Who would you choose: your sister or your people? That’s the question at the core of Kamilah Cole’s forthcoming YA fantasy debut, So Let Them Burn, a tale confronting colonialism, the aftermath of war, and the challenges of sisterhood.
Faron, the Child Empyrean of the island of San Irie, is blessed with the ability to channel the gods and their powers and will never forget the horrors she witnessed as a child soldier, battling the Langley empire. When her sister Elara unexpectedly bonds with a Langley dragon, and is forced to head to Langley to train, Faron is left with no choice but to turn to the gods for help to rescue her sister. As Elara learns to survive in what she once believed to be enemy territory and finds herself growing more connected to her community of dragon trainers, Faron questions the intentions of the gods and if their plans leave room for her family’s survival.
With her novel, Cole joins the expanding canon of Black magical stories such as Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone and Dhonielle Clayton’s The Belles series, which she cites as inspiration for helping her realize that there was room on the shelves for her story.
“It’s not that I didn’t know that you could do that. It’s more that I didn’t know that you could do that and actually have the book get bought,” Cole told PW. “Those authors paved the way to show not only can you write these stories and publish them, they can be really, really successful.”
Cole began to pivot to becoming an author in 2018, while she was working at Bustle as the entertainment editor. Writing sessions with co-workers who shared the same hope of becoming a published author gave her the opportunity to focus on completing her story while managing a day job. It was after several revisions (Cole estimates 38 or 39 rewrites) and participating in #PitMad in 2020, the now defunct online pitch event, that Cole met her agent, Emily Forney of Bookends Literary Agency. Forney brought the book to Alex Hightower, associate editor at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, who immediately felt “this YA fantasy was right up my alley” and bought the book in a six-figure preempt.
Along with the book’s Jamaican Joan of Arc tagline and dragons aplenty, what truly captured Hightower’s attention was Cole’s complex depiction of sisters who are carving out names for themselves while loving each other immensely. “Sisterhood isn’t simple—it’s messy and looks different for every set of siblings,” Hightower said. “Kamilah did such an incredible job capturing the love that Faron and Elara have for each other, despite their differences as people and the individual pressures that they face. Kamilah’s characters feel real, and this special familial relationship touched my heart from the first few chapters.”
The novel has received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist, is popping up on most anticipated lists from Book Riot and The Nerd Daily, and was chosen for IndieBound’s January/February 2024 Kids Indie Next List. And Cole’s debut is finding its readership, particularly among fantasy fans. Over on BookTok, a valuable resource for young readers today, the #SoLetThemBurn hashtag has racked up over 500,000 views. BookTokker Bri Monet, known online as BookBaddieBri, uses her platform of 60,000 followers to highlight Black authors in the YA fantasy space and selected So Let Them Burn as one of her most anticipated forthcoming reads.
“I champion Black fantasy stories on my platform every day and am always looking forward to contributions that new Black authors make to the genre,” Monet said.
As to why she was drawn to So Let Them Burn in particular, Monet said, “As a big sister myself I’m excited to see the dynamic between Faron and Elara, and how their relationship shapes a tale filled with magic and dragons.” And for Monet, the hype surrounding the book has been well-earned. “Spoiler alert: I’ve already started the book and I’m kinda hooked already!”
And while Cole’s debut experience has brought many highs, it also included a bit of online controversy. In December, Cole’s book was one of several debut fantasy titles targeted via negative Goodreads reviews by another debut author, Cait Corrain. But Cole takes it all in stride. “I appreciate everyone who reached out and supported me and my work and my fellow creators. But I just keep my head down and work on my books.”
Looking ahead, there are more adventures on Cole’s horizon. In the next book in the series, readers can look forward to what the author is calling Faron’s “corruption arc. I call it that because she keeps making worse and worse decisions,” Cole said. “But honestly, I think she’s just becoming more and more herself. In the second book, she’s like, listen, I tried. Now, we’re going to do whatever we think we can do. I love digging into that because I support women’s rights as well as women’s wrongs.”
So Let Them Burn hits shelves on January 16.
So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole. Little, Brown $19.99 Jan. 16 ISBN 978-0-316-53463-5
