Family Histories and Mysteries

Skeletons, secret powers, buried traumas, generational curses. What these spellbinding new novels reveal about characters’ ancestors changes their future forever.

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Published January 27, 2023
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Sisters Staff

The families in these intriguing stories of love, mysticism and unanswered questions learn the power of secrets. These bewitching books will surely quench your thirst for romance, intrigue, scandal, adventure and drama as the tea on closely guarded family history is spilled. Because the past is never really a done deal, is it? As we may discover in our own lives, it shapes both the present and the future. These characters will contend with their family history for better or for worse. But the truth is ultimately freeing.

Gone Like Yesterday

by Janelle M. Williams

February 14

Have you ever met a person and hit it off right away? Perhaps, without knowing why, you were drawn to their spirit and you both became fast friends. Well, that is what happens to two Black women, Zahra and Sammie. Zahra has long heard gypsy moths sing the songs of her ancestors. And it was those very songs that drew Zahra, a college prep coach, to Sammie, a teenage activist planning to go to college. After Zahra’s brother goes missing, she and Sammie set out on a road trip not only to find him but also to discover exactly what the ancestors are finally ready to reveal.

Black Candle Women

by Diane Marie Brown

February 28

This enthralling story is filled with drama, secrets and a family curse that dates back to the 1950s in a New Orleans voodoo shop. The reclusive Montrose women — Willow, Victoria and Augusta — live quiet lives together in a California bungalow. But when 17-year-old Nickie Montrose brings home a boy she likes, the older women must contend once again with the dark troubles they’ve kept hidden from her. Will she be able to break the cycle of loneliness that has shrouded generations of women before her?

Time’s Undoing

by Cheryl A. Head

February 28

Family stories often include old rumors and dots that do not connect. Cheryl A. Head’s novel, inspired by true events, is the story of Meghan McKenzie, a Detroit journalist who begins to investigate her great-grandfather’s death. Meghan knows very little about her ancestor Robert Lee Harrington. He’d started a new life with his pregnant wife in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, during a time of great opportunity (a booming steel industry) and peril (Klan activities). But local and family lore suggest that the newcomer with the pretty light-skinned wife and the flashy new car was murdered. Driven by the passion of the Black Lives Matter movement, Meghan encounters loving allies and treacherous enemies in her determination to uncover the circumstances around his death.

Life and Other Love Songs

by Anissa Gray

April 11

Who was Ozro Armstead, really? The 37-year-old father’s sudden disappearance right after lunching with his brother and right before his family’s intended birthday party for him leads them on a years-long search for answers. The story weaves its way through the Great Migration to the 1990s and uncovers the familial secrets that may have separated Armstead from his wife, Deborah, and daughter, Trinity. Readers will discover how past becomes prologue, as ancestors end up playing a pivotal role in the lives of their descendants. You’ll be immersed in this generational tale of intrigue as the family’s fears, desires, joys, losses and triumphs are brought to light.

Jina DuVernay is an Atlanta-based freelance writer focusing on Black literature and Black joy. Find her on social @goodbookingout.