“Masterfully flips the first installment on its head . . . James makes the mythic tantalizingly real.” — Esquire "Even more brilliant than the first.” — Buzzfeed An Instant New York Times Bestseller and NPR Best Book of the Year · A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice From Marlon James, author of the bestselling National Book Award finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf , the second book in the Dark Star trilogy. In Moon Witch, Spider King , Sogolon the Moon Witch takes center stage and gives her own account of what happened in the search for a mysterious boy who disappeared. But the novel is more than that: It's also the story of how an abused, overlooked girl focuses the love and anger within her to become the Moon Witch and defy the Aesi, the powerful chancellor to the king. It takes brains, courage, and cunning to challenge the Aesi, which Sogolon takes on for reasons that are distinctly her own. Both a brilliant narrative device—seeing the story told in Black Leopard, Red Wolf from the perspective of an adversary and a woman—and a fascinating contrast between different versions of empire, Moon Witch, Spider King is the gripping account of Sogolon and her struggles to tell her own story. Part adventure tale, part chronicle of an indomitable woman who bows to no man, it is a propulsive novel that explores power, personality, and the unexpected places where they overlap.