The ambiguity of her ethnicity becomes a chord in the storyline that Johnson is able to pluck to great effect. Pea’s ability to pass as a white woman, though, makes it easy for her to function in a white man’s world, but it also has violent underpinning. The prevailing white belief system lies over the pre-war populace like a weighted blanket. Violence pervades the story, not only in the blood-soaked assassinations and mob brutality, but in the encounters of malicious racism to which the main characters' lives are subject. She helps Phyllis navigate this disruption and counsels her about the choices she may have to make to save herself and the baby and the moral dilemma Pea faces over the conflict.

Phyllis' unborn child has its own special powers capable of sending visions of the future, but Tamara’s cards predict these powers can lead to an impending threat. When Phyllis finds herself pregnant, Tamara comes to live with Phyllis to help her through her difficult pregnancy, especially when Dev is drafted into the Army during World War II.

To complicate things, they become involved in a disagreement with a wealthy family and an unpredictable young man who has mystical powers of his own. Phyllis and Dev escape to Dev’s upstate childhood home, and their love for each other blooms. Dev is both repelled and drawn to Phyllis and his ambivalence is the proximate cause for a bloody confrontation with Victor for the crimes he has committed. It is through Dev that Phyllis discovers the murders she has committed were not all justified, and soon she wants to escape from under the control of Victor. She describes the novel as a 'chronicle of interracial tension,' according to her website. That proves difficult for the three since Johnson places them in a setting that was marked by the racism of pre-World War II America. Like any character with superhero skills, they each seek to promote a sense of justice and morality into the circumstance they face. In 'Trouble the Saints,' published last summer, all three individuals struggle with the burdens of their powers and consider whether they have been cursed or blessed by them throughout the story. Her second young adult novel, 'Love Is The Drug,' won the 2014 Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction, awarded by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Her debut novel, 'The Summer Prince,' was among the top nominees in 2013 for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Johnson, a featured speaker last year with the Provincetown-based Twenty Summers arts festival, is an award-winning author. Alaya Dawn Johnson's new fantasy novel, and it very much is, 'Trouble the Saints' tackles some adult subject matter and tells the story of three individuals – Pea, Dev and Tamara - who have been given specific supernatural talents.

Trouble the saints