Phillip B. Williams

In the mid-1800s, Saint, an enigmatic and powerful conjure woman, always flanked by a silent companion, travels the South annihilating plantations and liberating the enslaved by means of purposeful violence and powerful magic. She founds a town for those she has freed - and for them alone. They name the town Ours. Surrounded by an impenetrable magical border raised by Saint's powers, Ours is invisible to the outer world and sits blissfully away from prying eyes and violent hands. Saint's mission is to kill slavery - to scourge its damage from the minds of her charges and to keep them safe forever. Under Saint's watchful eye and away from the terrible weight of their enslavement, the townsfolk become neighbours, friends and lovers. They build each other's homes and care for each other's children. They love and grieve together. Then two mysterious strangers, Frances and Joy, appear, inexplicably crossing the invisible border from the outer world. Saint and Frances are connected by arcane and indivisible threads, and soon Saint's lost past and fateful present begin to coalesce in ways that will either prove Ours' salvation or lay it bare to a world that would destroy it. Phillip B. Williams' astonishing debut novel is both a sweeping epic shot through with magic, and an intimate, elemental story about what it means to build a community and to try to build a life in the shadow of, and around the damage wrought by, slavery.

Ours

Lindsay

He knew Aba was a friend because of how beautiful Aba made him feel. A good friend will show you the good they see in you.

King woke from his nap on the porch to both of his legs asleep. He pulled them down and the discomfort shot through his skin and reverberated like sound leaving a struck bell. He wanted a woman to rub them back to life, then for him to be allowed to return the favor. He wanted future love and knew he needed a present love to make that happen.

And she did believe in tomorrow, but only enough to tiptoe into it with the weight of yesterday on her head.

But a sense of love is not actual love, and being told not to speak when they wanted to speak, to sit when they wanted to stand, and to read when they wanted to sing did nothing for the possibilities within and between them, for how could they express themselves honestly when their honest selves were viewed as disruptive?

Children, after all, think the cruelest things when angered and the specificity of their cruelty sharpens the aftermath.

until what felt like crying came upon him, though it was simply the overwhelming sensation of being filled by the purple- black haze of the cosmos.

But avoiding loss is not a power given to the living;

Come to find out, slavery the slickest trickster I ever knowed.’

The best she could do was love with no expectations. An unbridled love.

Ours quotes

Join the club