New Magical Realism Books to Read Right Now

Julia Alvarez is one of the great novelists of our time, a master of magical realism you may know from classics like In Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents. Her latest book is about a celebrated Dominican American author (sound familiar?) who inherits property back in her homeland and decides to literally bury her untold stories there. But those stories refuse to stay buried: in fact, the characters from these stories have a lot to say. This book was written while Alvarez was going through a health crisis and wondering whether this might be the last story she got to tell. The theme of untold stories as a haunting is one that drew me right in, and I loved every page. 

This nonfiction read is one of my favorite books of the year and it is my mission to make more people read it. Poet and artist Vanessa Angélica Villarreal felt called to Mexico when she became a mother, eager to reconnect with her ancestry. Unfortunately that journey was one marked by loss, sending her on an exploration of the role of fantasy and magic in both our collective lives and in her own. She uses pop culture (The Neverending Story, Game of Thrones, my queen Selena Quintanilla) as well as personal anecdotes to ask: “What does the constant state of loss after colonization, enslavement, and dispossession do to the collective imagination?” I slapped my desk in emphasis while thinking about this book again just now. It’s that good. 

In 1920s El Salvador, nine-year-old Graciela lives on a volcano in a community of Indigenous women when she’s summoned to the capital by a rising dictator. Graciela’s absent father was the man’s spiritual advisor, and now Graciela’s been picked to be his next oracle after her father’s death. It’s here that she also meets Consuelo, the sister she didn’t know she had who was taken from their home before Graciela was born. The girls serve the dictator against their will for years when their community is massacred in a brutal act of genocide. Each believing the other is dead, they escape and flee across the globe until the universe brings them back together unexpectedly. The story is narrated by a chorus of four murdered girls from their community, so prepare for a beautiful but heartbreaking read.

This story takes place in two timelines: one in 1943 and the other in present day. In the past in El Paso, Texas, teenager Nena experiences premonitions and fainting spells that are getting worse by the day. She prays for help and those prayers are seemingly answered when a mysterious nun arrives late one evening. Nena follows her to Colonial Mexico where she grows into her powers, and also learns that her pursuit of love and magic comes with a price. In the present, a now 93-year-old Nena asks her grandniece and caretaker Marta for help finding a daughter she left in the past. Marta agrees to help her and her own powers emerge in the process, powers that may upend her life entirely.

An unnamed author slept with the devil at a Halloween party in 1999, like you do, and then went on to write stories about him each time she saw him again throughout her life. That’s the premise behind the eight linked stories in Ananda Lima’s debut, a collection that transports readers to the United States and Brazil. This book seems to read almost like a novel told in fragments. I cannot wait to read this one. 

This adult literary fiction novel introduces us to several generations of the magical Marte women. Flor decides she wants to hold a living wake to celebrate her life and invites her loved ones to gather. This invitation takes her family by surprise because Flora can predict the precise day when someone will die. Has she foreseen her death day, or someone else’s? Is there some other secret reason behind this gathering? Over the three days before the wake, we get to know the Marte women in the past and present in both New York City and Santo Domingo as the secrets and tensions between them come to the surface. If there’s one thing Elizabeth Acevedo is gonna do, it’s write layered, complex characters that I can’t wait to get to know. 

The Olivares women have sought to control their daughters’ destinies for decades, beginning with their names. Olvido (Oblivion) had a fraught relationship with her carefree daughter Angustias (Anguish), who left home when she discovered she was pregnant at sixteen. When Angustias’ daughter Felicitas (Congratulations) finally meets her estranged grandmother for the first time, she’s disappointed—namely because she’s dead. Olvido is having trouble crossing over and believes her unfinished business is doing right by her daughter. Since Felicitas is the only person who can see her, Olvido enlist her help to “fix” Angustias’ life from beyond the grave. This novel explores grief, family, identity, and the concept of home. As a fellow headstrong Mexican American woman with names like these in my family, I feel seen.

Let’s end on a lighter note with some romantic magical realism and the fake relationship trope. This book is the follow-up to The Witch of Wild Things and exists in the same Wild Magic universe. Tea Flores wants two things: to control her ability to control the weather and find a date to her ex-boyfriend’s wedding. She’ll need to find her long-lost mother for that first part, but Carter Velasquez, the hottie who needs to get married pronto in order to receive his inheritance, is the answer to the second. As it turns out, Carter is also down to help Tea find her mom. As they embark on this unpredictable witchy journey into fake nuptials, very real sparks begin to fly.