Flying the COOP - (Dreambird Chronicles) by Lucinda Roy (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Lucinda Roy continues the Dreambird Chronicles, her explosive first foray into speculative fiction, with Flying the Coop, the thought-provoking sequel to The Freedom Race

Dreams are promises your imagination makes to itself.

In the disunited states, no person of color--especially not a girl whose body reimagines flight--is safe. A quest for Freedom has brought former Muleseed Jellybean "Ji-ji" Silapu to D.C., aka Dream City, the site of monuments and memorials--where, long ago, the most famous Dreamer of all time marched for the same cause.

As Ji-ji struggles to come to terms with her shocking metamorphosis and her friends, Tiro and Afarra, battle formidable ghosts of their own, the former U.S. capital decides whose dreams it wants to invest in and whose dreams it will defer. The journeys the three friends take to liberate themselves and others will not simply defy the status quo, they will challenge the nature of reality itself.

Book Two of the Dreambird Chronicles

The Dreambird Chronicles
The Freedom Race
Flying the Coop

Review Quotes

Praise for Flying the Coop

"This second volume in Roy's Dreambird Chronicles... keep[s] the focus on the three young protagonists. What carries them forward are seeds of hope, anger, and history and the belief that they can force change. With strong connections to current events and an unflinching look at how things could be, Flying the Coop is an essential read."--Booklist, starred review

Praise for The Freedom Race

"Every now and then a work comes along that makes you wonder whether you are reading or dreaming. And you're not sure it matters which."--Nikki Giovanni

"Roy's comprehensive worldbuilding and immersive language creates a tapestry that blends realistic fantasy with the Black experience in the United States. The deliberate pacing and visceral descriptions of planting life will not suit all readers, but the investment is worthwhile. Ji-ji's journey is a story of resilience and hope rooted in a place where Octavia Butler and Rivers Solomon intersect with The Handmaid's Tale."--Booklist

"You ever have the feeling that if you don't read something, you may be missing out on something momentous happening? . . . I got that vibe from the first page of The Freedom Race. It has a prescience about it in the tradition of Octavia Butler. . . . If 'resilience' was a book, it would be The Freedom Race."--Maurice Broaddus, author of Buffalo Soldier

"Roy (The Hotel Alleluia) turns to speculative fiction for the first time with this lyrical, Afrofuturist hero's quest set in the not-too-distant future. ...[Ji-Ji's] harrowing but profoundly spiritual quest for sovereignty against all odds impresses. Readers ... will appreciate both the tenacious heroine and Roy's intricate prose stylings."--Publishers Weekly

"The future Lucinda Roy calls up in The Freedom Race is a fierce, unsettling riff on our past and present. Instead of watching democracy evaporate and justice fail, Ms. Roy challenges us all to get over ourselves and join the race for freedom."--Andrea Hairston, author of Will Do Magic for Small Change

"American magic-realism meets the outcome of the Second U.S. Civil War in a well-told, but brutally jolting, strangely prescient, and soul-haunting narrative."--L. E. Modesitt, Jr., bestselling author of the Saga of Recluce series

About the Author

LUCINDA ROY is an award-winning novelist, poet, and memoirist, and a lifelong advocate for diversity and inclusion. She's lived and taught on three continents and is recognized for her keynotes on race and gender, creative writing, and education reform. Her commentaries and poetry have been published in numerous newspapers and journals, including USA Today, the Guardian, and The New York Times. Roy lives with her husband in Blacksburg, Virginia, where, as a distinguished professor, she teaches creative writing at Virginia Tech. The Freedom Race and Flying the Coop are the first two books in the Dreambird Chronicles.