Caribbean Heritage Month Booklist

Dearest Bookworms,

I hope June has been kind to you and that with Regents Week looming you are taking them time to relax with a good book. Speaking of good books (did we enjoy that segway), here is a list of five books for Carribean American Heritage Month!

1. Blood like magic by Liselle Sambury After failing to come into her powers, sixteen-year-old Voya--a Black witch living in near-future Toronto--is forced to choose between losing her family's magic forever, a heritage steeped in centuries of blood and survival, or murdering her first love, a boy who is supposedly her genetic match. After years of waiting for her Calling, the one thing Voya Thomas didn't expect was to fail. When Voya's ancestor gives her an unprecedented second chance to complete her Calling, she agrees-- and then is horrified when her task is to kill her first love. And failure means every Thomas witch will be stripped of their magic. The problem is Voya has never been in love, so to succeed she'll first have to find the perfect guy. Using a genetic matchmaking program has just hit the market, she plans to fall in love and complete her task before the deadline. Voya is paired with Luc-- who seemingly wants nothing to do with her!
2. Simone breaks all the rules by Debbie Rigaud At seventeen Simone Thibodeaux is fed up with her over-protective mother's insistence on micro-managing her life, like picking her prom date from a "nice" Haitian immigrant family, and anyway she is determined to attend with Gavin Stackhouse (even if he does not know that yet); so together with her fellow late-bloomer friends Simone comes up with a bucket list of rule-breaking (like cutting classes, and sneaking out of the house)--but soon things get complicated, and Simone has to decide which rules are worth breaking, and which should just be left alone. Simone Thibodeaux is fed up with her over-protective mother's insistence on micro-managing her life. Like, picking her prom date from a "nice" Haitian immigrant family. Simone is determined to attend with Gavin Stackhouse-- even if he does not know that yet. Together with her friends, Simone comes up with a bucket list of rule-breaking: like cutting classes, and sneaking out of the house. As things get complicated, Simone has to decide which rules are worth breaking, and which should just be left alone
3. When the vibe is right by Sarah Dass She's destined to be a great Trinidadian Carnival costume designer like her renowned uncle, Russel Messina, and will one day inherit leadership of the family's masquerade band, Grandeur. Her classmate, the popular social media influencer, Brandon Richards, is the bane of her existence. Everything about him irks her, from his annoying nickname for Tess ("Boop") to his association with David, her awful ex. But when the future of Grandeur nears the brink of collapse in the face of band rivalry, Tess finds to her chagrin that she must team up with Brandon in a desperate attempt to revive the company. As Tess and Brandon spend more time together, Tess begins to wonder if everything she thought she knew might not be so certain after all.... Set in lush, gorgeous Trinidad, this is a novel about finding love in the most unexpected places.
4. Songs of Irie by Asha Bromfield During the political turmoil in 1976 Jamaica, Irie and Jilly must navigate their opposing upbringings as they fall in love and choose between the futures decided for them and the futures they desire. It's 1976 and Jamaica is on fire. The country is on the eve of important elections and the warring political parties have made the divisions between the poor and the wealthy even wider. And Irie and Jilly come from very different backgrounds: Irie is from the heart of Kingston, where fighting in the streets is common. Jilly is from the hills, where mansions nestled within lush gardens remain safe behind gates. But the two bond through a shared love of Reggae music, spending time together at Irie's father's record store, listening to so-called rebel music that opens Jilly's mind to a sound and a way of thinking she's never heard before. As tensions build in the streets, so do tensions between the two girls. A budding romance between them complicates things further as the push and pull between their two lives becomes impossible to bear. For Irie, fighting--with her words and her voice--is her only option. Blood is shed on the streets in front of her every day. She has no choice. But Jilly can always choose to escape. Can their bond survive this impossible divide?
5. Malicia by Steven Dos Santos On a stormy Halloween weekend, Ray enlists his best friends Joaquin, Sofia, and Isabella to help him make a documentary of Malicia, the abandoned theme park off the coast of the Dominican Republic where his mother and brother died in a mass killing thirteen years ago. But what should be an easy weekend trip quickly turns into something darker because all four friends have come to Malicia for their own reasons: Ray has come to Malicia to find out the truth of the massacre that destroyed his family. Isabella has come to make art out of Ray's tragedy for her own personal gain. Sofia has come to support her friends in one last adventure before she goes to med school. Joaquin already knows the truth of the Malicia Massacre and he has come to betray his crush Ray to the evil that made the park possible. With an impending hurricane and horrors around every corner, they all struggle to face the deadly storm and their own inner demons. But the deadliest evil of all is the ancient malignant presence on the island.

Happy Reading,

Sincerly your Friendly Neighborhood Librarian,

Katrina