We chat with author Gabi Burton about Drown With Me Dreams, which is the second book in this dark and seductive Sing Me to Sleep duology and follows a siren who must decide if saving her kingdom is worth betraying the boy she loves.
Hi, Gabi! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Thank you so much for having me! I am the author of Sing Me to Sleep and its upcoming sequel Drown Me With Dreams. I was born and raised in St. Louis before I moved to the East Coast where I studied English and Government at Bowdoin College in Maine. I now work as a paralegal and author in Minneapolis. When I’m not reading, writing, or working, I’m probably mindlessly scrolling on TikTok or walking around a lake.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I honestly can’t remember a time I didn’t love storytelling and want to be a writer. When I was a kid, I had this red rubber bouncy ball I would bounce in my room for hours. It drove my parents up the wall, but if helped me focus as I told stories to myself. I didn’t write any of those stories down yet, but I kept secret notebooks with character names and story concepts hidden around my bedroom. I first started writing stories in middle school after I got a laptop, but my love of storytelling started well before that. Over the years, I’ve tried to pinpoint the exact moment I realized I wanted to be an author, but I think that compulsion has been there for as long as I’ve known that the books I loved so much were written by people.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Junie B. Jones
- The one that made you want to become an author: The Magic Treehouse series
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Fire by Kristin Cashore remains one of my all-time favorites I think about constantly
Drown Me with Dreams is the follow-up to your debut Sing Me to Sleep and it’s out August 20th 2024! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Murder, longing, forbidden love, corruption
What can readers expect from the sequel?
You can expect a lot of pining, political intrigue, and—my personal favorite—plenty of murder. On the surface, Drown Me With Dreams is a book about a bloodthirsty siren choosing between the future of her kingdom and a cinnamon roll prince who’s completely obsessed with her. Over the course of the story, she’ll grow, do crime, and maybe start a war (or three. Oops).
I hope readers enjoy the violence and romance as much as they enjoy the heart of this book: a story about a Black girl struggling to find her place in a world that hates her, discovering her nature in spite of her erased and rewritten history, and learning to accept love in all its forms. Saoirse is a deeply flawed protagonist. She struggles to trust people and see herself as worthy. Readers can expect her to make bad choices for the right reasons, and good choices for the wrong reasons.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring further?
My favorite character has always been Saoirse’s best friend Carrik. He was my favorite in Book 1 and in Book 2, he plays a larger role in the story. I loved diving deeper into his backstory in Drown Me With Dreams. I learned a lot about him and, by proxy, Saoirse, while writing his character and I hope readers grow to love him as much as I do.
What challenges did you face whilst writing the sequel and how did you overcome them?
Writing a sequel that’s also the conclusion to a duology was… rough, to say the least. I may or may not have panic-emailed my editor a few times during the drafting process. It all worked out in the end, thankfully, but if you’ve ever heard of sophomore book syndrome, it is very much a thing.
It didn’t help that I don’t have a deep love of worldbuilding. And by that, I mean I actively resisted writing fantasy books because I didn’t want to worldbuild. So, of course, I decided to set Book 2 in a completely different world than Book 1, with more magical creatures, a different set of rules, and a completely different system of government. Mistakes were made. All of them by me. Unfortunately, the only way to get through it was just to buckle down and get it done. In the end, I’m proud of the finished product of Drown Me With Dreams, but this book was definitely more of a struggle to write than Sing Me to Sleep!
What’s next for you?
I have another YA fantasy series called Reign of Shadows, coming out with Bloomsbury in 2026! I’ve been having the best time writing this new series and I am so excited for it! Like Sing Me to Sleep, it also features an extremely morally gray protagonist and lots of political intrigue. It’s a story full of blackmail, secrets, and a rivals to lovers romance complicated by the fact that the male lead could ruin her life with a single touch. I can’t wait to introduce readers to this new world!
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
2024 has been an excellent year for books so far. There were a ton of books I was looking forward to, and they didn’t disappoint. I loved The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste, So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole, This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings, and Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma. And next year, I cannot wait to sink my teeth into Blood Moon by Britney S. Lewis.
