Life got in the way and I could not finish the book. Thanks to the publishers for the chance to read the book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy in exchange for honest feedback

This one's an altogether warmer book, the kind you'd want to hold onto during those cold Pennsylvania winter nights.

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

"Books let dead people talk to us from the grave."


Will Do Magic for Small Change was a wild ride. In this, you will meet Cinnamon Jones, and she's one of a kind. She's opinionated but awkward. She's full of anger and grief due to losing her brother, her dad being in a coma, and not connecting with her mother. So, when The Chronicles of the Wanderer comes into her life, it's no wonder her life will never be the same.

Between The Chronicles and what's going on her in real life, this book is an endless adventure. I never once felt bored, and everything felt magical. However, I will admit that I had my fair share of moments where I was confused about what was going on. They were few and far in between but still wanted to mention that they did happen.

Other than that, I really liked how the lgbtqia+ community was represented throughout this. No one was really carved into one thing, and they were free to explore and express who they were. I also really enjoyed the found family portrayal and personal connections that developed along the way.

In the end, I just really enjoyed this book—probably a lot more than I originally expected I would. I can't wait for the next book/adventure.

Real rating: 3.5

I wish this would sell more in the store because the premise is fun, the story is good, and the writing is lovely! But it ended up being one of those that never sold and we had to return as a -1 :(

DNF at 25%

The first chapter was interesting, and the idea had me, but when I saw how long it took for introductions, it switched to a shorter one. I was lost - literally, my pet peeve.

May eventually read it from my own library but not any time soon!

This is a lovely, if meandering, story. I didn't quite manage to finish it, but I think that had more to do with it being the wrong tale at the wrong time for me than any fault with the book. Recommended for those looking to find hope for survival in the midst of the fractures of modern urban life.

I really wanted to like this, I tried so hard to like it. But there was something about it that just didn’t work for me. I think the main issue with this novel is it’s essentially a novel within a novel. Sometimes that can work but the writing style is also very different and so it really takes you out of the overall story.
Here’s the concept, Cinnamon just lost her brother to suicide. Her brother was gay and a dictionary kleptomaniac, with a drug problem and an apparently magic book. Just before he died he gave her the book, she’s 13 and believes everything in it. Her brother says it’s entirely true and follows an alien that came to earth in 1890 and documented his adventures as he tries to understand humanity and keep it safe. Other people tell her it’s a fictional book and honestly it probably is.

The alien portions focus heavily on African countries and mythology and do expect you to know all of this mythology without any input from the author really. It would be appreciated because even Greek mythology novels give you context and we all know a lot of Greek mythology. So that made it harder to connect with, especially as the writing is vague and superficial, and generally very violent.

So the contrast is very strange to follow an overweight 13 year old black girl and her hyper Christian anti gay family as her four grandparents who seem to be Native American (or at least some of them) and try to set up a play and help her mum with her grief as well. Once more the writing is kind of hyper detailed but lacks a lot of substance in terms of getting to know the characters. Highlighted by the fact that the grandparents are pretty much a hive mind character and not well separated.

I’m sorry to say it sounded exciting but the novel would have been more interesting from the aliens pov

Probably should've read the author's related companion novel before this one, but I didn't know about it until afterwards. Overall, I really enjoyed the characters in this one, they were by far my favorite part. There was a full quirky cast and the narrators were fun to read and developed. Some parts were a bit slow paced but the dual timelines were really interesting. The writing was sometimes repetitive, though this can often be due to edits and not author choices. The story within the story was really well done and the mystery element was really fun to read.

In Will Do Magic for Small Change, Andrea Hairston weaves strands of story across two centuries into a beautiful, occasionally heartbreaking but ultimately joyful, tapestry about the transformative powers of love and art and about how we break each other and help each other heal.

In 1987, teenager Cinnamon Jones’ life is upended by multiple tragedies and their aftermaths: her father Raven Cooper is shot and falls into a coma, her older half-brother Sekou dies, and her mother Opal struggles to hold herself together and care for her daughter. Her mother’s family are mostly judgmental and not helpful, her father’s family initially too far away to be of help. Cinnamon’s only source of comfort is a magical book left to her by Sekou, “The Chronicles of the Wanderer.” This book chronicles the adventures of a Dahomean warrior woman, Kehinde, and the alien Wanderer who accompanies her, in the 1800s. Somehow, the book connects to Cinnamon’s family history. Hairston skillfully alternates between the two timeframes, neither rushing the reveal of how everything is connected nor pretending there is no connection. The shifts in time are not just indicated by chapter breaks, but also by the way in which new pages of the book reveal themselves to Cinnamon, her closest friends, and her father’s family (whom Cinnamon refers to as “the Elders”).

The characters in both time frames are living rough lives. Kehinde and the Wanderer are searching for someone named Somso across war-torn Dahomey while being hunted themselves, often subsisting just off the land. Cinnamon is searching for answers to questions about her father’s injury and brother’s death while she and Opal are living in increasingly squalid poverty-level conditions in the midst of the worst winter storm Pittsburgh has seen in decades. The pain in all their lives is palpable throughout the book. Hairston does not shy away from the uncomfortable details of racism, homophobia, suicide, abuse (physical and emotional). Violence is at the core of the book, each time frame’s action incited by the death of a loved one. Because of this, Will Do Magic for Small Change is not always an easy read.

The book is not all doom-and-gloom, though. It centers joy – from the blush of first love to the comfort of family and friends who truly love you, faults and all. Those same family members can be infuriating and secretive and inconsistent. Sometimes, the people who love you break you – but they might also be the ones who help you heal. And the moments of honest reconnection and reconciliation after misunderstandings are cleared up and secrets are shared are some of the most powerful and affecting in the book.

Also powerful are the scenes where characters get lost in making their art, which ranges from painting to music to acting to cooking. Almost every major character, and a good number of the supporting cast, find strength, solace, or both, in the art they create or partake of. Tradition also plays a strong role, but in Hairston’s world traditions are a foundation to be built off of rather than an immutable set of rules to be obeyed.

Will Do Magic for Small Change moved me through the full range of emotions – joy, grief, anger, love – in equal measure and sometimes all at once. It’s a challenging and fulfilling read.

I received and read an advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Will Do Magic for Small Change released in hardcover on October 11, 2022.

Sometimes I have trouble with epic sci-fi, and unfortunately, that was the case for this one. I just couldn't get into it and had to DNF. The premise is super cool and the characters seem awesome, I just kept losing the thread while reading and realized I had gotten lost and didn't know what was going on. I'm sure this book will find its audience, and I regret that I'm not it, but that's okay because not every book is for every reader. I don't like to give negative reviews or talk much about things I DNF, so I won't be sharing this one on my normal platforms, as I don't want to discourage anyone who thinks they may enjoy it to give it a shot.

The story, characters, and world are believable and interesting. The writing style felt disjointed and made it difficult for me to get through the work. I can see where others found this work a bit confusing, but with a little extra focus this can be overcome. I think this book made me work to hard when I just wanted, based on its blurb, to escape.

I wouldn't say this book isn't worth the read, I would just warn that I can see why it is a love or hate style book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the dARC in exchange for my honest review.

Not sure if I really enjoyed reading this. I definitely persevered but it was a bit slow for me.
I couldn't connect with the characters and felt like I didn't fully understand the storyline.

So, first things first – I'm late to the whole Will Do Magic for Small Change game. I saw this on NetGalley for the first time and had no idea that the book was due for a re-release. On the bright side, that's great news for Andrea Hairston!

Cinnamon Jones comes from a family born on the stage. Almost literally, as the case may be. Her grandparents are the famous Redwood and Wildfire. Cinnamon would love nothing more than to follow in their footsteps, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

So instead, Cinnamon will find herself embroiled in the center of a family mystery, which may or may not help unite every aspect of Cinnamon's life. Only time will tell.

So, I want to preface my review by saying that I really (REALLY) wanted to like this book. There's something about Will Do Magic for Small Change that begged me to read it, so I was looking forward to it. Sort of my treat for surviving another week, you know?

Unfortunately, I struggled to get into this one. It has potential – a lot of it! And it combines some of my favorite tropes and genres. So by all rights, I should have been instantly invested. Yet there was something about the descriptions that kept breaking my immersion.

Don't get me wrong - Will Do Magic for Small Change is still a decent read. It's not the amazing read I had been expecting or hoping for. The plot's core was still fascinating, and I'm thrilled about the combination of elements that came into play here.

I did hide one crucial detail from the description up above – there's a secondary perspective for readers to dive into. I'm not sure if I should mention what that perspective is, as I didn't know about it going into it (and that was a fun surprise!). But I will say this: I ended up liking that perspective more. It was so different!

Dentro de las lecturas para #LeoAutorasOct tenía pensado escuchar algo de fantasía menos convencional, así que pensé que Will Do Magic for Small Change me vendría como anillo al dedo, con una sinopsis bastante atractiva, que incluye aliens de otras dimensiones que vienen a la nuestra. Ahí he de reconocer que me equivoqué por que el sentido de alien en inglés no es el mismo que el que yo le daba en español, pero es que aparte de esto, la historia está muy deslavazada y me resultaba difícil de seguir, sin llegar a atraparme en ninguna de las dos líneas temporales que utiliza la autora Andrea Hairston.


La novela está protagonizada por la nieta de Redwood y Wildfire, cuya historia también ha contado ya Hairston en otra novela y que quizá debería haber leído antes, pero no he encontrado un orden de lectura sugerido y no fui consciente de este hecho hasta bien avanzada la lectura.

Cinnamon recibe como “herencia” tras el fallecimiento de su hermano The Chronicles of the Wanderer, un libro del que iremos leyendo capítulos en otro momento temporal que pueden llegar a enlazar o no con la propia historia de Cinnamon. The Chronicles relata los azares de ese misterioso alien a final del siglo XIX y resulta muy atractivo el uso que la autora hace de la mitología yoruba y de la cultura africana en general, por ejemplo con las referencias a las mascaradas, de las que también hablaba Nnedi Okorafor en su saga Binti. Pero a pesar del interés del escenario, la ejecución me parece bastante pobre. Es una pena porque me hubiera interesado mucho ver cómo se desarrollaba la historia de una protagonista con tanta fuerza como Cinnamon, pero resulta muy difícil mantener el interés en la historia cuando la propia prosa te va sacando fuera de la lectura. Y eso que yo he escuchado la versión en audio de la obra, interpretada por Tamika Katon-Donegal y Andre Santana, pero aún así resultaba difícil mantener el hilo.

Otros temas que se tocan y que podrían resultar del interés del lector son la sexualidad fluida y el poliamor, pero como digo son buenos mimbres que dan lugar a una obra incompleta.

Me temo que dejaré la obra de Andrea Hairston en barbecho de momento.

- WILL DO MAGIC FOR SMALL CHANGE is a wildly imaginative and ambitious story within a story, braiding characters and plotlines from 1893 and 1987 together. It's something like a cross between Octavia E. Butler and Nalo Hopkinson, maybe with a dash of Nicky Drayden.
- I found myself more compelled by the 1800s story than the 1980s story, even though I thought Cinnamon was a great character. I think that historical plotline was just better paced for me. The modern plot often had 20 or so pages of conversation pinging between half a dozen characters while nothing much happened, and then a big pivotal moment would occur in a space of a sentence or two.
- I didn't realize until after I started reading it that this book is a companion to REDWOOD AND WILDFIRE, and while I could figure it out well enough, the characters were constantly referencing people and events from that book, so I wish I'd read it first.

Absolutely beautiful story of redemption, loss, acceptance, and magic. This urban fantasy weaves African history and culture with modern longings and failings, raising up the young and the old, bidding the reader to look beyond the mundane and see the impossible in the everyday.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for my free copy.

I liked Master of Poisons by this author somewhat better. This one jumps back and forth between Cinnamon grieving her brother and a book of folklore or magic history that he left her. I think I might have liked it better if it had mostly been Cinnamon’s story with just brief glimpses into the book her brother left. Still a solid story and I’ll try whatever the author writes next. The two I’ve read by her have both been good!

This book is incredibly fascinating. The plot is exactly what I want from a book like this. Weird, with lots of random connections. I enjoyed the premise and the characters and the way they grew together and dealt with complex relationships. I really liked Hairston's work and can't read to read some of her other works. I really think she has fascinating way of creating and weaving the story as it came to a conclusion.

However, some of this book lost me. I was a little shocked this will be a re-publish and had as many needed edits as it did. Further, a bit of the plotting lost me in places. It dragged in a lot of ways that had me wishing to get to the next step. That mixed with a very confusing start with a lot of characters thrown at me had me a bit confused and lost a bit of the overall enjoyment for me. Good novel, definitely interesting science fiction, but overall some lags.

I can definitely see both sides to liking this story: on one hand, it was very well plotted and I love a good character-driven sci-fi. But on the other hand I can see how you could feel a bit unmoored and unconnected to the story, even after being in it for a while. It's also interesting that this is a rerelease from 2016, but I do think that rereleasing it will give this story a chance to reach even more people who may love it. I think my biggest issue with the story was the repetition and the writing, I found it hard to muddle through the copious amounts of repetition and the writing style didn't help that. I would still give this a shot, especially if you love ghosts and aliens and African history, because you never know when you'll find an unexpected favorite. I'm appreciative of the opportunity to read this early, but ultimately this is a solid 3 stars for me. I will definitely check out more by this author, though. Who knows? Maybe their style will lend itself more to a different genre.