Wayétu Moore does something quite astonishing in SHE WOULD BE KING, a novel that is awash in poetry, ancestry and hints of what might be called magic, but decidedly rooted in the brutality of history. Composed and compelling, brimming with devastating truths and sparkling with ferocity, this is a masterpiece of a debut. Moore's voice is at once vibrantly original and steeped in lineage. She brings us a story, eloquently told, that will sit with its readers and sink into them.

SHE WOULD BE KING reimagines the formation of Liberia, of the clashes and characters that led to its inception. Moore tells of cruelty and greed, carelessness and ignorance, and allows readers to experience the depths of the destruction of the slave trade. The novel follows three characters. Gbessa is from the West African village of Lai. Born on a cursed day, she is known as Gbessa the witch, standing out from her people with her fiery red hair. She is ostracized and eventually exiled from her people for being a witch, sent to the forest and left for dead. But her curse keeps her alive, though it brings her close to the edge of death many times. She is bitten by a viper, and still she breathes; she starves, and still she walks. So she knows that the curse is true. Eventually, she falls in with the African American freed settlers in Monrovia, and becomes a different person in their company, but Gbessa the witch is still within her.

"Composed and compelling, brimming with devastating truths and sparkling with ferocity, this is a masterpiece of a debut. Moore's voice is at once vibrantly original and steeped in lineage. She brings us a story, eloquently told, that will sit with its readers and sink into them."

June Dey, named for the month his mother most loved carrying him inside her, was raised on a plantation in Virginia. He bore witness to the atrocities of the plantation, but like Gbessa, he kept a secret. He did so until he couldn't any longer, until he had to stand up and fight back, and that's when the truth was revealed: he is indestructible. Bulletproof, impervious to the whip or blade, with almost superhuman strength, June does not know what to do with his power. He knows he wants to survive and protect. He boards a ship to New York, but ends up on his way to Monrovia.

Nanni is descended from Accompong, in Jamaica. Captured and taken by a white British slaver, she survives his torments by using her own power. When she draws on the forest, the water and the land, she can vanish into thin air and become invisible. The only reason she does not immediately flee her captor is because she bears his child. Callum promises that he will take them to Africa, to Freetown, when their son is old enough. When Norman Aragon turns 10, Callum boards him and his mother on a ship that he says is bound to Africa, and there, Nanni is betrayed. She entreats her son to flee. Norman has inherited much of his father's appearance, including his pale skin, but also has inherited Nanni's ability to disappear.

The lives of these three characters intersect in sharply powerful ways. They are drawn together by the wind, a through line of the novel, which gives them breath and life and watches their stories unfold.

Dynamic and mesmeric, this story is freshly woven and gorgeously evoked. It's action-packed and fast-paced, but lingers on prescient moments and brims with aching heart. Moore does not miss a beat. SHE WOULD BE KING was an honor and a joy to read.