Why am I passionate about this?
As an own voice author, it is incredibly important for me to write characters that look like me, but it is exceptionally healing to find novels where I feel represented. My inner child yearns for more books that remind me of my adolescent wish to be a main character, to have a fleshed-out story, to be the hero or overpowered creature of the night. Being a main character means being seen and being heard, and I think now is the time to branch into every genre I can to know that any story, no matter how big or small the pages, can be done and can be Black. Happy reading!
KaliVictoria's book list on centering Black women and Black girls in fiction
Why did KaliVictoria love this book?
C.M. Lockhart did an incredible job with We Are the Origin. With this book, we get to navigate a world full of gods, vessels, assassinsāthere are several moments where I would forget the time while I read this novel, because the world building and character arcs are just that interwoven and well executed. In terms of diversity, itās refreshing for our main character, Brandi, to be around people that look like her while also being unapologetically herself. This story is original, the characters are well-fleshed out, and I am patiently awaiting the sequel.
1 author picked We Are the Origin as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
She was a shadow.
Forced into a life of serving the queendom before she was old enough to deny them, Brandi was a cultivator of death and the queenās own blade, reserved only for the disloyal and the blasphemous. Crafted by the queendom and forged in blood, she was nothing more than a tool. She was never meant to have an opinion on whose blood she shed ā never meant to question whose back she was pressed into or whose throat she was slipped across.
She was destruction.
But when Freya, the goddess of life and judger of souls, demandsā¦