The Other Side of Home: Satanic Verses of Love (Afroactioneers)

Preface
This story began with a question no one thought to ask a child:
“What race should we put here?”
It’s the kind of question meant for boxes, not people. Meant for forms, not families.
But for some of us, those boxes never quite fit. And neither does the silence that follows.
This is a novel about what happens when love crosses oceans, cultures, expectations—and pays the price. It’s about what is inherited when two people dare to build a life across borders not just of land, but of language, history, pride, and pain.
It is not a fairy tale.
There are no perfect heroes here.
Only people—fiercely flawed, deeply human—trying not to be erased.
At its core, this is the story of Aminah and Zhihao. A Black American girl from a churchgoing D.C. neighborhood and a Chinese boy raised behind the counter of his father’s carryout. They meet young. They fall hard. They try to hold their love together in a world where history and identity often work against them.
But this is also the story of Kai and Zola, the children of that love. Who must learn how to inherit not just what was given to them—but what was broken before they were born.
It’s a story told in glances, in silence, in betrayal, in healing.
And it’s a story about learning to check a box not for what the world expects—but for what you decide you are.
Welcome.