21 Feb.: L.L. McKinney

Named one of The Root’s 100 Most Influential African-Americans of 2020, L.L. McKinney is a writer, a poet, and active member of the kidlit community. She’s an advocate for equality and inclusion in publishing and is the creator of the hashtags #PublishingPaidMe and #WhatWOCWritersHear. She’s also a gamer girl who strives to push these comics, anime, video games and the worlds of speculative fiction toward representation that better reflects the diverse world we live in.

website:https://www.llmckinney.com/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@elleonwords
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/llmckinney.bsky.social
Watch for: Nubia Too Read releasing in Sept, and a forthcoming middle grade novel about a young gamer girl flung into an ancient conflict after her meteoric rise in a popular MMO Game reveals her to be a reincarnated King Arthur.

Nubia Too Real (DC Comics, 2 Sept 2025)
After a turbulent school year, Nubia is both thrilled and anxious as she embarks on a transformative summer training with the Amazons on Themyscira! Amid the mounting pressure of expectations, she grapples with feeling like an outsider, letting the weight of her self-doubt strain her most important relationships. 

Just when she thought her life couldn’t get more complicated, her biggest fear threatens the safety of everyone on Paradise Island. Will Nubia rise above the chaos and embrace her true self as the hero she was destined to be?

Escaping Mr. Rochester (HarperCollins, 2024)
Jane Eyre has no interest in a husband. Eager to make her own way in the world, she accepts the governess position at Thornfield Hall. Though her new employer, Edward Rochester, has a charming air—not to mention a handsome face—Jane discovers that his smile can sharpen in an instant. Plagued by Edward’s mercurial mood and the strange wails that echo through the corridors, Jane grows suspicious of the secrets hidden within Thornfield Hall—unaware of the true horrors lurking above her very head.

On the topmost floor, Bertha Mason is trapped in more ways than one. After her whirlwind marriage to Edward turned into a nightmare, he locked her away as revenge for withholding her inheritance. Now his patience grows thin in the face of Bertha’s resilience and Jane’s persistent questions, and both young women are in more danger than they realize. When their only chance at safety—and perhaps something more—is in each other’s arms, can they find and keep one another safe before Edward’s dark machinations close in around them?

Black Widow Bad Blood (Open Road Media, 2024)
Before Natasha Romanoff was an Avenger, she was a Russian spy and assassin, genetically altered by Soviet Union–era scientists to become a super soldier. But someone has stolen a sample of her blood—and the blood of James “Bucky” Barnes, the operative known as the Winter Soldier, another human weapon developed in a Russian laboratory. Whoever took their blood possesses the key to recreating the formula flowing through Natasha and Bucky’s veins—the formula that enhanced their physiology to superhuman levels. Now, the Black Widow and the Winter Soldier must work together to track down their mysterious enemy—even as their history as lab rats and conditioned agents brutally trained in Russia’s notorious Red Room continues to haunt them . . .

Black Widow: Bad Blood is a collaborative novel by Lindsay Smith, Margaret Dunlap, Mikki Kendall, L.L. McKinney, and Taylor Stevens.

A Crown So Cursed (Feiwel & Friends, 2023) 
Alice and her crew are doing their best to recover from the last boss battle, but some of them keep having these. . . dreams: visions of a dark past—and an even darker future. Sadly, the evil in Wonderland may not be as defeated as they’d hoped.

Attacked by Nightmares unlike any they’ve ever seen, Alice will have to step between the coming darkness and the mortal world once more. But this time is different. This time, the monsters aren’t waiting for her on the other side of the Veil.

They’re in her own back yard.

Splintering Magic (Disney Hyperion, 2023)
Twins Trey and Tai are not like other high schoolers. Trey struggles to suppress his surging magical abilities, which continually impede his dream of making first chair cello in orchestra. A budding photographer, Tai just wants to take pictures and maybe find someone to take them with. But disturbing images keep appearing in Tai’s camera lens, reigniting the twins’ search for their mother, who mysteriously disappeared ten years earlier. As the two discover more clues, Trey and Tai also uncover strange secrets about their magical ancestors and about a cunning villain who threatens their very survival. Together, Trey and Tai must work to unearth the past and preserve the future of their family.

The Mirror: Splintered Magic is the fourth book in the innovative YA fairy-tale quartet following one family—and the curse that plagues it—over several generations.

Unravel the secrets of this family curse in the other books in THE MIRROR:
Broken Wish by Julie C. Dao
Shattered Midnight by Dhonielle Clayton
Fractured Path by J.C. Cervantes

Mournng Glory (Spotify Audio Books, 2023) co authored with Bethany C. Morrow; narrated by Bahni Turpin
A Black contemporary family drama with a side of magic.

The formerly close-knit Cauley sisters-Nicole, Lynn, and Charlie-have drifted apart in their adult lives. But they are unexpectedly brought together by sudden passing of their mother. Returning to their ancestral home, the last Black-owned funeral parlor in the city, the sisters are joined by their cousin, Rene, and their grandmother as they come to terms with their grief. However, they’re facing more than one loss: For generations, the Cauley women have possessed a family magic to keep a powerful demon named Legion at bay. After their mother’s death, the power appears to be lost. And without it, they’re sitting ducks.

Long-standing feuds and unspoken hostilities arise as the women struggle to work together and regain their magic. As tensions flare and Legion closes in, the family must overcome their differences and prove that blood is thicker than evil.

Power Rangers Unlimited Heir  (Boom! Studios 2021)
Astronema is one of the most popular Power Rangers villains ever and her true origin is revealed for the first time in a one-shot directly connected to the events of Mighty Morphin and Power Rangers!

Before she became a Power Ranger, a young girl named Karone was kidnapped by bounty hunters and brainwashed into the assassin known as Astronema by two of the greatest threats in the galaxy — Dark Specter and Ecliptor.

But what is Dark Spector’s true plan… and what does it mean for the new Mighty Morphin & Power Rangers teams?

Power Rangers Unlimited: Edge of Darkness (Boom! Studios, 2021)
For the first time ever, discover true stories of two of the most popular Power Rangers characters ever – the deadly assassin known as Andromeda and the mysterious hero bearing the name Phantom Ranger.

The shocking revelations about their pasts will forever change the futures of the Mighty Morphin and Power Rangers teams in ways no one ever imagined.

A Black So Black (Imprint, 2018)
The first time the Nightmares came, it nearly cost Alice her life. Now she’s trained to battle monstrous creatures in the dark dream realm known as Wonderland with magic weapons and hardcore fighting skills. Yet even warriors have a curfew.

Life in real-world Atlanta isn’t always so simple, as Alice juggles an overprotective mom, a high-maintenance best friend, and a slipping GPA. Keeping the Nightmares at bay is turning into a full-time job. But when Alice’s handsome and mysterious mentor is poisoned, she has to find the antidote by venturing deeper into Wonderland than she’s ever gone before. And she’ll need to use everything she’s learned in both worlds to keep from losing her head… literally.

A Dream So Dark (Imprint, 2019)
Still reeling from her recent battle (and grounded until she graduates high school), Alice must cross the Veil to rescue her friends and stop the Black Knight once and for all. But the further she ventures into Wonderland, the more topsy-turvy everything becomes. It’s not until she’s at her wit’s end that she realizes—Wonderland is trying to save her. There’s a new player on the board; someone capable of using Nightmare creatures to not only influence the living but raise the dead.

Dreams have never been so dark in Wonderland, and if there is any hope, Alice must confront the worst in herself—and in the people she loves—and face the very nature of fear.

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