Bindle Punk Bruja
A Novel
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Boardwalk Empire meets The Vanishing Half with a touch of earth magic in this sexy and action-packed historical fantasy set in the luminous Golden Twenties from debut author Desideria Mesa, where a part-time reporter and club owner takes on crooked city councilmen, mysterious and deadly mobsters, and society’s deeply rooted sexism and racism, all while keeping her true identity and magical abilities hidden—inspired by an ancient Mexican folktale.
Yo soy quien soy. I am who I am.
Luna—or depending on who’s asking, Rose—is the white-passing daughter of an immigrant mother who has seen what happens to people from her culture. This world is prejudicial, and she must hide her identity in pursuit of owning an illegal jazz club. Using her cunning powers, Rose negotiates with dangerous criminals as she climbs up Kansas City’s bootlegging ladder. Luna, however, runs the risk of losing everything if the crooked city councilmen and ruthless mobsters discover her ties to an immigrant boxcar community that secretly houses witches. Last thing she wants is to put her entire family in danger.
But this bruja with ever-growing magical abilities can never resist a good fight. With her new identity, Rose, an unabashed flapper, defies societal expectations all the while struggling to keep her true self and witchcraft in check. However, the harder she tries to avoid scrutiny, the more her efforts eventually capture unwanted attention. Soon, she finds herself surrounded by greed and every brand of bigotry—from local gangsters who want a piece of the action and businessmen who hate her diverse staff to the Ku Klux Klan and Al Capone. Will her earth magic be enough to save her friends and family? As much as she hates to admit it, she may need to learn to have faith in others—and learning to trust may prove to be her biggest ambition yet.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mesa's ambitious but messy historical fantasy debut plunges deep into the underbelly of Prohibition-era Kansas City, following half-white, half-Mexican Luna Alvarado as she crafts a new life for herself as Rose Lane, cub reporter by day, and speakeasy manager by night. Passing as white is not as difficult as passing as mortal; she's also half bruja, or earth witch, and her powers manifest in an ability to charm men into doing her will by kissing them. She uses this charm to open a club "with real booze and a real orchestra" in the ritzy Hotel Bellerive—but as soon as she does, the Klan tries to shut her down, local mobsters extort her, all the men in her life try to claim and control her, and Al Capone schemes to use her to expand his operations across the Midwest. The result is fun but shallow, with brassy one-note characters who constantly repeat themselves and often speak in goofily rendered dialects ("Hey, latecoma', I'm the one who's skewa'd here!") in between bewildering or groan-worthy descriptions of emotions ("his eyes hardening in sable angst"). This is a lesser addition to the recent slew of 1920s-set SFF, one perhaps best left to diehard fans of Prohibition-era historical fantasy.
