Junie

A Novel

By: Erin Crosby Eckstine

A young girl must face a life-altering decision after awakening her sister’s ghost, navigating truths about love, friendship, and power as the Civil War looms.

“The richly textured prose quickly pulled me into [Junie’s] treacherous yet magical world.”—Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake

Sixteen years old and enslaved since she was born, Junie has spent her life on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, cooking and cleaning alongside her family, and tending to the white master’s daughter, Violet. Her daydreams are filled with poetry and faraway worlds, while she spends her nights secretly roaming through the forest, consumed with grief over the sudden death of her older sister, Minnie.

When wealthy guests arrive from New Orleans, hinting at marriage for Violet and upending Junie’s life, she commits a desperate act—one that rouses Minnie’s spirit from the grave, tethered to this world unless Junie can free her. She enlists the aid of Caleb, the guests’ coachman, and their friendship soon becomes something more. Yet as long-held truths begin to crumble, she realizes Bellereine is harboring dark and horrifying secrets that can no longer be ignored.

With time ticking down, Junie begins to push against the harsh current that has controlled her entire life. As she grapples with an increasingly unfamiliar world in which she has little control, she is forced to ask herself: When we choose love and liberation, what must we leave behind?

©2025 Erin Crosby Eckstine (P)2025 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“The richly textured prose quickly pulled me into the protagonist’s treacherous yet magical world. I was drawn to the story of Junie, an enslaved teenager with a love of books and nature who must navigate difficult truths about her family and friendships in order to survive her times.”—Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake

“Propulsive and haunting, young Junie takes on the many burdens handed to her while reaching for the hope she wasn’t meant to have. Erin Crosby Eckstine breathes urgency, wit, and resilience into her preternaturally gifted protagonist. Junie is a lush and immersive story about power, reckoning, love, and redemption. . . . A true beauty of a book.”—Diane Marie Brown, author of Black Candle Women

“Junie is the beating heart of this powerful and moving coming-of-age novel, insisting on her right to language, love, and a life on her own terms. Rich in historical detail and packed with suspense, this is a story of survival I will not forget.”—Erin Swan, author of Walk the Vanished Earth