Grace by Natashia Deón is a historical horror novel that follows the life and death of a young Black woman named Naomi. Told through a nonlinear narrative, the novel follows Naomi as a ghost after her death, watching over her daughter Josephine while reflecting on the trauma, violence, love, and resilience that shaped her life. The story blends ghost story, historical fiction, and lyrical prose into something emotionally devastating and deeply human.
Gender roles and the brutality of slavery play a major role throughout the novel. Naomi begins as a hidden child, concealed by her mother from Massa, the slave owner who controls their lives. After witnessing abuse and violence against her family, Naomi kills Massa in order to protect herself and avenge her mother. She is then forced into survival alone, wandering through a world where Black women are constantly vulnerable to exploitation and violence.
Throughout the novel, men repeatedly fail the women around them through manipulation, abandonment, rape, cheating, and abuse. Yet alongside this darkness is an equally powerful theme of motherhood and feminine endurance. Naomi’s mother survives by complying outwardly while secretly protecting her children. Hazel, Naomi’s sister, becomes an example of survival and sacrifice. Even when Naomi herself is betrayed by Jeremy—the first man she truly loves—she eventually refuses to remain trapped in abuse. Jeremy attempts to pimp her out, abandons her during pregnancy, and later returns only to shame her. Naomi ultimately walks away, choosing both herself and her child over submission.
Motherhood Beyond Death
Shortly after Josephine’s birth, Naomi is killed by slave catchers. However, death does not end her connection to her daughter. As a ghost, Naomi remains tethered to Josephine, unable to fully let go. Some of the most haunting moments in the novel are not the supernatural ones, but the emotional truths surrounding motherhood, attachment, and grief. Annie tells Naomi’s spirit:
“One day you will leave her, by your choice. It’s what you’re supposed to do. At some point, every mother has to let her child go” (185).
That line stayed with me long after reading the book. It transforms the ghost story into something much larger about the pain of motherhood itself: loving someone enough to eventually release them into the world.
Lyrical Prose and Emotional Rhythm
One of the strongest literary elements in Grace is Deón’s lyrical prose. She slows down intimate moments and emotional observations until they almost feel suspended in time. Her writing often moves with a poetic rhythm that makes even painful scenes feel beautiful and deeply sensory.
“I wish he would smell sweet to me like a man looking for love or seemed soft like a man who could love me silly and forgive me for the thangs he didn’t know about me” (38).
The prose lingers inside physical sensation, emotion, memory, and desire. Rather than rushing through events, Deón allows moments to fully breathe. Her storytelling carries humor, sexuality, tenderness, and humanity even within the horror of slavery and violence.
What I take from this novel for my own writing is the importance of slowing down and honoring the details of life itself. Grace reminded me that storytelling is not only about plot progression but about fully inhabiting emotional moments, relationships, and sensory experience. The novel feels like a ghost story not simply because of Naomi’s spirit, but because it honors the cycle of life, motherhood, trauma, love, and memory itself. It suggests that even after death, the emotional imprint we leave on one another persists.
Gomez, Jewelle. The Gilda Stories. Beacon Press, 2023.
The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez is a vampire novel that explores racism, queer love, slavery, chosen family, and survival across generations. More than simply a vampire story, the novel examines what it means to belong to one another in a world built on violence and displacement. The story begins with a frightened young woman escaping slavery and finding refuge in Gilda’s brothel, where she is introduced to compassion, education, and community in a way she has never experienced before.
“The gambling, musical divertissements, and the private rooms were all well attended. Gilda employed eight girls, none yet twenty…” (14). From the beginning, Gomez creates a setting that feels alive with intimacy and emotional texture. The young woman remains fearful of white men and the possibility of being dragged back into slavery: “Any of these men could capture her and take her back to the plantation” (29). Yet within Gilda and Bird’s household, she witnesses something entirely different from the cruelty she has known. The women are intelligent, capable, compassionate, and empowered: “They all had manners of ladies, could read, write, and shoot” (24).
Eventually, the young woman learns that Gilda and Bird are vampires, though Gomez reimagines vampirism as something rooted in connection rather than violence. “It is through our connection with life, not death, that we live” (43). The vampires in this world do not exist purely as predators. Instead, they exchange energy, dreams, and emotional understanding with humanity. Gomez writes, “We draw life into ourselves, yet we give life as well… It’s a fair exchange in a world full of cheaters” (43).
Chosen Family and Queer Love
One of the strongest elements in this novel is its exploration of chosen family. The emotional architecture of the relationships feels deeply intentional, especially the connection between Gilda and Bird. Their love is romantic, nurturing, and spiritual all at once. When Gilda prepares to die, she asks the young woman to remain with Bird, believing she belongs among them. Eventually, the young woman takes on the name Gilda herself, continuing the family’s lineage and identity she has entered.
Throughout the novel, Gomez repeatedly returns to the idea that family is not solely determined by blood, but by loyalty, protection, understanding, and mutual care. Eleanor later says, “…to choose someone for your family is a great responsibility. It must be done not simply out of your own need or desire but rather because of a mutual need” (63). That line felt especially powerful to me because it defines family as a responsibility rather than ownership.
The language surrounding community and belonging throughout the novel is often breathtakingly beautiful: “Those of us who can withstand that uneasy pulling of the sea’s waters swirling about the bay feel firmly rooted here and protective of each other” (71). Gomez creates an emotional atmosphere where intimacy and survival become deeply intertwined.
Resistance Against Exploitation
The antagonist, Fox, represents exploitation, cruelty, and domination. Unlike Gilda’s compassionate philosophy, Fox treats working women as disposable and slave-like. Because Gilda herself escaped plantation slavery, her conflict with Fox becomes deeply personal and symbolic. As the story unfolds over time, Gilda also becomes involved in activist movements such as Greenpeace and the Black Panther Party, continuing the novel’s larger themes of justice, resistance, and collective care.
One thing I struggled with personally was pacing. I found myself wishing Fox had been introduced earlier within the story, possibly within the first sixty pages, to create a stronger central tension sooner. I also wanted the novel to slow down more often and remain longer inside the emotional and sensual details of each scene. The relationships, touches, environments, and emotional moments were among the novel’s strongest parts, and I often found myself wanting more time to fully inhabit them before the story moved forward. By the end, the pacing felt rushed to me compared to the emotional depth established earlier in the novel.
Still, what stayed with me most was the novel’s belief in companionship and healing across time. Even after centuries, distance, grief, and transformation, the characters continue searching for connection with one another. The story ultimately suggests that survival alone is not enough; people also need intimacy, community, and love in order to remain whole.
Little Lost Forest 