Brown Magic (Tortrix)

Chicago, 1979.

Nine-year-old Indigo Valdés lives in a world crowded with family, neighborhood friends, schoolyard loyalties, older-sister rules, and the constant movement of people through her grandmother’s Logan Square home.

Abuela Neeta is a respected Lucumí madrina, and Indigo has grown up knowing that some doors are open to her and others are not. Some things can be asked about. Others must wait.

But Indigo notices things.

A look before someone speaks. A change in a room. The feeling that an ordinary object may be carrying more than anyone can see.

Over the course of one unforgettable year, childhood begins to widen around her, bringing questions about family, Cuba, memory, belonging, and the things adults have left unsaid.

Brown Magic is a warm, intimate coming-of-age story about family, culture, sisterhood, and a girl beginning to discover that knowing can be its own kind of responsibility.