From Adams Adeosun’s “Matrimony” to Chantelle Chiwetalu’s “Koala, Koala, Koala,” check out our top ten most popular fiction of this year.

Eating Yam with Palm Oil | Jola Naibi

“You have been a part of the household for a little under two months. Yet, you are sure that a cat is not part of the home. And so, you want to ask her if she is sure that there is a cat in her room, but then you bite your tongue, especially as you consider what she says next, ‘My enemies will not succeed. They are the ones that sent this cat…'”

Privileged | Susan S. Levine

“Sandra realized that she might have chosen her words poorly. Was this to be one of those sessions that she couldn’t wait to escape, one in which her tact and timing had absented themselves? It was a knife-edge moment, not one for an interpretation. ‘No, not at all. I only want to make clear that you have a choice. I don’t think it occurred to you when you looked for a therapist that your symptoms might have something to do with being Black. And that might affect whether you want to work with me.’ She saw comprehension in the patient’s eyes now, a reduction of tension. ‘Let me ask, though: Is that term all right? Would you prefer African American? Something else?'”

Matrimony | Adams Adeosun

“Aisha’s candour surprised Romola and opened a backdoor in her heart. This was a quandary she understood. She took the woman’s hand and rubbed it gently, kneading the knuckles, the joints soft and fragile unlike hers which were becoming stiff from overuse. She worried that if she pressed too hard, Aisha’s fingers would come apart on the table. Aisha noticed someone staring at them at the next table, whispering and nudging his companions, all of them turning to look at the two women with derision pasted all over their faces. She withdrew her hand from Romola. The music continued around them, Yemi Alade looking for her philandering Johnny on the speakers.”

Shape of a Door | Theophilus Sokuma

“It was her fifth pregnancy in ten years. She’d told herself that the fourth would be the last, but her husband was a sharpshooter. Her pregnancies, just like the other things in her life, had been sudden and unplanned, falling on her like ghosts in a haunted house. When she was seventeen, her father had called her into his hut and the old man had looked at her, his wrinkled face a canvas of smiles, informing her that they had found her a husband. He said it in a non-matter-of-fact way, the way lips announced blessings, but all she felt within her was the burgeoning of a wither. She’d half hoped that marriage would be something of the distant future.”

Across Town | Gabrielle Harry

“Anyone with sense avoided her if they could, and they would have warned Mrs Evaco, but she wasn’t the type of person who listened. She was always in motion, always working, calculating, making lists and calls and orders and making sure nobody ran her business down. She was preoccupied with eggs and bottles and birds, things she could see and grab and break. You can’t see and grab and break an evil spirit. Or at least most people can’t. So, everyone watched Saturday after Saturday, as Mrs Evaco dropped her head in evil hands.”

We Won’t Dance on His Grave | Zenande Black

“They will bow their heads in respect. Abobaba will wear amabhaji and Abomama will cover their heads with amaduku. Everyone will expect silence to cover the yard, but nothing will stop the girls from gyrating their hips in an act of vengeance. These aren’t your typical daughters who mourn through ukuzotha. They will mimic those rowdy people who commemorate their gangster friends with displays of heathen acts. On that day, Sodom and Gomorrah will feel honoured.”

Gone Case | Duboree Das

“On the way to the toilet, Kadambari passes mothers and daughters, couples and grandmothers, all of them hopeful that things can change. She’s one of them. Pregnant four times, dreamer of four futures, here still after being told that four can sometimes equal zero. Each of those times she had to make this trip, she gave herself pop quizzes on her way to bloody discovery. Sometimes on geography or birds. Never on politics. This time she does away with the quiz so she might answer the madwoman’s question.”

Koala, Koala, Koala | Chantelle Chiwetalu

“She did not beat us over the Sunshine Villa episode; she called us our father’s children and told us that if we’d never been born, her daughter would have been a doctor now and that it was a woman like the women we were watching that put us in this mess in the first place because my father was a dog and did I understand, did my fat head understand. I sulked for days and Uncle Bartholomew bought me a secondhand purple teddy bear that was Lulu’s height and a lot of Goody-Goody and I hugged his legs and did not let go.”

Animals at the Zoo | Kathryn Walter

“Perhaps the worst part of funerals is the end. No more hands to shake, no hugs to be had. Not even a burial, for all that is left of Tyler is the navy blue ceramic urn that holds his ashes. I watch as everyone heads toward the parking lot, wiping their tears away with wrinkled tissues from their pockets. They climb into their cars, static pours from their radios as they drive down the street, back to their normal lives. ‘Take me with you,’ I think to myself. But I can’t because animals aren’t supposed to leave the zoo.”

Mothers and Daughters | Annie Russo

“My mother and I used to fall asleep the same way, her playing with my hair while I drooled on her collar. She stopped when I was a little older than Avery and had begun to grow too unruly. We spent less time together. I would go to the river with Elsie, first playing pretend, later smoking cigarettes and weed. My mother buried herself in her gardening, or her baking, anything but speaking to me, but I still remembered the feeling of her touch, cool hands against my scalp.”