Amari And The Great Game

Amari and the Great Game is the second installment in B. B. Alston’s Supernatural Investigations middle grade series. Published in 2022, the novel is a sequel to Amari and the Night Brothers (2021), which introduced the character of Amari and her adventures at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs and was named the Overall Winner of the 2021 Barnes and Noble Children’s and YA Book Awards.

Alston describes himself as a passionate reader and writer from an early age, and initially intended to pursue a career in the medical field. However, Alston took part in the #DVPit contest, a yearly event designed to showcase marginalized voices, after learning about it from social media. He successfully signed with an agent when he pitched the idea for his fantasy series centered on a young Black female protagonist. Amari and the Great Game explores socially relevant themes blended with magical elements, such as Finding Identity and Belonging Through Adversity, The Fight for Social Justice, and The Impact of Familial and Cultural Legacy.

This guide refers to the 2021 Kindle edition of the book.

Content Warning: The book contains depictions of bullying and racial prejudice.

Plot Summary

The novel opens just as the protagonist and narrator of the story, 13-year-old Amari Peters, is about to start summer camp for Junior Agents at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs. The book picks up after the events of Amari and the Night Brothers, during which Amari learned that she was a magician, investigated her brother Quinton’s disappearance, and defeated her former partner, now turned enemy, Dylan Van Helsing. Dylan is now imprisoned in the Sightless Depths, a supernatural prison, and Quinton is under the care of the Supernatural Health Department after being subjected to a sleeping curse.

At the beginning of Amari and the Great Game, Amari meets some of her friends to celebrate the end of the school year. Among them is her best friend Elsie, a genius inventor and weredragon, who offers them fortune cookies. Amari’s fortune reads “Beware of unseen dangers,” (14) which she takes as a cryptic omen about the upcoming camp.

On the last day of school before summer break, however, a magical incident throws a wrench in Amari’s plans. During a school trip, time is briefly frozen for a few minutes, with only Amari remaining unaffected. The Bureau of Supernatural Affairs immediately covers up the incident, but Amari becomes a target of suspicion. Indeed, despite her own accomplishments, magicians are still widely believed to be evil and dangerous after two of them, known as the Night Brothers, waged a gruesome war seven centuries earlier. Amari is initially banned from camp as a precaution, but her friends and supporters intervene and convince the authorities to let her back into camp. Once reinstated as a Junior Agent, Amari is determined to prove herself and investigate the time freeze to clear her name.

Significantly, the freeze is still in effect in the Supernatural Congress Room, leaving the supernatural leaders incapacitated. Prime Minister Bane, a vengeful wraith who holds a grudge against all magicians and other “UnWanted” magical creatures, has taken up power in the meantime. Once at camp, Amari also meets Elaine Harlowe, a mysterious faun who has been appointed as the new Director of the Department of Half Truths and Full Cover-Ups. She intends to use Amari as a success story to prove that magicians can be good and support Bane’s decision to persecute UnWanteds.

In addition, Dylan escapes the Sightless Depths, which has the supernatural world in an uproar. The highly secretive League of Magicians, which has operated in the shadows for centuries, is now preparing for a war between magicians and the rest of the supernatural world. Its steward, Cozmo, claims that only a born magician like Amari or Dylan can lead the League. Amari initially refuses because she feels pressured by the responsibility, but she agrees to a competition to avoid ceding the League’s power to Dylan. Amari and Dylan make a magical pact to enter the Great Game, a series of magical challenges to determine which one of the two will steal the other’s magic and lead the League of Magicians.

Over the course of the story, Amari and her friends investigate the time freeze against Harlowe and Bane’s orders. Initially, Amari believes that Dylan may have something to do with it since he is the only other born magician. However, Amari eventually learns that the Night Brothers used a magical stone to freeze time and that this artifact was then passed down to Merlin, the leader of the Supernatural Congress. Merlin used it to defend himself and the other members of Congress against an invisible threat. When Amari enters the frozen room and retrieves the stone from Merlin’s hand, a group of previously frozen and invisible wraiths suddenly appear. Under Bane’s orders, the wraiths attacked Congress as it was about to pass a law to grant rights to UnWanteds. Merlin, still under attack, immediately freezes the room again, and authorities arrest Bane. However, Harlowe reveals that she has been manipulating the Prime Minister with her mind-control abilities, and she regains control of the supernatural government.

Simultaneously, Amari is also called to take part in five challenges for the Great Game. For each challenge she wins, she will earn a Victor’s Ring, and the competitor with the most Victor’s Rings at the end of the Game will be crowned winner. First, she needs to tame the winds around her and walk through a canyon to retrieve the first Victor’s Ring. She is unable to complete the task, so Dylan wins the first challenge. Then, Amari and Dylan are taken to the Library of Alexandria, which is filled with sentient books, and made to retrieve the Victor’s Ring from a bowl of unidentified, dangerous-looking liquid. At first, Amari outsmarts Dylan, but he then uses force to take the Victor’s Ring from her. In the third challenge, the two magicians are shown illusions of the lives they want, in which they are fulfilled and happy. Amari rejects the illusion to return to her real friends, then helps Dylan when he gets trapped inside his own. The fourth challenge then tests their strength of will, as they are locked in a train hurtling toward the open mouth of the Kraken, a mythical deep-sea creature. Dylan gives in to fear first, which lets Amari capture the Victor’s Ring. Due to the brewing conflict between Bane’s forces and the League of Magicians, the final challenge is canceled. Instead, Amari and Dylan are made to duel for the Crown. When Dylan, who has grown more powerful thanks to his foul magick, corners Amari, the young girl almost gives in to her darker impulses. However, with Elsie’s help, she is able to regain control over her powers and momentarily defeats Dylan. Cozmo then intervenes to help Dylan win the Crown, and the young boy steals Amari’s magic before she and Elsie escape.

At the end of the book, Amari is left powerless and demoralized. However, with her brother’s curse lifted and her friends’ steadfast support, she finds new strength and motivation. The novel concludes with Amari getting ready for the war that has just begun between the League of Magicians, led by Dylan, and the supernatural world, led by Harlowe.