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The Dreambird Chronicles

Flying the Coop

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Lucinda Roy continues the Dreambird Chronicles, her explosive first foray into speculative fiction, with Flying the Coop, the thought-provoking sequel to The Freedom Race

Dreams are promises your imagination makes to itself.

In the disunited states, no person of color—especially not a girl whose body reimagines flight—is safe. A quest for Freedom has brought former Muleseed Jellybean “Ji-ji” Silapu to D.C., aka Dream City, the site of monuments and memorials—where, long ago, the most famous Dreamer of all time marched for the same cause.

As Ji-ji struggles to come to terms with her shocking metamorphosis and her friends, Tiro and Afarra, battle formidable ghosts of their own, the former U.S. capital decides whose dreams it wants to invest in and whose dreams it will defer. The journeys the three friends take to liberate themselves and others will not simply defy the status quo, they will challenge the nature of reality itself.

Book Two of the Dreambird Chronicles

The Dreambird Chronicles

The Freedom Race

Flying the Coop

Reviews

Praise for Flying the Coop

“This second volume in Roy’s Dreambird Chronicles… keep[s] the focus on the three young protagonists. What carries them forward are seeds of hope, anger, and history and the belief that they can force change. With strong connections to current events and an unflinching look at how things could be, Flying the Coop is an essential read.”—Booklist, starred review

Praise for The Freedom Race

“Every now and then a work comes along that makes you wonder whether you are reading or dreaming. And you’re not sure it matters which.”—Nikki Giovanni

“Roy’s comprehensive worldbuilding and immersive language creates a tapestry that blends realistic fantasy with the Black experience in the United States. The deliberate pacing and visceral descriptions of planting life will not suit all readers, but the investment is worthwhile. Ji-ji’s journey is a story of resilience and hope rooted in a place where Octavia Butler and Rivers Solomon intersect with The Handmaid’s Tale.”—Booklist

“You ever have the feeling that if you don’t read something, you may be missing out on something momentous happening? . . . I got that vibe from the first page of The Freedom Race. It has a prescience about it in the tradition of Octavia Butler. . . . If ‘resilience’ was a book, it would be The Freedom Race.”—Maurice Broaddus, author of Buffalo Soldier

“Roy (The Hotel Alleluia) turns to speculative fiction for the first time with this lyrical, Afrofuturist hero’s quest set in the not-too-distant future. …[Ji-Ji’s] harrowing but profoundly spiritual quest for sovereignty against all odds impresses. Readers … will appreciate both the tenacious heroine and Roy’s intricate prose stylings.”—Publishers Weekly

“The future Lucinda Roy calls up in The Freedom Race is a fierce, unsettling riff on our past and present. Instead of watching democracy evaporate and justice fail, Ms. Roy challenges us all to get over ourselves and join the race for freedom.”—Andrea Hairston, author of Will Do Magic for Small Change

“American magic-realism meets the outcome of the Second U.S. Civil War in a well-told, but brutally jolting, strangely prescient, and soul-haunting narrative.”—L. E. Modesitt, Jr., bestselling author of the Saga of Recluce series

About the Author

Novelist, poet, and memoirist Lucinda Roy is the author of the speculative novel The Freedom Race and three collections of poetry, including Fabric: Poems. Her early novels are Lady Moses, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, and The Hotel Alleluia. She also authored the memoir No Right to Remain Silent: What We’ve Learned from the Tragedy at Virginia Tech. Among her awards are the Eighth Mountain Prize for Poetry, and the Baxter Hathaway Prize for her long slave narrative poem “Needlework,” and a state-wide faculty recognition award. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Richmond. An Alumni Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, she teaches fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction in the graduate and undergraduate Creative Writing Program. Professor Roy has been a guest on numerous TV and radio shows, including The CBS Evening News, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS’s Sunday Morning, Oprah, and NPR. Her work has appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, North American Review, the New York Times, the Guardian, USA Today, American Poetry Review, and many other publications. She delivers keynotes and presentations around the country on creative writing, diversity, campus safety, and higher education.

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Book Details

Books By Lucinda Roy

Cover for the book titled as: The Freedom Race

The Freedom Race

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