Publisher Description
“The YA debut we’re most excited for this year.” —Entertainment Weekly
“A book that knocks you off your feet while dropping the kind of knowledge that’ll keep you down for the count. Prepare to BE slain.” —Nic Stone, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin and Odd One Out
Ready Player One meets The Hate U Give in this dynamite debut novel that follows a fierce teen game developer as she battles a real-life troll intent on ruining the Black Panther–inspired video game she created and the safe community it represents for Black gamers.
By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the “downfall of the Black man.”
But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for “anti-white discrimination.”
Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?
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“A book that knocks you off your feet while dropping the kind of knowledge that’ll keep you down for the count.”
—
Nic Stone, New York Times bestselling author
About Brittney Morris
Brittney Morris is the bestselling author of The Jump, Slay, and The Cost of Knowing. She is also the founder and former president of the Boston University Creative Writing Club. She holds a BA degree in economics. Find her online at AuthorBrittneyMorris.com and on Twitter or Instagram @BrittneyMMorris.
About the Narrators
Dominic Hoffman, winner of numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards for narration, is a Los Angeles–based actor of stage, screen, and television. He has appeared in such television shows as The Shield, NYPD Blue, and The Jamie Foxx Show. He attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art as well as the American Conservatory Theater.
Michael Boatman is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and twice winner of the prestigious Audie Award for narration. He is a versatile television, film, and stage actor whose work on the hit TV show Spin City garnered him a GLAAD Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and nominations for two NAACP Image Awards. For his work playing Stanley Babson on the long-running HBO series ARLI$$, he was nominated five times for the Image Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
Sisi Johnson is
“a storyteller for a storyteller’s story.” From folksy to urban, her warm blend
of bite and sweetness wrapped in an accessible narration style sets the right
tone in such award winning books as Francie
and Feathers, and notable books like Romiette & Julio, for which she
received the AudioFile Earphones Award, and Dr.
Mr. President: Letter from a Slave Girl, for which she was selected to be
an Audie Award finalist. A long time resident of New York City, she now resides
in Los Angeles and happily travels between the two amazing metropolises.