Ninekia’s Circle

Born to Mary, a Congolese healer enslaved in the American South, Verna Mae grows up gifted—able to sense spirits, command the elements, and carry the old ways forward. Her life becomes irrevocably intertwined with James O’Connell, the plantation heir who rejects the cruelty of his father and loves Verna Mae in defiance of law, race, and fate.

As war, death, and prophecy overtake the plantation, Verna Mae and James are forced into impossible choices. Though they can never marry, their bond shapes generations—through children born of love and duty, through rituals that bind ancestors to land, and through sacrifices that echo long after slavery’s end.

When James is wounded in the Civil War and returns home changed, Verna Mae becomes the spiritual anchor holding the land, the children, and the future together. Her strength carries beyond her lifetime, as her daughters forge new paths and her descendants—through William and beyond—remain rooted in the land.

Blending African spiritual traditions, Irish folklore, and Southern Hoodoo, this novel is not a condemnation of history, but a remembrance of how love, survival, and ancestry shaped the world we live in today.

At its heart, Verna Mae is a story of women who endured, ancestors who never left, and a legacy that belongs to us all.