The Silver Cowrie: Cover Reveal and Sneak Peek

People have waited between one to seven years for this. Here's your first look at the long-promised third arm of On the Ceiling! First, the gorgeous cover for The Okonore Trilogy Book 1: The Silver Cowrie!

Nothing but the best of the best from the baddest Ghanaian multihyphenate illustrator in the game, Jeffrey Kaz Aninkorah. The Silver Cowrie comes out on 18th September. Until then, here's an excerpt to whet your appetite.

The newest chapter of madness began when my incredible, unflappable, ridiculously intelligent girlfriend, Kuukua Annan, suddenly yelled, “Herh, what’s that?”

I almost jumped out of my own skin—but not because I’m just some scaredy cat, okay? True, I wasn’t the most unshakable person in the world, but the most unshakable person in the world had started freaking out first, which was a good enough sign that I should be doing same.

When I finally saw what had caught my girlfriend’s eye, I froze, only vaguely aware that she was trying to shatter my eardrums with her scream. On the far side of the room, a huge, silvery tarantula had come fully into view from around the wardrobe and was now staring into my soul.

Until that moment, I’d considered Charlotte—Kuukua’s black-and-yellow orb weaver spider—to be a very large arachnid. But Charlotte was currently sitting comfortably on my arm, and even with her legs fully outstretched, she wouldn’t even have covered the length of this silvery tarantula’s leg.

Dizziness struck me like a crashing wave, and my heartbeat became the loudest sound in existence. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the gigantic spider.

“Aha,” said Kuukua’s father—Uncle Jo—who had, at some point, appeared in the doorway of Kuukua’s bedroom. “I appreciate that Yaa opted for the selective initial reveal,” he continued. Some more words came out of his mouth, but I only had so much lucidity to spare.

“Did you just call that thing Yaa?” I exclaimed.

My conscience convicted me instantly. Spiders, especially around the Annan family, deserved a lot better than to be referred to as “that thing.” As rude as my question was, though, I suspected my tone was even worse. This was my girlfriend’s father I was talking to—not to mention the Ananse himself. Unfortunately, he spoke again before I could apologize.

“We have a lot to get through tonight,” he told us. “We better set off now.”

His words confused me briefly; the tarantula had made me forget why I was even in Kuukua’s room to begin with. Uncle Jo was meant to be treating Kuukua, me, and our other friends to a dinner outing, to celebrate the end of our first semester in boarding school. Frankly, the matter of dinner now felt far less important than the facts that: a) a tarantula with the female version of my name was currently staring at me with all eight eyes like it could read my mind, and b) there was suddenly a loud layer of static noise over my own thoughts.

With my heart still hammering in my chest, I looked at my girlfriend, who was looking at her father.

“Daddy,” she said, in the same tone a parent might have used to address their toddler, “There’s a tarantula in my bedroom.”

Uncle Jo only nodded and replied, “Extra dessert if you can tell me what species she is.”

Kuukua was not amused. She tried again: “There is a huge, hairy, probably poisonous arachnid in my bedroom!”

Uncle Jo sighed. “Kuukua, we’re going to be late.”

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Love,

Akotz (the Spider Kid)