African American Fiction Magic

New Orleans has long been America’s most magical city, inhabited by a fascinating visible and invisible world, full of mysteries, known for its decadence and haunted by its spirits. If Salem, Massachusetts is famous for its persecution of witches, New Orleans is celebrated for its embrace of the magical, mystical, and paranormal. New Orleans is acclaimed for its witches, ghosts, and vampires. Because of its unique history, New Orleans is the historical stronghold of traditional African religions and spirituality in the US.

“Masterfully written and pitch perfect, Black Girls Must Be Magic is, simply, magic.”—Good Morning America In this highly anticipated second installment in the Black Girls Must Die Exhausted series, Tabitha Walker copes with more of life’s challenges and a happy surprise—a baby—with...

Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her - but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North.

In order to reclaim her throne and save her people, an ousted queen must join forces with a young warrior in the second book of this "relentlessly gripping, brilliant" epic fantasy series from a breakout author (James Islington). Tau and his Queen, desperate to delay the impending attack on the...

Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents Kwame Mbalia's epic fantasy, a middle grade American Gods set in a richly-imagined world populated with African American folk heroes and West African gods. Tristan is dreading the month he's going to spend on his grandparents' farm in Alabama, where he's being sent to heal from a tragedy. But on his first night there, he accidentally ripps open a chasm into the MidPass, a volatile place with a burning sea, haunted bone ships, and iron monsters that are hunting the inhabitants of this world.

I hadn’t set foot in the human world for more than a few hours in over three and a half months. Sure, I was stronger and faster than I’d ever been before, and I had a shiny new sword, but I was seriously chocolate deprived.

Shahar and the godling Sieh must face off against the terrible magic threatening to consume their world in the incredible conclusion to the Inheritance Trilogy, from Hugo award-winning and New York Times bestselling author N. K. Jemisin. For two thousand years the Arameri family has ruled the...

A “daring, urgent, and transformative” (Brené Brown, New York Times best-selling author of Dare to Lead) exploration of Black achievement in a white world based on honest, provocative, and moving interviews with Black leaders, scientists, artists, activists, and champions.

In 1946, a young female attorney from New York City attempts the impossible: obtaining justice for a Black man in the Deep South. At the NAACP offices in New York City, Regina Robichard opens a letter for her employer and mentor, Thurgood Marshall, surprised to discover it is from M. P. Calhoun, one of the most reclusive authors in the country. Calhoun has request that the NAACP investigate the murder of a young black man, Joe Howard Wilson.

Jacqueline Woodson's first middle-grade novel since National Book Award winner Brown Girl Dreaming celebrates the healing that can occur when a group of students share their stories. It all starts when six kids have to meet for a weekly chat—by themselves, with no adults to listen in. There, in the room they soon dub the ARTT Room (short for "A Room to Talk"), they discover it's safe to talk about what's bothering them—everything from Esteban's father's deportation and Haley's father's incarceration to Amari's fears of racial profiling and Ashton's adjustment to his changing family fortunes.

For fans of Nghi Vo, P. Djèlí Clark, and Alix E. Harrow: a new stand-alone set in the world of the critically acclaimed Murder and Magic series during Prohibition. The Improvisers is the tale of Velma, a barnstorming pilot and former magic bootlegger, who pursues dangerous enchanted items and...

The Faithgirlz series Lena in the Spotlight, written by Alena Pitts, star of The War Room and her mother, editor and author Wynter Pitts is ideal for young fans of realistic fiction. These fictional stories will appeal to young girls who have big dreams, and is a reflection of Alena’s own life...

From debut author Hadeer Elsbai comes the first book in an incredibly powerful new duology, set wholly in a new world, but inspired by modern Egyptian history, about two young women—Nehal, a spoiled aristocrat used to getting what she wants and Giorgina, a poor bookshop worker used to having...

Following up on one of the most exciting fantasy debuts, The Daughters of Izdihar, Hadeer Elsbai concludes her Alamaxa Duology—inspired by Egyptian history and myth—with a tale of magic, war, betrayal, sisterhood, and love. The world is on fire...but some women can control it. The Daughters...

“I'm obsessed. Lyrical prose, relatably complex characters, a steamy love story with mounting dread that is at once sensual and full of yearning...Die for Me is utterly unique and still at its core about the most universal of stories: about a woman vanquishing fear through love.” —Ali...

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.

After Winna's little sister breaks her glasses, her grandfather gives her an old-timey pair of spectacles that belonged to her great-aunt Estelle. The specs are silver and perfectly circular, with tiny stars on the bridge and earpieces that curl all the way around her ears. Best of all, they're magic. Because when Winna makes a wish beginning with the words "What if"—that is, when she speculates—the spectacles grant it.

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.

Nicole Glover delivers the second book in her exciting Murder & Magic series of historical fantasy novels featuring Hetty Rhodes and her husband, Benjy, magic practitioners and detectives living in post–Civil War Philadelphia Nothing bothers Hetty and Benjy Rhodes more than a case where the...

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.