Anna-Marie McLemore is an author of magical realism and fairy tales shaped by queer, Latine, and nonbinary lives. Their work pairs lush, culturally grounded magic with stories about identity, belonging, trauma, healing, family, and love, spanning young-adult novels, collaborations, and adult fiction.
For twenty years, the Palomas and the Corbeaus have been rivals and enemies, locked in an escalating feud for over a generation. Both families make their living as traveling performers in competing shows-the Palomas swimming in mermaid exhibitions, the Corbeaus, former tightrope walkers, performing in the tallest trees they can find. Lace Paloma may be new to her family's show, but she knows as well as anyone that the Corbeaus are pure magia negra, black magic from the devil himself. Simply touching one could mean death, and she's been taught from birth to keep away. But when disaster strikes the small town where both families are performing, it's a Corbeau boy, Cluck, who saves Lace's life. And his touch immerses her in the world of the Corbeaus, where falling for him could turn his own family against him, and one misstep can be just as dangerous on the ground as it is in the trees. Beautifully written, and richly imaginative, Anna-Marie McLemore's The Weight of Feathers is an utterly captivating young adult novel by a talented new voice.
"An unforgettable story of trauma and healing, told in achingly beautiful prose with great tenderness and care." — #1 New York Times- bestselling author Karen M. McManus When two teens discover that they were both sexually assaulted at the same party, they develop a cautious friendship through her family’s possibly-magical pastelería, his secret forest of otherworldly trees, and the swallows returning to their hometown, in Anna-Marie McLemore's The Mirror Season . Graciela Cristales’ whole world changes after she and a boy she barely knows are assaulted at the same party. She loses her gift for making enchanted pan dulce. Neighborhood trees vanish overnight, while mirrored glass appears, bringing reckless magic with it. And Ciela is haunted by what happened to her, and what happened to the boy whose name she never learned. But when the boy, Lock, shows up at Ciela’s school, he has no memory of that night, and no clue that a single piece of mirrored glass is taking his life apart. Ciela decides to help him, which means hiding the truth about that night. Because Ciela knows who assaulted her, and him. And she knows that her survival, and his, depend on no one finding out what really happened.
In this young adult novel by award-winning author Anna-Marie McLemore, two non-binary teens are pulled into a magical world under a lake - but can they keep their worlds above water intact? Everyone who lives near the lake knows the stories about the world underneath it, an ethereal landscape rumored to be half-air, half-water. But Bastián Silvano and Lore Garcia are the only ones who’ve been there. Bastián grew up both above the lake and in the otherworldly space beneath it. Lore’s only seen the world under the lake once, but that one encounter changed their life and their fate. Then the lines between air and water begin to blur. The world under the lake drifts above the surface. If Bastián and Lore don’t want it bringing their secrets to the surface with it, they have to stop it, and to do that, they have to work together. There’s just one problem: Bastián and Lore haven’t spoken in seven years, and working together means trusting each other with the very things they’re trying to hide.
Anna-Marie McLemore writes magical realism and fairy tales shaped by queer, Latine, and nonbinary lives. Across their novels, the fantastic is closely tied to family stories, cultural memory, embodiment, and belonging rather than treated as an escape from everyday experience.
The Weight of Feathers established McLemore's interest in rival families, inherited histories, cultural specificity, and forbidden love, while The Mirror Season turns magical imagery toward the aftermath of sexual assault and the difficult work of reclaiming memory and agency. Reviews of both books emphasize prose that is sensuous and image-rich without separating the magic from the characters' social worlds.
Lakelore brings that approach to two trans nonbinary Mexican American teenagers whose neurodivergence shapes their experiences without becoming something the story asks them to overcome. McLemore's bibliography has continued through fairy-tale and canonical remixes, co-written fantasy, gothic young-adult fiction, and adult fiction, extending a sustained concern with how people make room for their full identities.
