, Tabitha Walker is a news reporter on the verge of a promotion. She has a man who is perfect on paper and a group of great friends. But her future plans, specifically starting a family, grind to a halt when she receives an unexpected medical diagnosis. Suddenly Tabby is questioning her long-term relationship with Marc, with whom she wanted to have children but not right away. Tabby also faces everyday struggles as a Black woman: being stopped by a police officer; spending too much time trying to make herself look "right" for her colleagues and TV audience; worrying that her assertiveness will be perceived as anger. She comes to some much-needed realizations with her best friends Laila and Alexis, wonderful supporting characters who give the book, and Tabitha, a sense of female community and fun. Tabby also turns to her grandmother (a white woman who lived through the civil rights activism of the 1950s United States), hoping to understand why her father abandoned her and her mother for a new family. VERDICT Allen's first novel is very slow to start, and Tabby's relationship with Marc is exhausting at times. However, the bonds she has with her friends and with her grandmother show that despite the numerous obstacles Tabby faces, she can make it through.—Brooke Bolton, Boonville-Warrick Cty. P.L., IN

Allen's promising debut follows a Black reporter as she navigates matters of race, womanhood, and loyalty while gunning for a promotion at the L.A. TV station where she works. After 33-year-old Tabitha Walker's father left her and her mother when Tabitha was little, she grew close to her white paternal grandmother and visited her weekly at her nursing home, dreaming of a time when she could move both of them into a house. Back in the present, Tabitha's boyfriend reveals he's not ready to marry and be a father, so Tabitha spends the money she'd been saving for a house on freezing her eggs. Meanwhile, Tabitha's oldest friend separates from her husband after he admits his infidelity, and another friend dates a married man and starts keeping secrets. As Tabitha rises at work, she emphasizes the importance of perspective in her reporting on issues that affect Black people, such as gentrification and encounters with police, and Allen smartly mirrors the theme of perspective with the story of Tabitha's personal life, as Tabitha considers how her own point of view has shaped her feelings for others. Though the writing can sometimes be clunky, with overly descriptive sentences, Allen has the chops to become a terrific storyteller. There's a lot of potential here. Agent: Lucinda Halpern, Lucinda Literary. (Aug.)