Magical BIPOC Reads

In this Sri Lankan-inspired gothic story, Amara is the daughter of a traditional demon-priest, who was respected by the other townspeople before the new religion came in with the British colonizers. Now, men are being attacked in the jungle, and Amara’s father stands accused. She’ll have to solve the mystery of the strange happenings to clear her father’s name…but there’s also the issue of the connection she has to what’s going on.

In New Mexico’s Navajo Nation, Rita Todacheene works as a supernaturally good forensic photographer. She’s able to capture details no one else does because the ghosts of crime victims point her to clues that would otherwise go unnoticed. Sometimes this ability is more of a curse than a gift, though, as it has ostracized her from her reservation. And now, it may even get her killed — the latest crime victim’s ghost has latched herself on to Rita and wants revenge.

Creative soul Ricki Wilde has never fit in with her family of socialites. So when one of her family’s older customers offers her the chance to rent the bottom of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki sees it as an opportunity for something new. She opens the flower shop she’s always dreamed of, and experiences the magic and wonder of Harlem — which includes meeting the mysterious and enchanting Ezra. But Ezra has quite the secret. While things between Ricki and Ezra heat up, there’s another timeline of a past Harlem. One that tells of Ezra’s past.

From the author of Woven in Moonlight comes a romantasy that’s been compared to The Mummy and Death on the Nile. Inez was born into a life of privilege and old magic in 19th-century Buenos Aires. One day, her parents die during a trip, leaving her as the sole inheritor of a massive fortune. But with the money also comes a mysterious guardian with ties to Egypt. In search of answers as to what really happened to her parents, she travels to Cairo, where she’s led down a path of mystery, romance, and ancient magic.

Five hundred years from now, climate change results in a drowning world. In this dystopian future, even in places like Arizona, the rain never stops. It’s in this moist, hellish landscape that 18-year-old Jin Haldar is trying her best to keep her and her sister Thara afloat without their parents. With all this going on, it makes sense that when an eccentric stranger offers Thara a dangerous job, she accepts, and Jin eventually does, too. It’s a diving heist, replete with a motley crew that aims to make the score of a lifetime in a drowned Las Vegas. The sea beasts, pirates, and other mysterious figures they encounter may hinder them a bit, though.

This is a YA retelling of Carrie, but I couldn’t really tell you how closely it stays to the source material since I haven’t read the original. My guess is that it strays a bit, since it’s about a (mostly) white-looking mixed girl named Maddy who lives in a small Georgia town where high school prom is still segregated in the year of our lord 2014. One day it rains, causing her hair’s natural texture to show. Maddy gets bullied with this revelation, some of which goes viral. To save her school’s reputation — thereby securing her own future at a future college — another student offers up her Black boyfriend to accompany Maddy to the prom to show how “progressive” the school is now. It gets real once a couple of white students push Maddy too far…I love how this had segments of a podcast discussing the massacre at the high school. We learned more about the incident as we learned more about Maddy, and that narrative structure kept me hooked.