Left Unread Books | Five Black/brown Authors You Should...

Five Black/brown Authors You Should Know

If you like reading Black and brown books (which, if you don't...why are you here?), here are a list of five authors you should be intimately familiar with.

Amanda Weaver: Amanda writes a range of Fantasy and Horror. I have read two of her books:

• In The House of Transcendence, which follows a necromancer who works as a burlesque dancer and helps her new boss solve the murder of her dead lover while proving herself to the community of witches her boss oversees. This book has strong conversations about identity, found family, Blackness and belonging, and has plenty of Black and queer representation. Low spice, but plenty of romantic themes.
• No One's Gonna Take Her Soul Away, a book about a Black woman who is murdered and unjustly sent to the seventh level of Pandemonia (hell). Unwilling to spend eternity suffering, she partners with a werewolf and a vamp, who help her fight her way through all seven levels of Pandemonia so she can confront the pretentious goddess who condemned her in the first place. This story has moderate spice, an enemy to lovers storyline, and PLENTY of violence, gore and hard-to-stomach torture. It also has conversations about found family, redemption, Blackness and the Black woman's worth.

Natalia Hernandez: Natalia is in the middle of a high fantasy series and a series of interconnected cozy fantasy stand-alones. I have read all four of her books, including her most recent, which releases in two months.

• Flowers of Prophesy Series is a high fantasy series about a young woman who is on a quest to find the rightful prince of her nation so that she can stop a war that has been raging for centuries and stop the bloodshed. The first book, The Name Bearer, introduces us to the Name Bearer, who was taken from her family as a baby and raised in the royal castle with no name or identity of her own. Her only purpose was to wait for the Queen to have a son and to then go to the flowers of prophesy to receive his name. Only, when the Queen finally has a son, she goes to the flowers...and they tell her that the Queen's son will not be the next King. Armed with that knowledge, she must go on a quest to find the Prince that was Promised and to bring him back for his naming ceremony. Which leads the Name Bearer on a decade long quest, where she is raised and trained in combat by a society of revered warrior women. The following books follow her quest to discover her identity, carve out space for herself, and...well...FIND THE PRINCE. The third book in this series (of four planned books) comes out October 17th! This series is filled with magic, self-discovery, fighting, bloodshed, political intrigue, and a very slow burn romance.
• Asiri and the Amaru is the first in a five-book interconnected series of stand-alone romantasy stories. This one follows Asiri, a young Peruvian woman who has the rare ability to speak with animals. After a lifetime of her father exploiting her abilities to amplify his prestige in their community, she runs away from home and resettles in a beautiful seaside village, where she is determined not to tell anyone about her gift...until she runs into a Veterinarian who needs her help to nurse a mythical Amaru back to health. This one has a bit of spice, but only one scene.

Falencia Jean Francois writes high fantasy better than almost anyone I know! I have read her debut, which was one of the best books I've ever written!!

• Devil of the Deep is a high fantasy following a pirate, a mermaid and an officer as their stories converge at the end of the world. When our main character realizes she is a part of an underwater cult, she must swim to the surface world to escape their clutches, only to find her path crossing with a notorious pirate who is at war with a navy that is secretly working toward the same aim as the cult she has just escaped from. This story has massive conversations about identity, found family, colonization and resisting colonial religion. It has plenty of Black, queer, trans and neurodivergent representation. And it is by far, one of the best books I have EVER read in my life. Couldn't recommend this story more highly! Very mild spice.

Deston Munden writes high fantasy with the intention of representing Black people and challenging the racist notions that often exist in fantasy circles. I have read several of Deston's books and I loved them so much that I am currently working with him to republish them and hopefully push them to a wider market!

• Dusk Mountain Blues is a sci-fi story about a Black family that are the descendants of humans who were experimented on by the government before developing powers and escaping to a mostly abandoned planet, where they now battle against the invading forces of the intergalactic government that captured them to begin with. This is a story that speaks to making space for Black people in every space, drawing inspiration from a lot of stories that often speak primarily to white audiences. Our main characters are undeniably country, poor, uneducated and rough around the edges. But also...they are undeniably BLACK. We watch them navigate hard relationships, family feuds, tension with the native inhabitants of the planet they were forced onto, and incredible displays of power, love and solidarity against oppression. This is the first of a series. I honestly don't remember if there was any spice, but I don't believe there was.
• Tavern is also the first book in a series. It follows an Orc who owns a tavern and leads a group of mercenaries. When he helps heal the wrong people, he ends up on the wrong side of a group of assassins, who are determined to make him pay. This story sees him fight for his freedom, and fight to protect his home and city from an insurmountable threat. This book fights to combat many of the racist tropes that are often written into Orc characters in fantasy stories. And despite having no humans, this book reads as undeniably BLACK.

Michael Tinsley put out his debut last year, which I read and LOVED.

• May a Divine Awaken is about a young Black boy who has been ostracized from his community because of a skin condition (vitiligo). His world takes the divisions that exist in our world to the extreme. So far that their eight nations are not only split by ethnic identity but also by gender. Men and women are separated as dramatically as possible, as are the rich from the poor and the powerful from the powerless. Our main character has always thought himself to be weak, not having supernatural power of his own, but when his town is attacked by assassins, and he ends up on a journey in search of help, he finds out that the power he SHOULD have has been locked away and if he wants to save the world from an attempted coup from two of their world's highest leaders, he will have to awaken his power and fight for everyone's lives. This book was one of my favorite reads of 2023, and I recently received a package from the author with a copy of the second edition, which has been released with an all new (and incredible) cover!