Catchin’ a Ride on the Way Back Machine

I was looking at Kwanzaa recipes when I came across this bad boy. I don’t celebrate the holiday, but wouldn’t be opposed to it. I was just looking out of curiosity when realized that a lot of the recipes are just ones that are usually made in Black American homes for special occasions, which makes sense. Seeing the coconut cake recipe took me back! I swear I can almost taste the fresh coconut shreds. This one is given a bit of a special kick by adding vanilla and almond extract.

I read this super long ago, but still remember liking the magic system. Most of the magic in fantasy I’d read before this book was more overt, while the magic here was more subtle. Intuitive, even.

In it, Brian has a natural connection to the natural world around him that results in him having abilities and knowledge that others don’t. This isolates him until the wizard Od requests him to be her gardener. There’s a power inside Brian that he isn’t yet aware of — one that Od knows could threaten the oppressive rule of the kingdom.

This one was a more recent read, but still more than five years ago. I’ve been a fan of Locke ever since. Here, Caren is busy with the duties of her job managing the historic Belle Vie plantation house in Louisiana when the gardener tells her he’s found the body of a young woman. What follows is Caren realizing she doesn’t know as much as she thought she did about the other people who work there, or the history of Belle Vie.

I read this around 2018, but am just realizing it’s a retelling of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” So I guess if you’re familiar with that, you may recognize the structure of the story. It was all new (and glorious) for me, though.

George and Cocoa’s relationship are the focal point of this story, and each chapter changes perspective so we have complete depictions of who they are as people — their past and present. Cocoa brings George to meet her family — Abigail and the titular Mama Day, who is the last in the family to have the magic touch — off the Georgia coast. There was so much in this book that was pleasantly familiar to me, but make no mistake, it will have you sobbing at the end.

This is another one that’ll have you messed up. The writing is so imaginative and beautiful, with fantastical elements strewn throughout. It’s also about the worst humanity has to offer, and is shown through the perspective of a death row inmate. He keeps to himself, reading and imagining the prison violence all around him as something more magical. When an investigator visits the prison to save a man who is about to be executed, the man’s past comes to light, revealing just how easily one can go from victim to perpetrator. This rec comes with all the content warnings if you hadn’t already guessed.