#17 - My Debut Adult Fantasy THE SINISTER ELITE (2025) & Other Things I Won't Shut Up About
AKA "also happy barbie (2023) month to all who celebrate"
PROLOGUE
I know Pride Month is technically over—and what a sad note it ended on this year—but don’t forget that people are queer all year round and deserve your empathy, respect, and support. Now, welcome back to my newsletter! If you also follow me on socials, you know I announced some exciting news in the past month; but if you don’t follow me on socials you can skip down to it in Chapter 1. In the meantime, July means a trip to Seattle for me and rest from an INCREDIBLY busy June, so I’m pretty hyped.
Currently, I’m reading A Chorus of Ashes and Shadows, the conclusion of Melissa Karibian’s sapphic Little Mermaid retelling, and it’s SO GOOD. I’ve been watching The Conjuring and calling it “book research”, but really I just adore these movies. And, of course, I’ve had Olivia Rodrigo’s new single, “vampire”, on a loop. I love Olivia Rodrigo, I love pop music, and I love playing That One Song until I’m absolutely sick of it.
Obligatory reminder to preorder my book, SO LET THEM BURN, if you haven’t already—or at least tell someone about it and/or add it on Goodreads. Now, let’s get on with the nonsense!
CHAPTER 1: I HAVE ANOTHER BOOK COMING OUT!!
Forgive me for skipping the Pop Culture Moment of the Month section so that I have more space to ramble about my new book. In case you missed it, my Adult debut, THE SINISTER ELITE, will be coming your way in Summer 2025. It’s a speculative dark academia thriller, and I’ve been pitching it as Ninth House meets Inception. (And some The Conjuring 👀)
The idea for THE SINISTER ELITE has been sitting in the back of my mind since I read A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee and began to think I might want to write my own dark academia. As books like Babel and The Atlas Six, The Whispering Dark and, of course, Ninth House came out, I thought about what exactly about academia I wanted to interrogate—because, for me, dark academia is not simply a thriller set at a school, but examines and explores an aspect of academia as a central theme through the character(s)’ journey.
As a Black woman and as a first generation immigrant, university was pushed as THE way to advance myself in America, the land of opportunity. But what happens when that “American dream” and “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” attitude fails to account for who is allowed to succeed in our society? What happens when you simply don’t have access to the same resources, opportunities, and connections as those you’re told to aspire to be? What happens when your dreams of success have to come second to what your immigrant family considers success? And what happens when the very people who want to see you fail sometimes include other Black people?
With those themes in mind, I began writing what would become THE SINISTER ELITE. The story is about a twenty-one-year-old woman named Ellory Morgan, who is starting as a “late” freshman at a fictional ivy league university that she couldn’t otherwise afford without a scholarship she’s terrified to lose. However, a few months into her freshman year, she begins to suffer from creepy, uncanny events that lead her to suspect that her memories have been tampered with and her reality is a construct… and her quest to uncover the truth leads her to the door of a secret society that would do anything—even kill—to keep her complacent.
Like me, Ellory is a first generation Jamaican-American immigrant. Like my sister, Ellory attends an ivy league school where she has to work twice as hard to be considered half as good as her predominantly white classmates. But despite the heavy themes I described above, this book is still fun. Yes, there’s atmospheric tension and terrifying things in the dark, but there’s also banter, thrills, and a sarcastic, alluring golden boy named Hudson Graves with secrets of his own. And, because it’s MY book, there is Black queer rep (both Ellory and Hudson are Black and bisexual).
As a gift for subscribing to my newsletter, here’s a small snippet. (Warning: the book has yet to be edited, so this paragraph may change or be removed in the final.)
“Hey,” Ellory murmured. “Do you ever feel like... Have we had this discussion before?”
“About bell hooks or about my elocution?”
“Okay, Encyclopedia Brown.” That nickname. It felt unnaturally natural, even though she’d never used it before. “Seriously, have we...?”
“I have no idea what you’re asking me, Morgan,” Hudson deadpanned. “You’ll have to use your words.”
Ellory realized for the first time that the space between them had disappeared. Hudson leaned against the desk, gazing at her like he was searching for something. She clutched [the book] between them, but that was all that was between them. If she breathed too deeply, the knuckles of her hand would brush his sweater. Their height difference had evaporated, thanks to her heels. When she didn’t have to tilt her head to meet his eyes, they felt more equal. It startled her, how intense the brown of them were from so close. Strong and earthy, deep and dark. The kind of brown that buried people alive.
The kind they wanted to be buried in.
It would mean a lot to me if you would add THE SINISTER ELITE to Goodreads and hype my Adult debut as much as you hype my Young Adult debut. They’re both very special stories, close to my heart. I can’t wait to share them both with you in the coming years!
CHAPTER 2: HAVE A LITTLE PODCAST, AS A TREAT
I’m low-key biased, since I’m going to be interviewed for an episode of this very podcast, but Raise Your Words has interviewed Maiya Ibrahim and Kosoko Jackson, not to mention had book club episodes, trope episodes, and movie adaptation episodes. It’s definitely worth a listen!
CHAPTER 3: THE REC ROOM
Welcome to the Rec Room, the section of my newsletter that I use to highlight books coming out each month I’m really excited about. For July, we have…
A SONG OF SALVATION by Alechia Dow
Zaira Citlali is supposed to die. After all, she's the god Indigo reborn. Indigo, whose song created the universe and unified people across galaxies to banish Ozvios, the god of destruction. Although Zaira has never been able to harness Indigo's powers, the Ilori Emperor wants to sacrifice her in Ozvios's honor. Unless she escapes and finds Wesley, the boy prophesized to help her defeat Ozvios and the Ilori, once and for all. Wesley Daniels didn't ask for this. He just wants to work as a smuggler so he can save enough money to explore the stars. But when his path crosses with Zaira, he soon finds himself in the middle of an intergalactic war with more responsibility than he bargained for.
BONESMITH by Nicki Pau Preto
For bonesmith Wren, becoming a valkyr—a ghost-fighting warrior—is a chance to solidify her place in the noble House of Bone and impress her frequently absent father. But when sabotage causes Wren to fail her qualifying trial, she is banished to the Border Wall, the last line of defense against a wasteland called the Breach where the vicious dead roam unchecked. When a House of Gold prince is kidnapped and taken beyond the Wall, Wren vows to cross the Breach and rescue the prince to prove she has what it takes to be a valkyr. But her mission forces her into an uneasy alliance with one of the kidnappers—a fierce ironsmith called Julian from the exiled House of Iron, the very people who caused the Breach in the first place... and the House of Bone's sworn enemy.
CHAPTER 4: LOOK AT MY CAT!!!
As you may know, I adopted a shelter cat in December 2021, who I named Sora Mittens. Like most cats, Sora loves a good look out a window. This is her watching the neighborhood in the living room at my parents’ house. I respect her commitment to keeping us all safe.
EPILOGUE
Thank you for subscribing and/or for sticking around! I hope you like rambles, shenanigans, and nonsense, because that’s truly all this is. Later this month marks exactly six months until SO LET THEM BURN comes out, so I’m once again going to beg you to preorder and then disappear into the ether for fear of being perceived. Have an amazing month, all!