Dear Reader, Love Author: Elizabeth Agyemang
Dear Reader,
Confession: I’ve always been drawn to love stories that leave me devastated. Can love truly conquer all? Or are lovers mere mortals who are ill-fated and flawed? In my favorite stories like Black Orpheus, Sinners, and The Vampire Diaries, the characters are often fighting against fate for each other. Happily ever after can take many forms. Sometimes it can be as simple as the characters finally accepting the truth of what it means to love unconditionally without losing one’s self. I’ve also always adored stories that genre blend, and I constantly find myself gravitating towards characters that can be written off as “unlikeable” or “unrelatable”.
I think part of the reason why those kinds of works and characters speak to me so much goes back to knowing from any early age that the stories that some parts of the world told about people who look like me have often made us out to be “unrelatable”, “unlikeable”, or “the other”. It’s probably also why I love mythology and folktales so much: I came to question the myth of who is the monster and who is the hero because I learned how often dichotomies are twisted and history is erased or rewritten completely.
Divine Oaths is an ode to my favorite kinds of love stories. It’s about what happens when you are forced to make choices while constrained by the weight of history and the threads of fate. It’s a genre mash up: a dark academia, romantic fantasy with thriller and mystery elements woven within it. And it’s a love letter to the Black Diaspora.
As you journey into the world of Westfield and spend time with these very complicated characters, I hope we can continue together, connecting through stories, learning from and learning of each other’s histories, and grapple with what it means to break generational curses.
With gratitude,
Elizabeth Agyemang
Ninth House meets Legendborn in this thrilling dark academia novel following a new student fueled by questions about her prestigious university and the haunting answers she uncovers as her heart pulls her in two different, dangerous directions.
“Dark academia fans, get ready for your newest obsession.”—Nisha J. Tuli, USA Today bestselling author of Trial of the Sun Queen
This gorgeous SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION paperback features luxe sprayed edges-only available in a limited first printing.
Westfield University was supposed to be Sianna Adu’s dream school. But just when she’s on the cusp of attending the elite academic institution hidden in Virginia’s swampland, an unexpected tragedy changes everything. In one day, Sianna loses her family and gains an extraordinary power—the ability to see lifelines and witness other people’s pasts and futures.
With all she’s lost, Sianna puts her college dreams on pause and spends her days navigating dead-end jobs and a not-so-secret crush on her coworker. But when Kasem Saint James, the undeniably handsome heir to Westfield, approaches her with a strange request, the future Sianna has long deferred becomes a dangerous new reality. Worried that her powers are now tied to Kasem, she has no choice. Fate has called her to Westfield.
At an academy where secret societies abound, connections are everything, and an ominous history—stretching back centuries—determines the future, Sianna and Kasem must piece together the past to undo a curse that binds them to each other.
With a swoony romance and jaw-dropping twists, this layered dark academia novel introduces a university where nothing is quite as it seems.