Caught To Conjure

A powerful witch who escaped a cruel life. Three stubborn enemies who would drag her back. Can they save their world together or will past hatred prove stronger than love? Growing up hated and despised, Vie escaped her uncle and the three men who made her miserable. She vowed never to return to that life nor to let herself be treated like that again. But then they found her... Drake, Krase and Vane might be mercenaries of the Dark Army, but their loyalties lie elsewhere. They're marked by their wretched pasts, their hatred of witches and their allegiance to a cunning zealot. When tasked to retrieve a witch with untold powers, they don't expect to find Vivienne, the mistreated pariah from their academy days. But gone is the downtrodden, awkward girl they knew. In her place stands Vie, a force to be reckoned with, someone who confuses them and makes them feel more than hatred. Can Vie stand up to those who tormented her? Can she make them see that she's not their true enemy? That she needs their help to save their world? Or will they ignore the fire that burns between them and hand her over to a fate far worse than death? Caught to Conjure is the fourth standalone in the Dark Brothers Series of dark fantasy romance. If you like the angst of bully, antiheroes that make you hate them before they become your favorites, and your happily-for-nows with some darkness before the light, this book is for you. Read the next dark adventure in this epic series today! Authors Note: This is an 18+ dark romance that some may find triggering. It is not real life, its fantasy, but continue at your own risk. **You don't need to have read the other books in the Dark Brothers series to enjoy this book, but it helps.**

A mother and daughter with a shared talent for healing--and for the conjuring of curses--are at the heart of this dazzling first novel Conjure Women is a sweeping story that brings the world of the South before and after the Civil War vividly to life. Spanning eras and generations, it tells of the lives of three unforgettable women: Miss May Belle, a wise healing woman; her precocious and observant daughter Rue, who is reluctant to follow in her mother's footsteps as a midwife; and their master's daughter Varina. The secrets and bonds among these women and their community come to a head at the beginning of a war and at the birth of an accursed child, who sets the townspeople alight with fear and a spreading superstition that threatens their newly won, tenuous freedom. Magnificently written, brilliantly researched, richly imagined, Conjure Women moves back and forth in time to tell the haunting story of Rue, Varina, and May Belle, their passions and friendships, and the lengths they will go to save themselves and those they love. Advance praise for Conjure Women "Afia Atakora brings the Civil War South to life so beautifully with Conjure Women, a heartbreaking joy to read."--Martha Hall Kelly, New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls

One woman enslaved. Three callous masters. Secrets that could destroy them all ... Kora ran away to start a new life where she was in control of her own destiny and her own body. Instead, she was captured and auctioned to the highest bidders : Three former mercenaries with black hearts. Mace is their leader; ruthless and unforgiving. Kade lives in the shadows and, if his growls are anything to go by, may not be a man at all. And cruel Lucian's only delights seem to be drink and tormenting their new possession until she breaks. And she might. Kora wasn't a slave before and she must keep that secret at all costs. If they learn who she is, she'll be forced to marry a man who scares her far more than her harsh masters. Can she escape these three dangerous Brothers who have begun to show her that there is more to them than their tragic pasts? And if they find out her secrets, can she trust them not to throw her to the wolves? Sold to Serve is the first book in the Dark Brothers Series of dark fantasy 'Why choose' romance. If you like enemies to lovers, deliciously dark antiheroes and your happily ever love stories with bite, you will adore this book by Kyra Alessy. Unlock the first adventure in this amazing series today! Author's Note: This book is for mature audiences. (Also, grammar and spelling is UK English)

“The Secret History meets Jennifer’s Body. This brilliant, sharp, weird book skewers the heightened rhetoric of obsessive female friendship in a way I don’t think I've ever seen before. I loved it and I couldn’t put it down.” - Kristen Roupenian, author of You Know You Want This: "Cat Person" and Other Stories The Vegetarian meets Heathers in this darkly funny, seductively strange novel about a lonely graduate student drawn into a clique of rich girls who seem to move and speak as one. "We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?" Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more different from the other members of her master's program at New England's elite Warren University. A self-conscious scholarship student who prefers the company of her imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and are often found entangled in a group hug so tight it seems their bodies might become permanently fused. But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' exclusive monthly "Smut Salon," and finds herself drawn as if by magic to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, an audacious art school dropout, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into Bunny world, and starts to take part in the off-campus "Workshop" where they devise their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur, and her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies are brought into deadly collision. A spellbinding, down-the-rabbit-hole tale about loneliness and belonging, creativity and agency, and female friendship and desire, Bunny is the dazzlingly original second book from an author with tremendous "insight into the often-baffling complexities of being a woman" (The Atlantic).

A Coretta Scott King Honor Book Told in two distinct and irresistible voices, Junauda Petrus's bold and lyrical debut is the story of two black girls from very different backgrounds finding love and happiness in a world that seems determined to deny them both. Port of Spain, Trinidad. Sixteen-year-old Audre is despondent, having just found out she's going to be sent to live in America with her father because her strictly religious mother caught her with her secret girlfriend, the pastor's daughter. Audre's grandmother Queenie (a former dancer who drives a white convertible Cadillac and who has a few secrets of her own) tries to reassure her granddaughter that she won't lose her roots, not even in some place called Minneapolis. "America have dey spirits too, believe me," she tells Audre. Minneapolis, USA. Sixteen-year-old Mabel is lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to figure out why she feels the way she feels--about her ex Terrell, about her girl Jada and that moment they had in the woods, and about the vague feeling of illness that's plagued her all summer. Mabel's reverie is cut short when her father announces that his best friend and his just-arrived-from-Trinidad daughter are coming for dinner. Mabel quickly falls hard for Audre and is determined to take care of her as she tries to navigate an American high school. But their romance takes a turn when test results reveal exactly why Mabel has been feeling low-key sick all summer and suddenly it's Audre who is caring for Mabel as she faces a deeply uncertain future. Junauda Petrus's debut brilliantly captures the distinctly lush and lyrical voices of Mabel and Audre as they conjure a love that is stronger than hatred, prison, and death and as vast as the blackness between the stars.

Roewan Crowe's compelling and haunting literary debut, Quivering Land, is a rather queer Western, engaging with poetics and politics to reckon with the legacies of violence and colonization in the West. Written in a sparse style, this lonely, sometimes brutal book invites the reader on a powerful journey with Clem, Violet, and a dead girl in a red dress. Clem, a lone cowboy, caught in the inevitable violence of the Western, compulsively rides through ghost towns and Monument Valley. Violet is an artist who pulls dead bodies, guns, and memory into her studio, immersing herself in a creative process, seeking to understand the relationships among aggression, vulnerability and the imagination. Disrupting the story are the ghostly visitations of a dead child who travels the western landscape unsettling romanticized, filmic images of Monument Valley. Interspersed in the text are fragile, beautiful images painstakingly cut from paper, created by artist Paul Robles. This experimental long poem, a gritty feminist meditation on trauma, violence and the possibilities of art, is as powerful as a Smith and Wesson Schofield rifle.

Before the innovative work of Zora Neale Hurston, folklorists from the Hampton Institute collected, studied, and wrote about African American folklore. Like Hurston, these folklorists worked within but also beyond the bounds of white mainstream institutions. They often called into question the meaning of the very folklore projects in which they were engaged. Shirley Moody-Turner analyzes this output, along with the contributions of a disparate group of African American authors and scholars. She explores how black authors and folklorists were active participants—rather than passive observers—in conversations about the politics of representing black folklore. Examining literary texts, folklore documents, cultural performances, legal discourse, and political rhetoric, Black Folklore and the Politics of Racial Representation demonstrates how folklore studies became a battleground across which issues of racial identity and difference were asserted and debated at the turn of the twentieth century. The study is framed by two questions of historical and continuing import. What role have representations of black folklore played in constructing racial identity? And, how have those ideas impacted the way African Americans think about and creatively engage black traditions? Moody-Turner renders established historical facts in a new light and context, taking figures we thought we knew—such as Charles Chesnutt, Anna Julia Cooper, and Paul Laurence Dunbar—and recasting their place in African American intellectual and cultural history.

Jorgi Williams hopes starting graduate school will go smoothly. He needs a break from his clingy and transphobic mother Kat, who still insists on calling him by his deadname. Moving into a duplex with a male roommate only sparks a fresh tirade from Kat, and Jorgi is sick of this treatment. Thane Miller, Jorgi’s roommate, is a fellow graduate student. Handsome in a skinny, alterna way, Thane is laidback and kind, and seems to accept Jorgi exactly as he is. Jorgi can’t help developing a crush, despite his fear about whether Thane would date a transman.But the question of love is put on hold when they receive evil spirits as a housewarming present. Thane locates and digs up a cursed jar in the front yard and reveals he is a Wiccan, a white witch. He begs Jorgi not to freak out. Far from being freaked out, Jorgi is fascinated. Thane introduces Jorgi to his coven and the coven leader asks the dreaded question: Who in Jorgi’s life is capable of something like this? Jorgi’s ex-best friend Christy is infamous for vicious grudges, and she’s openly interested in black magic. Chance meetings with Christy seem to confirm she’s guilty. But not everything is adding up. As the demons grow powerful enough to talk, they claim Jorgi’s soul soul has been bound to a powerful demon in a blood magic contract. That’s something Christy wouldn’t have the ability to do. Are the demons lying, or is the enemy still out there? The stress of the demonic attacks, Kat’s relentless transphobic hounding, and the world of blood magic opening up around Jorgi cause him a massive internal shift. Suddenly, he becomes aware there is a part of him who comes and goes and who claims their family is not as innocent and Christian as Jorgi always believed. Jorgi has Dissociative Identity Disorder, and his other selves are holding onto dark secrets about the Williams family’s real religion. Thane is supportive every step of the way, causing Jorgi to fall in love. Then one of Jorgi’s inner selves points the finger at their mother, and Jorgi’s sense of reality is thrown into chaos. Is his enemy Christy or his mother? Can Jorgi and Thane stop the haunting, break the evil contract, and get their happily-ever-after?