Afromyth Volume 2: A Fantasy Collection

N.D. Jones · Nicole Givens Kurtz · J.S. Emuakpor · Michael W. Cho · Mikal Trimm · Michelle Mellon · Rose Strickman · Akil Wingate · Alanna Robertson-Webb · DJ Tyrer · Lela E. Buis · Michele Tracy Berger · T. W. Cox

Feb 2020 · AfroMyth Book 2 · Afrocentric Books

About this ebook

Afrocentric Books presents the second installment in the Afromyth Fantasy Series.

This anthology contains fourteen fantasy stories featuring characters of the African diaspora, stories that will take you from the American antebellum South, where an African god searches for his voice, to the far-flung future, where a caravan of ships makes harbor in a Saharan sea. Follow a young boy who, with the help of ancestral magic, learns what it truly means to be a warrior. Take a spirit journey as a young girl learns to be a goddess. Afromyth Volume 2 is an eclectic collection of tales whose fantasy themes run the gamut from romance to horror, including a story of a woman whose sanity is tested by her family's demons. Within these pages, a healer unlocks an ancient power, a woman rides the gods, and a god rides a bike.

Explore new worlds through the eyes of characters of indigenous African descent.

Ratings and reviews

Afromyth Volume 2 is a collection of literary excursions that take you around the world with stories of men, women, and non-binary persons who live outside the bounds of conventional realities but whose stories seem relatable. After all, love, revenge, and learning from the past in order to create a better future are universal themes. The anthology of stories varies in settings from contemporary times to plains of existence that sprang forth from the author's minds onto the pages. The first story in the collection, "A Gleam of Life" by Nicole Givens Kurtz sets the scene with the tale of a man who monetizes his ability to raise the dead with this touch, his effort to keep his secret from the woman he had fallen in love and how he reacts when she finds out his secret in the most inconvenient was possible. From there the readers are treated to tales of a homicidal music box ballerina, a woman who uses the power of vodun to steal corporate secrets, and a stranger in a foreign land who finds comfort and a sense of home from a bookseller who sells their ware from a boat anchored in an African port that was formerly a desert. All the stories are based in Afrocentric mythology and no matter what the setting the cultural themes of the continent comes through. Other stand-out stories include "Issa, the Warrior God" by Akil Wingate and "Sister's Keeper" by J.S. Emuakpor. While some of the stories didn't soar to the highest heights as others, this collection was a extraordinary collection that should be

14 small story-lives: good and evil, chilling and thrilling, based as the editor says, out of the "African diaspora" that includes pre-colonial times, slavery of all types, Egyptian myths, Harlem Renaissance, pimps, ghosts, fairy tails and powerful lessons speculated from the authors' imaginations attempting to once again acknowledge that African myths and tales are hard to find, and/or reworked to fit today or the future. And this is the second anthology! My favorite of the stories is "Filigree Ballerina" a small creepy story that reminded me of the Chucky movies actually, but better (I am NOT a horror fan). My only negative is that by about story 12, they kind of sounded repetitive. However, the publisher may have a yearly anthology here, and THAT is celebratory! recommended 4/5 [disclaimer: I received this book from the editor and voluntarily read and reviewed it]

About the author

N. D. Jones, Ed.D is a USA Today bestselling author who lives in Maryland with her husband and two children. In her desire to see more novels with positive, sexy, and three-dimensional African American characters as soul mates, friends, and lovers, she took on the challenge herself. Along with the fantasy romance series, Forever Yours, and a contemporary romance trilogy, The Styles of Love, she has authored three paranormal romance series: Winged Warriors, Death and Destiny, and Dragon Shifter Romance. N.D. is also the founder of Kuumba Publishing, an art, audiobook, eBook, and paperback company that is a forum for creativity, with a special commitment to promoting and encouraging creative works from authors and artists of African descent. Her teenage daughter created the image design for Kuumba Publishing, while her son has written a role-playing game using original characters from a new paranormal romance series, and her husband manages the company—making Kuumba Publishing a true family affair.

www.ndjonesparanormalpleasure.com 

www.pinterest.com/ndjones001

www.facebook.com/ndjonesparanormalromanceauthor

@NDJonesAuthor

Nicole Givens Kurtz is a weird writer, publisher, and educator. She works to amplify marginalized voices in speculative fiction and writes stories that explore race, sexism, and the weird. Discover for yourself by visiting her website or following her on social media.

www.nicolegivenskurtz.com 

@nicolegkurtz

J.S. Emuakpor was born and raised in Nigeria, West Africa. While she is not the widow of some Nigerian prince with millions of dollars in an American bank that she needs you to access, she does insist that royal blood flows through her veins. She is a married mother of four, a scientist, and author of the critically acclaimed Queen of Zazzau. Most of her writing draws upon the spiritual beliefs of the ancestors who frequently whisper in her ear as well as the superstitions that she refuses to relinquish.

www.jsemuakpor.com

@JemSMcBride

Michael W. Cho lives in Tempe, Arizona, where he plays Spanish guitar for his day job. He has publications in Terraform and Daily Science Fiction, among others. In his work, Michael focuses on bleeding-edge topics such as politics, futurism, and flesh-eating monsters.

http://michaelwcho.com/

@ElegantGuitar

Mikal Trimm has sold far too many stories to far too many places, but he's always surprised when he finds a new home. He lives in a small town near Austin, Texas, where they have more fun than he can afford. You can find him on Facebook (because yeah, he's that old).

www.facebook.com/702874765

Michelle Mellon has been published in more than a dozen speculative fiction anthologies and magazines. Her first story collection, Down by the Sea and Other Tales of Dark Destiny, was published in April, 2018. She recently moved to Maui and is completing work on my second story collection.

www.mpmellon.com

@mpmellon

Rose Strickman is a Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror writer living in Seattle, Washington. Her work has appeared in anthologies such as That Hoodoo, Voodoo That You Do, Sword and Sorceress 32, and The Daily Grind, as well as the e-zines Aurora Wolf and Luna Station Quarterly.

www.facebook.com/rose.strickman.3

Akil Wingate is a writer, filmmaker, and explorer based in Paris. His work has been serialized in Writing Tomorrow, Writers Weekly, Travel Mag, Starset Society, Savvy Explorer, Rough, Graze, Crave, Mandatory, and a host of other international magazines and platforms. He is currently directing the docuseries, The Box, and the feature film, Beast. And he can be seen nightly on Channel 5 UK and ITV hosting the game show Live Casino Show for “21.co.uk.”

@AkilWingate

Alanna Robertson-Webb is a horror-specializing author who is terrified of sharks and enjoys editing character backstories for her Dungeons and Dragons group. She lives with a fiancée and two cats, all of whom like to commandeer her favorite cozy blanket when they think they can get away with it. She is a wound VAC specialist by day, and an editor and author by candlelight. She has been featured in Monsters (Black Hare Press), which was nominated for a 2019 Bram Stoker award.

https://arwauthor.wixsite.com/arwauthor

DJ Tyrer is the person behind Atlantean Publishing. He has been widely published in anthologies and magazines around the world, such as Winter’s Grasp (Fantasia Divinity), Tales of the Black Arts (Hazardous Press), Misunderstood (Wolfsinger), Pagan (Zimbell House), and Sorcery & Sanctity: A Homage to Arthur Machen (Hieroglyphics Press). His stories also appear in issues of Fantasia Divinity, Kzine, Broadswords and Blasters, and BFS Horizons. His novella, The Yellow House (Dunhams Manor), is available in paperback and on Kindle, and his comic horror e-novelette, A Trip to the Middle of the World, is available from Alban Lake through Infinite Realms Bookstore.

https://djtyrer.blogspot.co.uk/

Lela E. Buis is an artist, author and poet. She grew up in East Tennessee and lived for a long time in Florida, working in engineering at Kennedy Space Center and as a teacher of various subjects and levels. She began writing as a child and leans toward genre fiction in the writing, having published mainly science fiction and fantasy stories and poetry. When she’s not painting or writing, she looks after four barn cats and a part-time dog.

www.lelaebuis.wordpress.com

@LelaEBuis

www.facebook.com/lela.buis/

Michele Tracy Berger, Ph.D. is a professor, a writer and a creativity coach. She is associate professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill. Her main love is writing speculative fiction, though she also is known to write poetry and creative nonfiction, too. Her creative writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Chapel Hill News, Glint, 100 word story, Thing Magazine, FIYAH: The Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, Oracle: Fine Arts Review, Flying South, Carolina Woman, Trivia: Voices of Feminism, Ms., The Feminist Wire, and various anthologies. Her sci-fi novella Reenu-You, about a mysterious virus transmitted through a “natural” hair relaxer, is forthcoming with Falstaff Books. She also hosts an award-winning writers’ support blog, called “The Practice of Creativity.”

www.micheleberger.wordpress.com

@MicheleTBerger

T. W. Cox is a former software engineer and entrepreneur. He’s also the husband of an avid hiker and birder (which keeps him moving), father of two wonderful girls, an amateur chorister, and an avid traveler and reader. He lives in a small town in southern Pennsylvania with his wife, his owner cat, and an undisciplined garden. He writes mostly speculative fiction and retellings of myths, legends and fairy tales. He’s also authored non-fiction articles on computers and regional travel. He’s a member of Science Fiction Writers of America and Codex.

www.terrywcox.com

@TerryCox7