Today we’re excited to be joined by award-nominated and national bestselling author Kamilah Cole to discuss her adult debut, An Arcane Inheritance. We discuss writing evolutions, Dark Academia and what Kamilah has coming up for eager readers.
Hi Kamilah, thank you for joining us today. Please could you introduce yourself and tell us a little about your book An Arcane Inheritance?
Thank you for having me! My name is Kamilah Cole, and I’m a Jamaican-born and American-raised author of fantasy novels for teens and Adults. My debut duology, the Divine Traitors, is a “Jamaican Joan of Arc with dragons”, featuring books So Let Them Burn and This Ends in Embers. I wrote a sapphic short story for the USA Today bestselling anthology, The Secret Romantic’s Book of Magic. An Arcane Inheritance is my Adult debut, a standalone dark academia fantasy with romance, horror, mystery, and thriller elements.
An Arcane Inheritance follows 21-year-old Ellory Morgan, who starts at a fictional ivy league university in Hartford, CT, as a late freshman. She begins to question her reality when she finds a tattoo on the back of her neck that she does not remember getting, written in her own hand, that says REMEMBER. From there, she has to team up with the school’s surly golden boy to figure out what happened to her lost memories and who stands to benefit from keeping her in ignorance.
What conscious changes did you make writing within the adult space as opposed to the YA one and how did you find that switch?
The main difference for me between writing YA and writing Adult is in the emotional beats. The way that I would respond to a situation at twenty-one is wildly different from how I would respond to that same situation at seventeen. Teenagers have their emotions far closer to the surface; they’re more active before thinking of the consequences. Adults tend to think more than they act, because the consequences of impulsive actions—say, punching someone in the face—are more serious (i.e. losing your job, getting arrested jail for assault). It was a fun challenge!
What is one message or lingering thought that you’d like readers to take away from this book?
You don’t have to wait for anyone to empower you to go after what you want. The power you need is inside of you—and they are terrified that you’re going to figure that out.
What do you think keeps drawing readers and writers back to Dark Academia?
I think what’s fascinating about academia—and what fascinates me about the genre—is that no two people had the same experience. It’s so colored by where you came from, what you’re studying, how much money you have, who your friends are, etc. Despite being a supposed equalizer, education in practice is very inequitable. There are “good schools” and “bad schools”, students who do poorly academically but have connections or athletic skill that make them more desirable, and many people exit college with massive debt and no job to show for it. That is fertile ground for new stories because no two will ever truly be alike.
It’s also a good way to tell a thrilling adventure with a contained cast and a single location—the school. Though no two stories are the same, you can become familiar enough with the tropes of dark academia to make the genre as comforting as romance’s guaranteed HEA or horror’s guaranteed scares. I think there’s a comfort in that which attracts both writers and readers.
How do you think your writing style and routine has evolved over your journey as a writer?
I love working on my writing on a craft level: reading new books across multiple genres, studying prose that I like to figure out why I like it, buying new writing guides, etc. So I think, or rather I hope, that every new book elevates my writing style in some way, because I like to challenge myself. An Arcane Inheritance was my first standalone. Wicked Endeavors is my first romantasy. This Ends in Embers was my first time writing a sequel, and So Let Them Burn was my first time writing a book inspired by my culture. I want to look back at my body of work and say that I truly pushed myself—again, hopefully to new heights, but that’s up to the readers!
In what ways does working in publishing affect you as a writer?
There is so much about publishing that is opaque to new writers. Timelines, what is and isn’t possible, who does what—all those things I’m blessed to know because I work in publishing and I try to share that knowledge with debuts when I can. I know that people on both sides, in and out of publishing, are doing their best in an industry that’s working them to the bone, and I guess I just try to be kind.
What songs or music would serve as your ideal soundtrack for An Arcane Inheritance?
Oh, each of my books has its own playlist that I put up on Spotify. For the curious, you can find them here. An Arcane Inheritance was largely written to “Losing Your Memory” by Ryan Star, “MY POWER” by Beyoncé, and “It Will Come Back” by Hozier, among others.
What books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
Deadly Ever After by Brittany Johnson, The Lord of the Wood by EM Anderson, On Sunday She Picked Flowers by Yah-Yah Scholfield, My Keen Knife by Ana Davis, and Witch Queen Rising by Savannah Stephens are top of mind for me. I’m excited to finish Aicha by Soraya Bouazzaoui, The Drakon King by Terry J. Benton-Walker, Death Card by Jasmine Smith, The Court of Venus by Bel Banta, and The Darkness Bites Back by Laura R. Samotin and Ben Alderson.
If possible, please can you share a little about what you are currently working on or any upcoming projects you have?
I just turned in the first draft of my Adult vampire fantasy, They Call Her Death, which I pitch as Vampire Princess Diaries. It’s about a woman who attends her father’s funeral only to discover that he was the king of the hidden vampire world and he’s named her his heir. Next up, I’m working on the sequel to Wicked Endeavors, my YA romantasy set in a Spanish Renaissance inspired world about a powerless girl who cons her way into the annual social season of the elite witches that colonized her country only to find her revenge complicated by her revenge by two very different boys. The first book comes out this September.
Finally if you could only use five words to describe An Arcane Inheritance, what would they be?
You’ll never guess the ending.
An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole, Sourcebooks, $39.99, 25 February 2026, available in print and audio.
