Tuesday, February 3, 2026

626-Area Native Launches Her Adult Fiction Debut at Vroman’s on the Book’s Publication Day

Christina Hammonds Reed, whose YA bestseller explored the 1992 LA riots, returns to Pasadena with a supernatural family saga

Christina Hammonds Reed grew up in the suburbs of the 626 area code. On Tuesday, she returns to discuss her adult fiction debut at Southern California’s oldest independent bookstore, on the day the book hits shelves.

Reed will sign and discuss “The Johnson Four” at Vroman’s Bookstore at 7 p.m. The novel follows three brothers and a ghost as they chase musical stardom in the 1960s, a story that spans decades and roves from the music industry’s exploitation to the war in Vietnam to the corridors of a mental institution. Reed’s debut YA novel, “The Black Kids,” was a New York Times bestseller, a William C. Morris Award finalist, and a California Book Award Silver Medalist.

Author Kelly McWilliams will lead the conversation. McWilliams, whose own novels include “Your Plantation Prom Is Not Okay” and “Mirror Girls,” also writes about Black American history.

“The Johnson Four” centers on Odysseus Johnson and his three sons — Roman, Rocco, and River — who aspire to musical stardom. Driving home from a failed audition in Detroit, the family encounters Christmas Jones the Third, the ghost of a young Black orphan who once performed as a minstrel sensation. Christmas joins the family. But as the brothers approach stardom, a violent act tears them apart.

Reed holds an MFA from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. In a previous interview, she described the new book as exploring “the nature of what it means and has meant historically to be a Black performer in this country, and the success and perils of that particular version of the American Dream.”

“At the end of the day I’m so fundamentally drawn to telling stories about the myriad ways in which Black people love each other,” Reed said.

Advance reviewers have responded to the book’s ambition. Author Dawnie Walton called it “epic and immersive, riding the line between darkness and light.” Emma Brodie, author of “Songs in Ursa Major,” described it as “an unforgettable family saga that glitters with interwoven threads of fame, war, and the unquenchable longing for home.”

Vroman’s Bookstore, founded in 1894, hosts more than 400 free community events each year. The store, at 695 E. Colorado Blvd., was named Publishers Weekly Bookseller of the Year in 2008.

The event begins at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, February 3. For information, call 626-449-5320.

“The Johnson Four” is published by Ballantine Books at 496 pages and $30 in hardcover.