The Bloodline

Some legacies are written in stone. Others are carried in the blood. For eighteen-year-old Jayleen Stevens, the world is the vibrant, chaotic symphony of the Bronx. Her focus is on her camera lens, her dream to capture the raw, unfiltered beauty of her community. But when a near-fatal accident is averted by an impossible force, her reality begins to unravel. A heavy box floats in mid-air. A stranger's thoughts crash into her own. A wound on a loved one heals with her touch. The world she knows is cracking, revealing something impossible beneath. The truth is delivered by her grandmother, Mama Esi, a woman who holds the keys to a history Jayleen never knew she had. She is a descendant of a sacred bloodline, a lineage stretching back millennia to a pact made between mortals and the Orishas—the divine spirits of Yoruba cosmology. The powers awakening within her are not random; they are the sacred gifts of the gods. And Jayleen, she learns, is the most powerful to be born in generations. Forced to go on the run, hunted by shadowy government agencies who see her as a weapon and hate groups who see her as a demon, Jayleen is plunged into a hidden world of ancient magic and immense responsibility. Guided by her grandmother, she must master the terrifying scope of her abilities—from the will of the iron god Ogun to the life-giving magic of Osanyin—before they consume her. The Bloodline is a sprawling urban fantasy that masterfully blends ancient mythology with the urgent realities of modern America. It is a story about heritage, power, and the enduring struggle for justice. In a world determined to either control or destroy her, can one young woman from the Bronx embrace the power of the gods to become the protector her people have been waiting for?