8 Beautiful BIPOC Family Sagas To Lose Yourself In

The members of the magical Marte family gather for a mysterious reason: Flor has invited them to a wake for herself, even though she’s still alive. Given that she possesses the power to predict the details of others’ deaths, this invitation is especially curious. As her sisters, niece, and daughter gather for this unusual event, the tensions and secrets between them start to surface. As if the magic sprinkled throughout the novel wasn’t enough on its own, the strong female characters and exploration of the relationship between the family’s roots in the Dominican Republic and their lives in the United States make this a thoughtful and engaging read.

Black Cake is a fascinating read. The premise: upon Eleanor Bennett’s death, her grown children, Benny and Byron, learn that they have another sibling. Admittedly, they learn a whole lot more than that in the voice recording she left with them (along with a recipe for their family’s black cake). Thus begins the unraveling of the family’s tangled past — a past that impacts Benny and Byron (because: intergenerational trauma) and which they’ll need to reckon with in order to heal. Let’s just say there’s so much wrapped up in this family’s journey that it’s no wonder the book inspired its own miniseries less than two years after its publication.

A horror story (and an extremely well-written one at that) may not be the most obvious kind of family saga, but Indian Burial Ground fits the bill. When Noemi Broussard’s boyfriend is killed in a car accident, it understandably turns her life upside down. But when Louie, Noemi’s uncle, returns to the reservation for the first time since she was a child, it turns out something way worse than reckless drivers is plaguing the community. From creepy neighbors to disturbed friends, rumors of monsters reverberate across generations. If Noemi and Louie want to figure out what really happened, they’ll have to contend with both family and community traumas first.

The Chao family is no longer really operating as a family unit — Leo runs the family restaurant, his wife Winnie is living in a Buddhist sanctuary, and their three sons have scattered (or are trying to, anyway). Yet when all of them end up in town at the same time, Leo is found dead in the freezer, and it appears to be foul play. The trail that ensues expands beyond the dysfunctional family with its exploration of a wide array of issues that will easily allow readers to understand how the novel was influenced by The Brothers Karamazov.

Corinna’s birth is the spark for her teenage mother, young grandmother, and somewhat cold great-grandmother to come together for once. It’s not an easy read — there’s addiction, abuse, and poverty (among other challenges) — but the women’s story is compelling. When the older three women determine to raise Corinna together, it’s unclear what that will look like. Nothing is expected in this complex and fascinating tale of a family of women determined to be there for their girl.

I love a story narrated from beyond the grave, and The Apology doesn’t disappoint. Traversing continents and eras, narrator Hak Jeonga’s posthumous storytelling uncovers deep family secrets that stem from colonialism and the political rift between North and South Korea. Starting with a bus accident and the looming threat of a marriage that appears to have everything to do with a decades-old family secret, the novel has a sense of inevitability that drives it toward its final conclusion.

Las Madres is about mothers and daughters as much as it’s about found family. Luz, Ada, and Shirley call themselves las madres to Marysol (Luz’s daughter) and Graciela (Ada and Shirley’s daughter). Luz was in a traumatic accident as a teenager and struggles to remember details of her life since then. When Marysol wants to find out more about her family’s past, the five women plan a trip to Puerto Rico so she can learn more about Luz’s life. As the novel unfolds and unanticipated challenges confront the travelers, the dual time-period narrative reveals the events lost to the past.

Bringing your crush home to meet your family can often be nerve-wracking, but when Nickie Montrose brings Felix home to meet her grandmother, mother, and aunt, she has no idea how much it’ll freak her family out. That’s because they never told her about the curse that affects all the women in the family — a curse that causes the death of anyone a Montrose woman loves. Nickie’s actions act as the spark that causes generations of secrets to surface, revealing the truths that lie with the foundations of the curse, the family’s relationship with Hoodoo, and her grandmother’s past in New Orleans.