The Dark Sister

When escaped slave and African queen Lesedi leads her family along the southern Underground Railroad into Mexico, she does so with the help of Indigenous exiles forced from their homelands along the Trail of Tears. In the mountains they build a palenque, a hidden community of maroons, Indigenous allies, and fugitives seeking refuge from the Spanish caste system and the violence of colonial rule.

At the center of this fragile freedom stand her three daughters, each bound to the gifts of the ancestors. Makeda walks through dreams, carrying wisdom from the spirit world into waking life. Bricia wields a voice that can bend will and command truth. And Camila heals with a touch, her gift a beacon of hope for the weary and the wounded.

But the sisters soon learn that their very existence is dangerous. Their freedom is not only fragile, it is a threat to colonial power. Betrayal, blood, and the unyielding force of empire close in around them, demanding a choice between survival and resistance.

Sweeping and powerful, The Dark Sister continues Lesedi’s legacy in a tale of sisterhood, magic, and rebellion set against the fight for liberation in 19th-century Mexico, where maroons, Indigenous resistance fighters, and those fleeing both north and south discover their destinies are bound to the same struggle.