Blood Debts, Terry J. Benton-Walker’s new young adult contemporary fantasy novel, begins with twins Cris and Clem’s mother on her deathbed. Just as the end seems near, the magical root of her troubles is discovered, so now it’s up to the teens to figure out who hexed her, why, and what to do about it. Last year, their father died unexpectedly, and Cris believes it was caused by a spell of hers that went awry. Three decades before that, their grandparents were lynched by a white mob who believed that they had been responsible for the death of another white mage. The Duparts are a fractured family, but when things are at their worst at least Cris and Clem can rely on them to come to their aid.
As all this family drama is going down, bigger issues are brewing. New Orleans is preparing for a mayoral election, and both the white and Black magical communities are heavily invested in the candidates. On the magical side of town, the Generational Magic Council (the group that all the Black mages are organized under) is being dominated by a woman who collects power by any means necessary. Her granddaughter and Cris’ ex best friend, Valentina, may turn out to be even worse than her grandmother. Clem and Cris are the only ones who can set right the scales of justice for their family, but the price they pay might be the ultimate one. Did I mention the gods wandering around town and the undead lurking in the shadows?
Clem and Cris are going to be a challenge for some readers. If you insist on protagonists being likable, this is not the book for you. The siblings are mercurial, tempestuous, frustrating, and kind of annoying. They bite and spit rather than compromise and comfort. But instead of writing them off as merely “unlikable,” think about why they are the way they are. You have ancestors who had to make terrible choices to survive. Death and blood were prices they were willing to pay if it meant their children would live. The first few generations past slavery didn’t have it much better. I think often of the W.E.B. Du Bois quote “The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery.” Imagine having your freedom stolen from you, the freedom you and your ancestors fought for taken from your children. It’s no wonder those subsequent generations often refused to talk about the past.
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Blood Debts
Cris and Clem not only have their own private traumas they’re dealing with but generational trauma as well. A century of racial violence and a brutal, public lynching on top of losing people they love, feeling abandoned by their extended family, and the weight of a guilt for other people’s pain and suddenly Clem and Cris don’t seem so inexplicably awful after all. The Dupart family is dysfunctional yet loyal at the same time. But that doesn’t mean they don’t hurt each other, intentionally or otherwise. When all you know is survival by any means necessary, then is it really surprising that you might lash out at any slight or inconvenience or hit back harder than you were hit? Personally, I enjoyed spending time with the twins. Sometimes I wanted to yell at them and sometimes I wanted to hug them, but I always understood them. Given where the story takes us, they’re closer to antiheroes than heroes, if that helps reframe your expectations.
There are a couple areas where the book shines a little less brightly. The ending is less an ending and more of a stopping point, so I hope you like cliffhangers. It’s a good thing there will be a sequel because Benton-Walker left so many loose plot threads that you could knit a three-piece suit. Also, I get from a craft perspective why Benton-Walker wanted to include POVs beyond Clem and Cris, but from a reader’s perspective I’m not convinced they were necessary. They serve to humanize those characters so they aren’t just one-dimensional villains, but they also have the unpleasant side effect of bogging down the pacing. The characters themselves are interesting enough, but because those characters’ subplots are largely left unresolved at the end, the structure isn’t as strong as it could be.
There’s a lot going on in Terry J. Benton-Walker’s Blood Debts. Several different mysteries overlap with each other, at least two different murder mysteries and a couple more attempted murder mysteries, a romance, a dude who is the living embodiment of an AITA post, family drama, raising the dead, gods, monsters, and a whole lotta mayhem. Between the rich worldbuilding, blood-soaked magic system, and characters who are as sharp and deadly as a blade, this is a YA fantasy series I can get behind.
Blood Debts is available from Tor Teen.
Read an excerpt.
Alex Brown is a Hugo-nominated and Ignyte award-winning critic who writes about speculative fiction, librarianship, and Black history. Find them on twitter (@QueenOfRats), instagram (@bookjockeyalex), and their blog (bookjockeyalex.com).
