We chat with author Kamilah Cole about her debut novel So Let Them Burn, which is a Jamaican-inspired fantasy and follows a gods-blessed heroine who’s forced to choose between saving her sister or protecting her homeland, PLUS we have an excerpt to share with you at the end of the interview!
Hi, Kamilah! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Starting with the hardest question right away, I see! My name is Kamilah Cole, and I’m a 33 year old Jamaican-American author. I love Kingdom Hearts, Taylor Swift, horror movies, and fantasy novels. I can quote most of the early seasons of Spongebob Squarepants and the Emperor’s New Groove. I have a cat named Sora, who I love with all my heart, and a 21 year old sister I love with what’s left of my heart. And I’m very much a homebody, so there’s a good chance that when you’re all reading this, I’m in bed under a weighted blanket.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
It feels like it’s always been there, but I just remember this was always my way of entertaining myself. As an only child, I had an imaginary friend and I loved to use my Barbies to act out wild storylines. I loved the idea of there being magic just beneath our real world and extraordinary adventures just waiting to be taken; for a younger me, who was often alone and often bullied, there was such a comfort in this not being the only version of the world. I would write in notebooks and draw on printing paper, and I would read and read and read. My imagination became a safe haven, brimming with stories.
With it being the new year, are you setting any goals or resolutions for 2024?
I actually stopped setting resolutions for myself in 2020. You see, my resolution for 2020 was to stop waiting on other people and just do all the traveling I’d like to do, money willing, and then three months in the pandemic hit. So now my only goals for every year are just to do my best to overcome whatever comes my way and to remember to hold space to be grateful for the good things large and small.
Your debut novel, So Let Them Burn, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
“Colonialism is bad for everyone.” No, wait. “Being the Chosen One sucks.” Oh, no, wait: “Kiss girls and ride dragons.” Nailed it.
What can readers expect?
So Let Them Burn is a story about what happens when some very young people do some very world-changing things before they even have any sense of who they are. It was my attempt to write people like me—Black girls from an island nation—into the kinds of epic fantasies I loved, with dragons and Chosen Ones and magic and snarky gods. It was also my attempt to answer the question of how a country moves on after the revolution, and what moving on even looks like for people on all sides of the conflict. So readers can expect some laughter, some heavy themes, a ton of dragons, and one heck of an ending.
Where did the inspiration for So Let Them Burn come from?
I’ve always loved dragons from Eragon to Patricia C. Wrede, and Havemercy by Jaida Jones and Dani Bennett put the initial concept of giant metal dragons in my head. But the story as it is now was inspired by a combination of Pacific Rim and Zendaya’s 2018 Met Gala outfit. After the Met Gala, there were so much fanart and fan edits featuring Zendaya as Joan of Arc, but the one that stuck with me the most was one by Boss Logic. In it, she’s holding swords and standing on the head of a dragon. I looked at it and I found myself thinking, “What if this had already happened? What if Joan had survived, and the gods still wouldn’t leave her alone? …and what if they were fighting dragons with giant metal dragons they’d built themselves?”
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
One of my favorite parts of the book is the friendship between Elara and Reeve, and I really loved getting to write moments between them through Elara and Faron’s POV. Without too many spoilers, Reeve as a character is one of the hearts of the book, and he views both Vincent sisters in very different ways (and vice versa), but I think some of my favorite scenes came out of his and Elara’s interactions. They understand each other in a way very few people can.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne.
- The one that made you want to become an author: The Song of the Lioness by Tamora Pierce.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Legendborn by Tracy Deonn.
This is your debut published novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
It was both easier and harder than I thought it would be. I’ve been dreaming of publication since I was a kid, and I’ve been doing my research about as long. I’m the sort of person who will actively try to discourage myself from doing something by reading all the negative stories about it, because if I can face those and I still want to do it, then I know I’m committed. So I read all the worst stories about publishing: schmagents, broken contracts, debut failures, long roads to success stories, etc. And I still wanted to be published so, so badly. In my mind, querying and getting a book deal went easier than expected because I didn’t get scammed out of any money or embarrass myself too badly in front of respected colleagues. But it was also harder than I thought it would be because nothing can really prepare you to deal with the rejections, no matter how polite, and the painfully silent wait times, and the doubts and imposter syndrome. And the crying. So much crying!
What’s next for you?
Next is the sequel and finale to So Let Them Burn, which I currently refer to as 2 Let 2 Burn. Alas, that’s not the real title. Then, I’ll launch my Adult debut, a speculative dark academia thriller called The Sinister Elite, followed by a second standalone Adult book on that contract. After that, who knows? I just hope that publishing continues to buy stories from me—from all BIPOC authors, really. It’s an invisible struggle for us to get through the door in the first place, and it can still be closed at any time. I have so many ideas I’d love to share with the world if publishing allows.
Lastly, are there any 2024 book releases that you’re looking forward to?
SO MANY. In YA, I’m looking forward to Blood Justice by Terry J. Benton-Walker, The Dangerous Ones by Lauren Blackwood, Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma, This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings, Smile and be a Villain by Yves Donland, and Off With Their Heads by Zoe Hana Mikuta. In Adult, I’m looking forward to Lore of the Wilds by Analeigh Sbrana, Eye of the Ouroboros by Megan Bontrager, Foul Days by Genoveva Dimova, The God and the Gumiho by Sophie Kim, Saints of Storm and Sorrow by Gabriella Buba, The Sins on Their Bones by Laura R. Samotin, and The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li.
Chapter Four
ELARA
That night, Elara snuck out of her house for the second time in her life. As she landed hard in her father’s garden, nearly rolling her ankle in the process, she wished she weren’t such a coward. The wind felt too cold on her skin. Her heart was beating too quickly. Somewhere in the neighborhood, a stray dog howled, and it sounded like a warning.
Elara was not this person. She was not the one who rebelled. Rebellion gave her anxiety. Faron had been blessed by the gods, channeled their magic, saved the world. Elara had gotten in trouble for not stopping her, for following her without divine protection of her own, for forcing her parents to confront the fear of losing both daughters at once. While Faron had grown into a defiant teen, Elara stayed apologetically within the lines their parents had drawn. Thrived within them, really.
Given her good reputation, maybe if she crawled back inside now, they might forgive her in five years instead of fifty. But if she crawled back inside now, she would only ever be a hero inside these walls. The rest of the world would make her a footnote in the books written about her sister, if she were ever mentioned at all. And maybe she shouldn’t care about that, but she did. She wanted to matter, too. Sometimes it felt as if she were drowning so deep in Faron’s shadow, no one could hear her screams.
She turned and had to clap a hand over her mouth to stifle a shriek.
Faron stood beneath the cherry tree, crowned in moonlight. She was still wearing her nightgown, a simple white cotton dress embroidered with her initials. It had been a gift from Miss Johnson, an elderly neighbor from down the road who saw the whole town as her family. Faron spat a cherry pit into the bed of poinsettias to her left. Her eyebrows lifted.
“Who told you?” Elara demanded. “Was it Reeve?”
“If Reeve Warwick told me it was raining outside, I wouldn’t believe him until I was drenched.” Faron folded her arms. “You told me the second you tried to lie. You aren’t good at it. Where are you going?”
Elara considered her options and immediately gave in. “I’m going to join the Sky Battalion. Enlistment opens tomorrow.”
Faron sucked her teeth. “This? You lie to me for this?”
“I thought—I thought you’d be mad.”
“I am mad. What was your plan here? If Mama and Papa wake up and your bed is empty, they’re not just going to call the local police. They’re going to have Aveline’s whole military looking for you. For Irie’s sake, Aveline would send the military herself !”
“I—”
“No,” said Faron, holding up a hand. “You don’t have to tell me you didn’t think this through. I know you didn’t. I’m the liar, Elara, not you. I know you hoped to be chosen as a drake pilot before anyone came looking, and I’m telling you that’s not what’s going to happen.”
Elara’s body went cold. “You don’t think I’ll be chosen as a drake pilot?”
“Of course you’ll be chosen as a drake pilot.” And the way her sister said that, as though it was such an undeniable fact that it wasn’t worth debating, made some of the tension slide from Elara’s shoulders. “Everybody loves you. Why wouldn’t a drake?”
There was something surreal about this moment, standing with her sister in the starlit garden beneath her bedroom window, trampling her father’s thyme and listening to the gods-chosen Childe Empyrean tell Elara that everyone loved her. If it weren’t for the anxiety pulsing under her skin, she would have thought she was still asleep.
“What I’m saying,” Faron continued, “is that if you leave like this, Mama and Papa and the queen and her guards will drag you home by your braids before you ever get the chance to try. It’ll take you over half a day to make it all the way up to Highfort.” Her sister stood between her and freedom. And she was right, damn her. Elara led Faron away from the still- open window and back into the shadows of the cherry tree. “What do you suggest, then?”
“I can cover for you, make up a story about you wanting to go to the nearest temple and pray for your friends. Something to buy you some time to sign up.”
“The Summit is being held in Port Sol, and they have a temple,” Elara said dubiously. “Why wouldn’t I just pray there?”
“With the Empyrean in town? You’d never get inside before your friends enlisted.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Trust me, would you? I’ve been lying to Mama and Papa since I could speak. I’ll handle it.”
Elara kindly did not point out that this was, in fact, a good reason not to trust Faron. Because while Faron told lies large and small, she didn’t usually lie to Elara. Not about something that mattered. Elara trusted her sister more than anyone in the world, and if Faron said she would handle it, then she would handle it. Most of all, she knew that Elara could do this, and she was willing to help her. Even after Elara’s lies.
“I love you,” Elara finally said. “You know that, right?”
“I love you,” Faron said without hesitation. “And I’ll always be on your side. Okay?” If Elara hugged her more tightly than usual, Faron didn’t comment. Instead, her sister glanced up at the starflecked sky and added, “You should go. Mama gets up around three in the morning to use the bathroom, and she’ll check our beds if I don’t distract her.”
Elara stared at her. “What in the . . . How often are you still sneaking in and out of the house at night?”
Faron winked.
