Author LaDarrion Williams, originally from Helena, is making his mark with his first fantasy book called, “Blood at the Root.”
Williams wrote a post on Facebook that has more than 12,000 shares and 6,000 likes celebrating the pre-order release of the book. In the post he says: “Yes. I wrote a book about a Black boy from Helena, Alabama with ancestral magic. Yes, he can cast spells. Conjure hurricanes, teleport through time and space, and burn down the world with his blue ancestral fire. He is his ancestors’ wildest dreams. Took 14 years years to get here. #BloodattheRoot will be in bookstores nationwide. May 7th, 2024.”
Williams, who is based in Los Angeles, told AL.com this book first started out as a television script that was pitched to various production studios.
“The story first went viral on twitter when I posed the question, ‘What if Harry Potter went to an HBCU?’” he said. “Then I made a short film with some friends during the pandemic, I thought I had something special, I got gold. I thought Hollywood would want it because it had a viral moment.”
However, he said the idea was rejected by several executives because they weren’t sure how to market it and they didn’t really connect with the main character. But it was important to Williams to showcase a young Black boy having a coming-of-age story that was coming into his powers at a magical HBCU.
Williams then reimagined the story as a book due to his love of reading.
“When I was in high school, it was the peak of the young adult book genre. There was ‘Hunger Games,’ ‘Twilight,’ ‘Harry Potter.’ But being a Black kid from the South, especially a small town in Alabama, I loved those stories, but I didn’t see anybody who looked like me or sounded like me,” said Williams. He also mentioned getting theme inspiration from Beyonce’s “Black Is King” visual album and the movie “Moonlight”.
Williams initially planned to self-publish, but he received several offers from high-profile publishers that led to a competitive bid. He ultimately signed with Penguin Random House in January 2023 and will have two more books to follow to create a trilogy of Malik’s life as he further discovers his magical powers.
The book is currently available for pre-order, and has already made Amazon’s number one pre-sale bestseller books. The book will be available for purchase in September 2024.
Williams plans to hold a launch and book signing in the Birmingham area.
