Update on My Afrofuturist Novel!

Hello everyone!

I wanted to give you an update on my upcoming book Guardians of Masks and Memory. My logline and excerpts from my book are available below. I hope you enjoy and you can look out for my book being available in June 2021.

Logline

In an abandoned desert oasis, an amnesiac orphan named Maleda, finds that she has a life and homeland beyond the desert that is threatened by a curse and an unknown murderer who killed a friend lost in her memory, so she works to find a way to break the curse and find her friend’s murderer.

Excerpt 1

She dreamed a dream where technology and magic were indistinguishable, a dream where the broken could heal, and where she could heal. So she spread herself across the megaverse and created narratives of worlds where she could heal herself and others. This place is just one of them… I know that we are not in a position to explore the entire fabric of the megaverse, but we are here on this planet of Nchi Nyinge living in the shadows of a civilization of the past that thrived on the elements of water, earth, air, and fire, right at our doorstep. I have learned that this place possessed fascinating technology beyond our own capabilities and due to an unknown catastrophic event, their civilization is nothing more than ruins.

Excerpt 2

The paint defied gravity and flowed up the trunk and slithered across the bed as Maleda backed away to the head of the bed. Maleda released a fraction of the tension that kept her muscles taut and shoulders drawn up towards her ears, just as the paint formed itself into a little world, a microcosm of people similar to the ones she had seen in her room in the tree—faceless and graceful—but their forms were clothed in different colors.

Excerpt 3

As Maleda traveled back up to her room she chastised herself for not getting further with Mirriam. Mirriam always seemed to worry so much and Maleda didn’t want to disappoint her, but she still wanted to go to the abandoned city. Maybe there wasn’t anything for Maleda there. She just wished that she had a way to know for sure. She wanted to dismiss her thoughts, so Maleda ran up the spiral of stairs carved into the tree, past Miriam’s room all the way to her room. Her room had the looks of that of an unorganized professor with books stacked by her lofted bed and everywhere else. Some were in makeshift shelves on the wall. Sketch-filled parchment, wooden carvings, and parchment models of little figures were scattered about. She paused to admire the mural that covered her wall, covered in vibrant images from her dreams. She was at her musing again, hoping to find some semblance of an answer to the question of her past. She opened the first book, which had an impressive amount of water damage, leaving dripping images of a city on a few pages, but the forms were so muddy. There was no readable text as it was all incredibly faded. The second book was no better, but it had barely-there drafts of what looked like schematics. However, the images were so distorted and faded that Maleda could not tell what the schematics were for.

Staring at all of those books gave way to a building headache, but she wouldn’t stop until she got to the last piece of parchment. The sun was on its way to dipping behind the dunes and once again she had not found a shred of useful knowledge. Giving into her exhaustion, she fell back on her bed with limbs splayed out and eyes closed. Maleda briefly winced when she felt one of her books hit the floor with a thump.

“Well, it will be okay,” Maleda shrugged. It was only when she heard a drum beat hum through her bones that her eyes sprang open. Shadows were cast across the ceiling against a golden light and she heard voices echoing around her. It sounded like they were singing a song. Maleda’s heartbeat ratcheted and she looked over the side of her bed to see the source of the light, which was the book that fell to the floor of her bedroom. Maleda abandoned the ladder and jumped from her bed to make sure that the book wasn’t on fire. It was upon closer examination with hands in front of squinted eyes that she saw that the book was glowing and the light was coming from a seam that must have split open from the fall. It was almost like the light would not stand to be contained as its brightness grew, but the light dimmed just as quickly as it intensified.

Maleda’s eyes widened and her arms fell as she looked up to see streams of glowing blue falling from the ceiling, like streams of water coming from an invisible and otherworldly source. Caught up in her awe, she was too slow to move as one of the streams of light hit her hand, or rather pooled over her hand like cool water, and continued to fall. The light collected on the floor like puddles after rain and Maleda scooted back until she felt the wall, yet she couldn’t get away from the sparkling, flowing light as it enveloped her feet and the rest of the floor.

Maleda was afraid that her books would be lost forever to the light, but as she scrambled to place them on higher ground, she found that they were perfectly unharmed. The light pooled around her, not touching her. Hopefully, it was only contained to the room. If it weren’t Mirriam would have been banging on her door by then. Maleda found herself drawn towards the waterfalls of light and she approached one in the center of the room.

“What are you?,” Maleda inquired and just as she brushed her fingers over the column it split open to reveal another blinding light, which sent her tumbling back to clutch a leg of her bed and after the light, two figures. Their faces and the rest of their bodies were hidden by hooded cloaks. She had to get out of there.

Thank you so much for reading! You can leave any questions you have in the comments and feel free to share this post with your followers!