African American Magic

Conjure, also known as Hoodoo or Rootwork, is an old, powerful, and increasingly popular system of North American folk magic. Conjure's roots derive primarily from West and Central African spiritual traditions, but it has also been influenced by Christianity, Jewish mysticism, and Native American practices. Hoodoo Sen Moise has been studying this tradition and working with Conjure for over 35 years. Here, he explores Conjure's history, principles, fundamentals, and ethics, while simultaneously providing a practical how-to guide....

Wayétu Moore’s powerful debut novel, She Would Be King, reimagines the dramatic story of Liberia’s early years through three unforgettable characters who share an uncommon bond. Gbessa, exiled from the West African village of Lai, is starved, bitten by a viper, and left for dead, but still she survives. June Dey, raised on a plantation in Virginia, hides his unusual strength until a confrontation with the overseer forces him to flee. Norman Aragon, the child of a white British colonizer and a Maroon slave from Jamaica, can fade from sight when the earth calls him.

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.

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.

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.

Nathaniel is a well-intentioned, if naive, British cleric feeling blessed to educate a West African village about the benevolent power of God. But as slavers encroach, Nathaniel’s endeavor is daunted by the realities unfolding on the beautiful homeland of his congregation. It seems the Devil has power too. What follows for Nathaniel is a profound spiritual upheaval as he questions his purpose and even his humanity.

Folk magic is not just limited to Wiccan magic rituals or Celtic traditions. There’s a whole lot more to folk magic, which is practiced worldwide in different ways. Despite the multitude of resources for learning about these cultures, you’d rarely find a consolidated source of information about all of the folk magic cultures in one place. Besides, if you’re unsure about which culture they identify with, this audiobook will be the ideal guide to your magic discovery journey.

At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love. There is Booker, the man Bride loves, and loses to anger.

Black women have never been more visible or more publicly celebrated. But for every milestone, every magazine cover, every new face elected to public office, the reality of everyday life for black women remains a complex, conflicted, contradiction-laden experience. An American journalist who has been living in London for a decade, Kenya Hunt has made a career of distilling moments, movements, and cultural moods into words. Her work takes the difficult and the indefinable and makes it accessible; it is razor sharp cultural observation threaded through evocative and relatable stories.

The Unspoken One has been banished for many years, his very existence erased. Ameera must find his true name and summon him if she has any hope of saving her kingdom from war, and herself from marriage to a ruthless king. The Kingdom of Nur has been suffering for years under Ameera’s father’s rule. She's bid her time, carefully keeping her secret hidden and waiting to become queen so she can repair what her father has broken. Then an unwanted marriage to the brutal king of Nur’s enemy threatens everything she’s worked towards. With her wedding drawing near and the future of her ...

2021 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist - Historical Fiction Seeking to pursue his dream in music, and harboring a grave secret, young Gerard Rougeaux leaves his native Montreal for New York City in 1909, embarking on a journey that then takes him to Paris at the height of the Jazz Age. There, years later, Gerard becomes haunted by strange dreams of a boy falling through space, as his story entwines with the family he has left behind-his half-sister Jeannette and her two children, struggling to make their way in New York after the economic crash of 1929. Continuing the family epic ...

Eddie Asher arrives at Hudson Valley Psychiatric Hospital panicked that he may have murdered his brother’s fiancée, Lucy, with whom he shared a profound kinship. He can’t imagine doing such a terrible thing, but Eddie hasn’t been himself lately. Eddie’s anxiety is nothing new to Pär, the one Eddie calls his Other, who protects Eddie from truths he’s too sensitive to face. Or so Pär says. Troubled by Pär’s increasing sway over his life, Eddie seeks out Dr. Richard Montgomery, a specialist in dissociative identities.

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.

FACE THE STORM. Book 4 in the prize poly Sleeping Lotus series.... Jaded and betrayed, Raena Barren walks on eggshells, trying to keep her fellow spies from stabbing her in her sleep. They’re jealous of her fast rise through their hierarchy, and some dangerous people want her to stay put. But when someone she cares about gets a knife in the back, the only way to save him is to keep up the pace. And to rank again, Raena will have to face her greatest fear yet: she will have to share a bed with Jaen Portent. But this calculating, cold-eyed man has his own set of secrets… and Raena finds ...

The world of culinary magic is about to implode as the greatest threat to their secret existence is carried—well, dragged—into this delectable second installment of the Hex Kitchen series. Kidnapped by the very group meant to protect her, Kenzie finds herself in another cooking tournament. This time, though, the stakes are higher. Every meal she cooks could be her last. If she’s going to survive, she’ll need to do the one thing she swore she’d never do again. Use her magic to kill. Braxton is facing his own battle. Each step that brings him closer to Kenzie jeopardizes his family....

THE HIGH HEIR IS FOUND... But is she fit to rule? Grief stricken, suffering from shock, her power at half-strength, the Heir must return home to all the political intrigue that awaits her which is as dangerous as the rigors of the wilds. THE ENEMIES ARE MIGHTY... Mightier than any had thought, creatures of legend that are said to rival the power of the Goddesses Themselves. HER HEART’S OTHER IS CAPTURED... And as much a source of strength, he is also a point of weakness, a way of access to the High Heir from the back end of her soul. And someone has him, and has the will and viciousness ...

Danger L’Aventure grew up surrounded by magic. She is the daughter of the Adja High Priestess, and chosen child of the primordial god of wisdom, Danbala Wèdo, the Alovi. Magic is her birthright. As one of the Children of Ginen: Adja, Asogwe, and Bizango, the course of her life was predetermined. But that life is derailed when her father is killed by dark magic, and the murderer escapes justice. As an Adja, she is forbidden to use her gift for personal gain or vengeance. Disillusioned and consumed with rage, Danger turns her back on her house and magic. Until the night, while nan domi, ...

Former Marine, Marcus had nothing going for him. High in debt and at a dead end job, his girlfriend leaves him because she sees him as less than a man when they dated. Depressed, Marcus is questioning his life when he is magically swept into the fantasy world of Borne. A medieval world of magical elves, mighty orcs, terrifying werewolves, cunning dwarves, and wild centaurs. However, all is not what it seems. The creatures of this world are all suppressed by humans who also occupy the land. The dark elves themselves are all but considered extinct until Marcus meets the famed dark elf, Yuri ...

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.

For Talib Ware, the past is simply what happened yesterday. Talib “Kalim” spent centuries falling in love with the same woman, Hagar. Life after life, crossing continents and dynasties, he and Hagar, despite them changing name and form, have been drawn together. And he remembers it all. Talib has “the memory”. The ability to recall past lives and recognize souls of those he's previously known. It is a gift and a curse. For all the times he and Hagar have been drawn together throughout history, she's found some way to break his heart, tearing them painfully and sometimes fatally ...