September's book is Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson.
This is Nalo Hopkinson's debut novel\, which came to attention when it
won the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest. It tells the story of
Ti-Jeanne\, a young woman in a near-future Toronto that's been all but
abandoned by the Canadian government. Anyone who can has retreated from
the chaos of the city to the relative safety of the suburbs\, and those
left in "\;the burn"\; must fend for themselves. Ti-Jeanne is a new mother
who's trying ...to
come to grips with her as- yet-unnamed baby and also trying to end her
relationship with her drug-addict boyfriend Tony. But a passion still
burns between the young lovers\, and when Tony runs afoul of Rudy\, the
local ganglord\, Ti-Jeanne convinces her grandmother Gros-Jeanne to help
out. Gros-Jeanne is a Voudoun priestess\, and it's clear that Ti-Jeanne
has inherited some of her gifts. Although Ti-Jeanne wants nothing to do
with the spirit world\, she soon finds herself caught up in a battle to
the death with Rudy and the mother she thought she lost long ago.