Seeking a break from the current troubles in my personal life, I hit the library looking for something light and fun to take my mind off of everything. The “now available” section on Libby showed me a bunch of things that looked too hard but then came Amari.
Amari and the Night Brothers is the first in a planned trilogy of books by B. B. Alston known as the Supernatural Investigations series. The main character, Amari Peters, lives in a housing project with her single mother. Her beloved big brother, Quinton, took a mysterious but high-paying job right out of high school and left the home. However, this job must have its risks because Quinton disappears!
One night, Amari receives a delivery of what turns out to be a message from her brother. She has been invited to attend a special program with the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, and she has to start the following day. She travels to the location given, and is brought into a world of witches, fairies, monsters, and more. Competing with incredibly wealthy students who have lived in the supernatural world their whole lives is difficult for Amari but she persists towards her goal of finding Quinton. As she learns to use her magical powers, the supernatural world comes under threat from powerful dark magicians. Amari and her new friends must work together to save their way of life.
The follow-up second book, Amari and the Great Game, picks up one year later at the start of the next summer term at the Bureau. Amari and her friends from the first book return to their secret, supernatural world only to discover an entirely new shocking incident. The entire magical parliament has been frozen using a time lock!
The new, acting government has banned magicians from using their powers. Amari is devastated. She had spent much of her life being an outcast as the only Black student at her prestigious school, and now she’s an outcast in the one place she could fit in. She is approached by the League of Magicians, an underground organization seeking to help magicians find acceptance in society.
The League wants Amari to join them as their leader, but she turns them down. Unfortunately, this leaves an opening for a new, potentially dangerous leader to step forward. Amari is pulled into a dangerous game for control of magiciankind, and has to learn to balance her time between her studies and the game. The fate of all magic users is in her hands!
The Supernatural Investigations series are excellent middle-grade books. Boys and girls alike will enjoy this magical series. I’m eagerly awaiting the release of the third book this fall!
