Titan Books released The Turning of Sally-Mae this week, the newest novel from Nuzo Onoh, an author widely credited as a leading voice in African horror fiction.
The book follows Sally-Mae Jenkins, a woman in the American West who is assaulted and left pregnant by the twin sons of a wealthy rancher. To hide the scandal, she is sent across the ocean on a missionary ship, posing as a widow. In the African village where she lands, her unborn twins draw the attention of two rival forces: the Python Goddess Asata, who wants the children dead, and the death spirit Aja-Mmo, who wants them bound to her service instead. As the twins grow into their own unearthly power, they become the instrument of Sally-Mae’s reckoning against the people who wronged her back home.
The novel arrives on the heels of a two-book deal Titan signed with Onoh in 2024. Her reputation has built steadily since her early story collections, and she has described her work as rooted in Igbo cosmology and oral tradition, filtered through classic horror tropes. The Turning of Sally-Mae leans into that mix directly, grafting West African deities and spirit lore onto frontier revenge storytelling.
The novel went on sale October 20 in paperback, priced at 18.99 USD, running 320 pages, with an ebook edition also available. It can be ordered directly through Titan Books’ own store, as well as through major booksellers.
