Media Mentions

An Amazon First Reads Selection

The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter Selected as an Amazon First Reads Pick for November

NASHVILLE, TN — Lake Union Publishing and debut author Brionni Nwosu are proud to announce that The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter has been selected as an Amazon First Reads pick for November 2025.

Each month, Amazon editors hand-select a small number of upcoming titles across genres and make them available to readers one month early. As part of the program, The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter will be available throughout November for free download to Amazon Prime members and at a discounted price for all readers, ahead of its official publication date on December 1, 2025.

The novel recently received a starred review from Booklist, which praised it as “a testament to the strength of light in dark times, and the necessity of hope.”

The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter is available now through Amazon First Reads:
https://www.amazon.com/firstreads

Book List (Starred Review)

The Wondrous Life and Loves of Nella Carter.

By Brionni Nwosu.

Dec. 2025. 381p. Amazon/Lake Union, $28.99 (9781662530883); paper, $16.99 (9781662530890); e-book (9781662530876).

REVIEW. First published November 1, 2025 (Booklist).

Collecting souls is really weighing on Death in 1780s Savannah. With all the ways humans have found to kill each other, wouldn’t it be better to just wipe them all out at once? Then he meets Nella, a young, dying, enslaved woman who is determined to prove to Death that there is enough goodness in the world to redeem it. Intrigued, he offers her immortality if she uses it to seek out stories of goodness and report back to him. All she has to do is give up leaving a legacy, including having a family. As centuries pass, she reinvents herself with new names in new places while writing about beauty and working to leave each stop better than she found it. Death visits her periodically, always certain that she will give in to despair. Nella finds love over and over, and with it the pain of knowing she can’t grow old with any of them—until the present day, when she finally finds someone that she can be completely honest with, who is worth risking everything for. This debut is a testament to the strength of light in dark times, and the necessity of hope. Well-developed characters and a strong sense of place throughout history draw the reader in to the very end.

— Maribeth Fisher