The Jumbies
#5823.88 adjusted 3.89 for sample size in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 3 books Status Complete 2015–2020 Reading commitment Medium Tracey Baptiste Last reviewed 2026-08-27
Overview
The Jumbies is a completed trilogy by Trinidadian-American author Tracey Baptiste, published between 2015 and 2020: The Jumbies (2015), Rise of the Jumbies (2017), and The Jumbie God's Revenge (2020). It follows Corinne La Mer, a girl in an unnamed Caribbean island community, after she ventures into a forbidden forest on Halloween night and crosses paths with jumbies, shape-shifting spirits drawn from Trinidadian and wider Caribbean folklore, including figures such as the douen and the soucouyant. Across the three books Corinne is drawn deeper into conflicts among the jumbies themselves, first opposing a jumbie sorceress, then a rising jumbie uprising, and finally the jumbie god behind it all, while learning her own connection to that hidden world. Baptiste has described the series as a deliberate attempt to give Caribbean children a fantasy built from their own folklore rather than imported European fairy tales, and the first book was adapted into a Caribbean-set stage musical.
Mythic fantasy · For Middle grade
Core Canon: Reading Order (3 works) counts toward ranking
The Jumbies Tracey Baptiste
| Work | Year | Internal chron. | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | The Jumbies | 2015 | 1 | core | 3.84 (5,876 ratings) |
 | Rise of the Jumbies | 2017 | 2 | core | 4.06 (1,063 ratings) |
 | The Jumbie God's Revenge | 2020 | 3 | core | 3.99 (461 ratings) |
A middle-grade trilogy drawing on Caribbean (Trinidadian) folklore -- jumbies, douens, and other island spirit-creatures -- reworked as a Caribbean answer to European fairy tale conventions, per the author's own stated intent.
Quick answers
- How many books are in The Jumbies? The Jumbies's Core Canon is 3 books.
- What is the reading order for The Jumbies? Publication order, starting with The Jumbies. Full list and years in the Core Canon table above.
- Is The Jumbies finished? Complete (2015–2020).
- How much reading does The Jumbies take? Medium reading commitment (estimated from 3 Core Canon books · ~544 pages).
- How is The Jumbies ranked? #582 in this site's official ranking, based on 7,400 reader ratings across 3 Core Canon books. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #582?
Ranked #582 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 3.88 across 3 core books.
- A smaller readership (7,400 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- Less than 0.01 behind #581, The Shadow (a finer tie-break level decides the order).
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
Why explore this universe?
Rated · 3 books · Complete · 7k ratings · Ranks #582 overall
Good choice if you want a moderate-length mythic fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
Publication order (3 Core Canon books)
- The Jumbies (2015)
- Rise of the Jumbies (2017)
- The Jumbie God's Revenge (2020)
Documented internal/story chronology is recorded for every Core Canon book here, and matches publication order exactly, with no divergence to show separately.
Awards (verified)
- No literary-award record was found for this trilogy.
You might also like
Suggestions computed from what The Jumbies and each of these worlds have in common on record (subgenre, audience, shape, reading commitment and score), not a documented narrative connection.
- Time Quintet Portal fantasy / Mythic fantasy · Complete · Medium commitment · 3.97
- The Cronus Chronicles Mythic fantasy / Portal fantasy · Complete · Medium commitment · 3.84
- Where the Mountain Meets the Moon Mythic fantasy / Fairy-tale retelling · Complete · Medium commitment · 4.30
- The Pandava Quintet Mythic fantasy · Complete · Medium commitment · 4.24
Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 3.88 across 7,400 ratings on 3 Core Canon books. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: Admit The Jumbies (Tracey Baptiste) accepted 2026-08-27
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
- Official author websites Tier 1
- Reader-rating platform Tier 3
Last reviewed: 2026-08-27
Rule: Core Canon is the complete trilogy, all three novels (2015-2020).