Devour

A lineage of Louisiana women imprison the African spider god Anansi in this unnerving if overwrought horror-folkore debut from Joyner and Pugh. The opening pages retell how Anansi long ago dispensed wisdom to jungle animals from a “large clay pot,” but when his advice that “the harder the chase, the better the catch” resulted in a leopard’s death, her cub vowed revenge. That fable looms over the present-day story of teenager Patsy Turner, her father Marcus, and her two brothers, all of whom move in with their dementia-stricken grandmother, Vassie. When Anansi stalks Patsy’s dreams, Vassie reveals that the Turner women are rootworkers who’ve bound the trickster god to their land. Vassie trains Patsy in hoodoo (folk magic and medicine) after school, unleashing the girl’s “magick,” which was originally taught to an enslaved Turner ancestor by Anansi and has been passed down from mother to daughter through the generations. The overuse of flashbacks and layered-on exposition bloats an intricate—if at times predictable—plot. Pugh’s artwork, however, is a highlight—his rendering of Anansi elicits gut-churning dread. After many twists and turns in the family’s story, including details of how the leopard cub “tricked the trickster,” Joyner teases the next installment in the series. But readers may not have the patience to stick around for more. Agent: (for Joyner) Anjali Singh, Ayesha Pande Literary. (May)