The fantasy spinner
Blood Like Magic
Liselle Sambury
Margaret K. McElderry Books/ Simon & Schuster,
June
Trinidadian-Canadian author Liselle Sambury describes her stories as “messy Black girls in fantasy situations.” It’s a fitting précis for Sambury’s debut YA novel. In Blood Like Magic, Voya, a teen witch living in a near-future Toronto, must kill her first love to save her family’s magic. Here’s the issue: Voya has never had a boyfriend, so she must first find a guy, fall in love, and then sacrifice him. To get a preview of Sambury’s wit and style, it’s worth checking out her YouTube channel, where she vlogs about her writing experiences. Episodes include “The Truth About Modest Advances,” “That Time I Wrote a Problematic Book,” “Reading My Writing from When I Was a Teenager,” and “Actually Plotting My Worldbuilding for Once.”