Now that you’ve seen “Sinners,” surely you’re hankering for some more playtime with the otherworldly, the un/dead, and all things fantastically Black. If so, this is your lucky summer. Three novels by Black authors that are on sale in the coming weeks delve, in their own distinct ways, into supernatural realms that feature adventures in Black culture, family, and community.
“Family Spirit,” by the Philly-based author Diane McKinney-Whetstone, brings us the clairvoyant Mace family, whose apparently XX chromosome-specific “Knowing” gene has been inherited by our heroine Ayana, a struggling college senior. Ayana is keeping her gift on the DL, lest she be branded “weird” by her mother, but that doesn’t stop Ayana from participating in rituals, seeing into the future, and teaming up with her outcast aunt to reconcile an unsettling premonition. Described as “Alice Hoffman’s beloved ‘Magic’ series meets Gloria Naylor’s classic supernatural novel ‘Mama Day,’” “Family Spirit” will be available August 12.
McKinney-Whetstone’s eight novels include “Tumbling: A Novel.” She was awarded the American Library Association Black Caucus Literary Award for Fiction twice, received a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant, and is a past lecturer in the writing program at the University of Pennsylvania.
“The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery,” by New York-based, Panamanian-American author Clarence A. Haynes, goes on sale June 17. In my interview with Haynes, he summarized “The Ghosts of Gwendolyn Montgomery” as an “urban fantasy,” “glam horror novel,” and “genre mashup” that features “a high-powered publicist who has a secret mystical past” and a special connection to an Afro-Latine medium. Haynes goes on to describe “Ghosts” as a “sensual, but also spooky, disturbing, and disconcerting” novel that pays homage to his native New York and Afro-Latine heritage.
Haynes wrote the middle-grade nonfiction “The Legacy of Jim Crow” and collaborated with actor/producer Omar Epps to co-author the teen fiction companion works “Nubia: The Awakening” and “Nubia: The Reckoning.” As an editor, he’s worked for publishers that include Penguin Random House, Amazon Publishing, and Legacy Lit, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group.
“Meet Me at the Crossroads,” by Megan Giddings, available on June 3, tells the story of seven mysterious doors that serve as portals to another world; midwestern twin teens, Ayanna and Olivia; and what happens when one of the sisters goes missing. Lorraine Berry of the LA Times observes that “Meet Me at the Crossroads” “interrogates the meaning of faith in a heady novel about love and family.” Giddings’ third novel has gotten considerable buzz thus far, making it onto the New York Times, LA Times, NPR, and The Root summer reading lists.
Giddings is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota. Her debut novel, “Lakewood,” was named one of the best books of the year by New York Magazine and NPR, and was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and an LA Times Book Prize. Her second novel, “The Women Could Fly,” was recognized by the Washington Post, Vulture, and the New York Times as one of the best fantasy novels of the year. She looks to publish a short story collection,“Black Arts,” in 2026.
