African American Fiction Magic

J. Sutter is a bonafide junketeer - a freelance writer, travelling from city to city, hungry for free meals and the discarded sales receipts of others to claim on his expense account. Travelling into the backwoods of West Virginia to write a piece on the unveiling of the new John Henry postage stamp and the ensuing John Henry Days festival, J. continues his nearly record-setting, three-month junket binge.

At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger.

Gabrielle LeRoux was just like any other girl, focused on her academics and other normal teenage angst. That is, until her 18th birthday, where she inherits her powers and finds out she's a witch! She discovers that she is part of a long line of witches that descended from West Africa. They have the power to control the elements at will, breathe life into anything they wish, as well as take it away. The source of their magic comes from the melanin only their kind possess in their skin, absorbed from the sun and radiating through their bodies.

From Vanessa Brantley-Newton, the author of Grandma's Purse, comes a collection of poetry filled with engaging mini-stories about girls of all kinds: girls who feel happy, sad, scared, powerful; girls who love their bodies and girls who don't; country girls, city girls; girls who love their mother and girls who wish they had a father. This book invites listeners to find themselves and each other within.

In this anthology, everybody is Black. Filled with epic battles, complicated families, soft kisses, and sharpened blades, Magic in the Melanin is an adult fantasy anthology that showcases Black authors who write magical stories of all kinds.

When the windshield of his Chevy Impala shatters in a dark diner parking lot in Alabama, Melvin moves without thinking. A split-second reaction marrows in his bones from the days of war, but this time it is the safety of his fiancé, Bernadette, at stake. Impulse keeps them alive, and yet they flee with blood on their hands. What is life like now that they are fugitives? Pack passports. Empty bank accounts. Set their old life on fire. The couple disguise themselves as a pastor and a reluctant pastor’s wife who’s hiding a secret from her fiancé.

Nathaniel is a well-intentioned, if naive, British cleric feeling blessed to educate a West African village about the benevolent power of God. But as slavers encroach, Nathaniel’s endeavor is daunted by the realities unfolding on the beautiful homeland of his congregation. It seems the Devil has power too. What follows for Nathaniel is a profound spiritual upheaval as he questions his purpose and even his humanity.

A CHRISTIAN SUSPENSE ABOUT SPIRITUAL WARFARE. When it comes to “falling in love,” you can't help who you fall in love with. This is the sobering reality of Malik Harrington, the wealthy heir of a well-known preacher, who falls hard for Isabella Chavez, the stunning daughter of one of the hired help. But unbeknownst to Malik, Gina Wheaton, the main organist at his father’s church, is obsessed with becoming his wife to the point of seeking assistance from the “dark side.” Gina wants Malik and she will do whatever it takes to get him. As if Malik doesn’t already face enough of a ...

Nola is a city full of wonders. A place of sky trolleys and dead cabs, where haints dance the night away and Wise Women help keep the order. To those from Away, Nola might seem strange. To Perilous Graves, it’s simply home. Perry knows Nola’s rhythm as intimately as his own heartbeat. So when the city’s Great Magician starts appearing in odd places and essential songs are forgotten, Perry knows trouble is afoot.

"We'd had to be cut free of our mother's womb. Abby and I were fused, you see. But here's the real kicker; Abby had the magic, I didn't." Now adults, Makeda and Abby still share their childhood home. The surgery to separate the two girls left Makeda with what feels like an even worse deformity: no mojo. The daughters of a celestial demigod and a human woman, Makeda and Abby were raised by their magical father. Today, Makeda has decided it's high time to move out and make her own life.

Gone Like Yesterday follows two Black women—Zahra, a listless college prep coach, and Sammie, a teenage girl and budding activist soon off to college—who are drawn to each other through the songs of gypsy moths. Gypsy moths have been singing the songs of Zahra’s ancestors to her for years, so when Zahra realizes that Sammie might be a moth person too, their paths become intertwined. Then, the unthinkable happens: Zahra’s brother, Derrick, goes missing.

In the early 1900s an important ship sinks into the Caribbean Sea, just as the Virgin Islands are transferred from Danish to American rule. Orphaned by the sunk vessel are two sisters and their half-brother, now faced with an uncertain identity and future. Each of them is unusually beautiful, and each is in possession of a particular magic that will either sink or save them. Chronicling three generations of an island family from 1916 to the 1970s, Land of Love and Drowning is a novel of love and magic.

Alicia has been out of grad school for months. She has no career prospects and lives with her mom, who won’t stop texting her macabre news stories and reminders to pick up items from the grocery store. Then, one evening, the Jamaican water deity River Mumma appears to Alicia, telling her that she has twenty-four hours to scour the city for her missing comb. Alicia doesn’t understand why River Mumma would choose her. She can’t remember all the legends her relatives told her, unlike her retail co-worker Heaven, who can reel off Jamaican folklore by heart.

THE HIGH HEIR IS FOUND... But is she fit to rule? Grief stricken, suffering from shock, her power at half-strength, the Heir must return home to all the political intrigue that awaits her which is as dangerous as the rigors of the wilds. THE ENEMIES ARE MIGHTY... Mightier than any had thought, creatures of legend that are said to rival the power of the Goddesses Themselves. HER HEART’S OTHER IS CAPTURED... And as much a source of strength, he is also a point of weakness, a way of access to the High Heir from the back end of her soul. And someone has him, and has the will and viciousness ...

This freewheeling black comedy features a bizarre cast of characters, including a Japanese man with a ball floating six inches in front of his head, an American CEO with three arms, and a Brazilian peasant who discovers the art of healing by tickling one’s earlobe with a feather. By the end of this hilarious tale, they each have risen to the heights of wealth and fame, before arriving at disasters—both personal and ecological— that destroy the rain forest and all birds of Brazil.

Black Girl Magic continues and deepens the work of the first BreakBeat Poets anthology by focusing on some of the most exciting Black women writing today. This anthology breaks up the myth of hip-hop as a boys’ club and asserts the truth that the cypher is a feminine form.

A Ghanaian journalist based in the US returns to Ghana with a few friends for the holidays in December 2019. That month is meant to be the climax of the Ghanaian government’s year-long "Year of Return" initiative, commemorating 400 years since the first slaves from West Africa arrived in Virginia. "The Year of Return" takes on a whole new meaning when large numbers of ghosts—formerly enslaved Africans who drowned during the Middle Passage—emerge from the Atlantic Ocean, leading to months of global pandemonium, and concluding with a series of vengeful homicides.

Sabiduría familiar sigue a las Marte a través de este período liminal, mientras se preparan para el velorio de Flor y lo que vendrá después. Con excepcional maestría, y su inconfundible y deslumbrante voz poética, Elizabeth Acevedo teje la epopeya de las Marte: una familia sinigual que, como cualquier otra, deberá romper el conjuro del silencio para empezar a escribir su futuro.

When twelve-year-old Rory applies for a job at a spooky old mansion in his gloomy seaside town, he finds the owner, Lord Foxglove, odd and unpleasant. But he and his mom need the money, so he takes the job anyway. Rory soon finds out that his new boss is not just strange, he’s not even human—and he’s trying to steal the townspeople’s shadows.

Simone "Simmy" James never had it easy. When her father's drug operation, one of the biggest on the East Coast, was dismantled, Simone lost both of her parents to the system - her father to a life sentence, and her mother to a 25-year sentence. Gone were the days of luxury cars, high-end clothes, and jewelry that Simmy had grown used to. Forced to live in overcrowded conditions in her grandmother's house, Simmy has to learn how to make money any way she can, and her cousin Jayla is happy to show her the art of high-end boosting. Things run smoothly for a while, until Jayla is arrested.