Author: Erica Ezeifedi

This is a retelling of Carrie by Stephen King, but I couldn’t tell you how closely it adheres to the original as I haven’t read it. I’d wager it’s a bit different, though, as its main character is a biracial girl living in the south where there is still a high school that has a segregated prom (yes, for real, and this was inspired by real schools who had segregated proms as late as like 2014).

The story opens up letting us know that a tragedy happened at prom that left many students dead…and that people say Maddy did it. Although they don’t really know how she did it, and she’s since disappeared. The devastating night is first set in motion weeks before, when it’s discovered that Maddy has Black heritage once her hair gets wet and reverts back to its natural curl pattern. Up until that point, she’d painstakingly made sure her hair was straight so she could pass as white. Once her classmates discover this, they start bullying her, the worst of which comes on that fateful night. I listened to this on audio, and I loved how they structured the podcast segments (different chapters of the book are structured as podcast hosts going over the events of the prom night) and how each character had their own narrator. It was so, so good.

This poetry collection is all about frontiers, and how Black people have met and contended with them. Cortez’s family were actually pioneers in the Western U.S., and their legacy is here, as are observations of timeless topics like Black womanhood and identity. Let me gag you real quick with an excerpt from her “Covered Wagon as Spaceship:”

“…how do you come

to be where there are no others, except

science fiction? 

I am a child feeling

extraterrestrial; whose history, untold,

is not enough. 

Anyway, it begins with abduction.”

Here’s another YA fantasy. This one takes place in the Japan-inspired Awara, where magical beings and humans exist together. One day, as Miuko, a innkeeper’s daughter, is carrying out her duties, she gets cursed by a demon. As the curse slowly spreads to the rest of her body, she sets out on a journey to reverse the process that has started turning her into a demon. To succeed, she’ll have to contend with trickster spirits, feral gods, and a demon who disguises himself as a prince. Once she sees how much freedom women are granted within the magical world, she’ll have to decided if the freedom and power that come with being a demon are worth returning to the human world, with its sexist traditions. This is definitely for the girlies who love Miyazaki.

This was such a lovely fantasy ride! It tells the legend of Chang’e, the Chinese goddess of the moon, through her daughter Xingyin. After Xingyin’s presence is hinted at by her magic, she must flee the comforts of her mother, who has been exiled to the moon for offending the Celestial Kingdom. But Xingyin leaves her home with the goal of winning her mother’s freedom. To do so, she’ll disguise her identity, learn alongside the emperor’s son, and fight legendary beasts. The sequel to this is out and I’m sure it’s equally stunning.

If you’ve been reading this newsletter for a minute, you may have noticed my science fiction and fantasy bias. I try to correct for it by including a range of genres, but it’s no surprise that my favorites will be full of the fantastical. And Clark’s world in Master of Djinn is fantastical.

It’s full of djinn, who have returned to an early 1900s Egypt, bringing their magic and engineering with them. Their return is so significant that it elevates Egypt into world power status, to the chagrin of certain European countries. When the members of a secret brotherhood dedicated to the almost mythical man who brought back the djinn, al-Jahiz, are all brutally murdered, the youngest female detective in the Ministry of Alchemy is assigned the case. The streets are saying al-Jahiz, the Master of Djinn, has returned, but Agent Fatma can’t bring herself to believe it. The problem is that a mysterious man saying he’s al-Jahiz can actually control legendary djinn, and it’ll be up to Fatma, the rest of the agency, and all the magical beings she befriends to help her bring peace back to Cairo. Make sure to read the 43-page prequel A Dead Djinn in Cairo before getting into this one (and listen on audio if you can! The performance is *chef’s kiss*).

When Beatriz’s father is executed as part of the Mexican War of Independence in the 1800s, her and her mother are thrown out of the relative life of privilege they’d grown accustomed to. Desperate to change their situation, Beatriz agrees to marry Don Rodolfo Solórzano — nevermind the rumors about what happened to his first wife, the sigils the cook draws above the kitchen threshold, or the handsome priest who may know a thing or two about brujeria.

This retelling of Rebecca had me gagging! I couldn’t listen to it at night outside of my house. I’ve never been frightened by a book to that extent — which I realize may not be saying too much since I’m not a big horror reader.

For the past two years, our unnamed protagonist, a junior in college, has made mistake after mistake. As he and his creepy friend Ozu concoct a revenge plan involving fireworks, he happens to run into someone claiming to be a god. Suddenly, the protagonist is set on a new path, one where he gets to travel through time seeing what would have happened had he made different decisions.

Twenty-five years ago, National Book Award-winning poet Lewis found a huge collection of old photographs under her recently departed grandmother’s bed. Here, she writes poems to accompany these images of Black people living in the 20th century.

Yale and Celine are cousins who haven’t seen each other in 20 years when Celine visits from Hong Kong. That doesn’t stop Yale’s dad from insisting the two of them bond over running a food stall in a night market (lol at dad getting some free labor). When a customer turns up dead after drinking their bubble tea — which was so adorably garnished with some suspicious gold flakes Celine added — the two girls become suspects. They have to work together to clear their names before they end up spending even more time together in the clink.

Twins Koby Hill and Keaton Rutledge were orphaned at two and later separated. When they find each other again as adults, not only is their bond still there, they have shared interests. Those interests lead to them opening a bookstore/soul food cafe, but then Koby’s foster brother is found murdered a week before grand opening. The two work together to help police solve what seems to be an impossible crime.

I’ve recommended this before in this newsletter, but it’s been awhile. And I really love this series, so here we go again! Gethsemane Brown is Black American, a classically trained musician, and currently stranded in a lovely small town in the Irish countryside. She takes a job teaching at an all boys school, and the setting would be picturesque if it wasn’t for the ghost of the former owner of the cottage she’s staying in demanding she solve the case of his wife’s murder and prove his innocence.