A Song of Wraiths and Ruin

 

    

Brown, R. A. (2020). A song of wraiths and ruin. Balzar + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers.

Genre: YA Fantasy

    This book follows two narrators, Malik and Karina. Malik and his family are refugees in the city of Ziran. They are trying to enter the city during Solstasia, a festival to celebrate a new era of a deity. When his youngest sister is taken by a spirit, Malik must kill the princess of Ziran before the end of Solstasia to free her from the spirit's grasp. In order to get close to the princess, he is chosen by a deity to compete in the tournament to decide which diety is the ruler of the new era. Karina is the Princess of Ziran. When her mother, the Sultana, is killed by an assassin, she devises a plan to revive her using ancient magic. To fulfill the ritual, she needs the heart of a king. Since she is the new Sultana, she decides to give the winner of Solstasia her hand in marriage, making them the King. 

    The diversity in this book is racial and cultural. The characters are described as having brown skin and curly hair. The author, Roseanne Brown, is an immigrant from Ghana and thanks her Ghanan family in the acknowledgments.