Lucinda Roy Books in Order

Lucinda Roy’s poems explore the lives and struggles of women across different periods. Some recreate the voices and experiences of enslaved people, connecting historical suffering with the pressures faced by women in more recent times.

Jacinta Moses grows up in London with a Black African father and white British mother, then faces loss, prejudice, and damaging relationships. After marriage in America and her daughter’s birth, she travels to Africa seeking a different understanding of herself.

Joan Plum travels to war-torn West Africa after recognizing a painting by her estranged half sister, now an artist and nun. Their reunion becomes entangled with a pollution investigation, political violence, and unresolved resentments between the sisters.

A Virginia Tech professor who taught the student responsible for the 2007 shootings reflects on warning signs, institutional responses, and the tragedy’s aftermath. Combining personal experience with analysis, she examines how universities respond to troubled students and campus violence.

Lucinda Roy brings poetry and visual art together in a collection that includes a sequence about African art. These poems honor her late father, a Jamaican Maroon woodcarver, and the artistic tradition passed down through his family.

In a divided future America, Jellybean Lottermule grows up enslaved on a plantation modeled settlement. She hopes the annual Freedom Race offers escape, while she and her friends draw on ancestral stories and supernatural encounters to imagine liberation.

Ji-ji reaches Dream City after escaping captivity, but her newfound wings and the city’s precarious freedom complicate her hopes. Alongside Tiro and Afarra, she confronts haunting memories, political threats, and the question of how to win freedom for others.

Two years after Ji-ji first flew, promised liberation has stalled and enslaved people struggle to sustain hope. She and Afarra cross the Atlantic seeking the truth behind the Flying Africans legend and the origins of their extraordinary abilities.