The Best New Book Releases Out February 20, 2024

Now, this, this is the one. This epic, nearly 600-paged, sweeping multi-generational tome starts with Saint, an enigma by all meanings of the word, whose righteous fury and conjuring ability destroy plantations all over Arkansas in the 1830s. She brings the people newly freed by the destruction to a haven of her own making that she names Ours. It’s in Ours that Saint both shields — and maybe even entombs — her flock, protecting them from outsiders with her conjuring. But then her mind starts to slip, and her memories betray her. The fault lines in her creation are like beacons to other outside conjurors, and Ours becomes vulnerable. The narrative, bolstered by effervescent prose, Black spirituality, mythology, and surrealism, sweeps over four decades, showing what love can do to you.