I Have Some News
(unfortunately for my parents, none of it is me getting married or having a baby.)
SOMEHOW! it is December.
I feel like I say this a lot, usually in small talk over the Starbuck counter, but time flew so fast this year. And, honestly, I can’t even remember what I did.
All at once, it was an exhausting year and yet, nothing happened.
It was a tedium year, but I can tell you that a couple of exciting things happened for me.
In November, I sold a whole new book!
Text reads: DEAD DEAD GIRLS author Nekesa Afia's AS LONG AS YOU'RE MINE, a dual-timeline mystery, in which a Black woman passing as white in 1933 must fight against enemies and rivals as Sunset Studio's newest rising star, while a young woman in the 1950s reckons with a dark secret that's been hidden for 21 years, to Melissa Valentine at Lake Union Publishing, in a nice deal, in an exclusive submission, for publication in fall 2025, by Travis Pennington at The Knight Agency (world).
I sold it to Lake Union Publishing at Amazon and it was quite literally the most exciting thing to happen in a while. I love this book. I wrote the lion’s share of it last year while I was trying to prove to myself that I could actually write. AS LONG AS YOU’RE MINE is a story I’ve been working on in little bits since even before I had an agent, and I can’t believe that it’s going to be a book. It’s changed so much, but it’s so good and I’m so proud of it.
It was born from my love of classic movies, and my fascination with Old Hollywood. It was my first time really trying a dual timeline. It’s much different from the Harlem Renaissance books and I can’t wait to talk more about it.
(Also, this means that I will have two releases in 2025, which will be a busy year.)
My other bit of news, and the last for 2023, is that the book I’ve been calling LOU3 has a title, a release date, AND a cover.
A LETHAL LADY comes out on July 30th, 2024.
New place. New girls ;). New mysteries.
I’m not joking when I say that writing this book exhausted me. I don’t know what happened to me, but I felt like I lost all my magic. It was hard, rather than fun.
I don’t know what happened to me, but getting to this point feels like a miracle. I was having nightmares about constantly writing it, constantly working on it.
Currently, this book is with production and my next step will be copyedits.
This is a new step for me and for Lou. Honestly, between you, me and the walls, I’m so tired of this book that I don’t know how I feel about it. I’ve had to take constant breaks, but we got there in the end.
Shout out to my ever patient editor, Michelle, who was instrumental in telling me to TAKE A BREAK when I phoned her in tears.
My mom likes the title because Lethal Lady is also Lou’s initials.
I’m excited to share more with you about A Lethal Lady.
But for now, you can PREORDER it and add it to your GOODREADS.
(You can also add to your STORYGRAPH, the superior book tracking website.)
Have a happy holidays and New Years.
(And don’t forget to follow me on INSTAGRAM.)