Reading · THE LIT CORNER: Nia's Substack

This is Nia’s Substack.

I’m kicking off my inaugural newsletter! Lock in! If you follow me on social media, then you know we’re all about to have a good time. Shenanigans will go down.

For those of you who might not know much about me, I write adult novels under the name N.E. Davenport and Young Adult novels under Nia Davenport. So far, in the adult space, I’ve published THE BLOOD TRIALS and THE BLOOD GIFT. These two books are apart of a completed duology that’s a mashup of fantasy and sci-fi. They’re set in a world where magic, vicious gods, morally-grey humans, and advanced technology exist side-by-side and continuously clash. The heroine, Ikenna, has illegal blood magic. If stories about war colleges, female rage, and revolution with a bit of spice is your thing, you should totally check the duology out if you haven’t read it yet!

OUT OF BODY is my debut YA novel that’s a speculative thriller. I usually describe it as Get Out meets Freaky Friday. It’s about a teen girl whose supposed best friend steals her literal body and perfect life, gaslights her, and then leaves her to inherit deadly enemies and dangerous secrets.

Some fun things that tie all my books together: I love writing fantastical stories about either staggering magic or technological advancements that feel almost magical. I also really, really can’t help myself when it comes to weaving romance plots into my stories.

I can barely believe that I’m preparing to publish my 4th book in May 2025! The fact that I get to keep doing what I love is both humbling and remarkable. LOVE SPELLS TROUBLE is a YA romance that’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch meets Gilmore Girls with Black teen witches falling in love. Cayden and Khy navigate family expectations, protesting gentrification of a treasured historically Black neighborhood, and the extreme elitism and classism that exists among witches all while experiencing the whirlwind feels of first-love.

Buy links aren’t available yet. But if this sounds like your thing, you can add LOVE SPELLS TROUBLE on Goodreads HERE.
I also commissioned this stunning art work of my characters Cayden and Khy. I seriously haven’t stopped making heart-eyes since I received it!

Two teens standing back-to-back with their arms crossed and looking over their shoulders while smiling.

There’s also a super secret (sort of secret, for now) project I’ve been working on…
*Drum roll please*
My next Adult Fantasy, THE APOLLYON COURT, book releases Fall 2025. It’s a dual POV villain fantasy romance with an enemies-to-lovers arc between Black fae who are royals of warring courts. I can’t say much more about it yet, but I love fae stories and I am so excited to be writing one. Malachi, the MMC, is a villain that’s “with the shit” 100% of the time. He reminds me a lot of Qimir from The Acolyte. (I am pissed about the show’s cancellation. Why can’t we just have and keep nice things?)
Be on the lookout for the next newsletter because I’ll be revealing character art for the main characters.

I’ve been yelling at everybody who will listen to read Raechell Garrett’s PROMPOSAL. It’s a swoony YA romance featuring two ambitious teens who are the definition of young, gifted, and Black. They’ve also held a serious grudge against each other since freshman year. When the duo team up to launch a promposal business for a senior project, they’ve got to place their hostilities aside because their college dreams hinge on their business’s success. But their hearts and their future end up on the line when long buried secrets threaten to destroy their booming business. I haven’t grinned and swooned and laughed so hard when reading a book in a hot minute.
I know I’m super late to the game with this one, but I read HONEY & SPICE by Bolu Babalola while on vacation two weeks ago. IT IS NOW MY WHOLE PERSONALITY!!! The romance gave me all the feels, the characters had me stressed (but in a totally good way), and reading the witty banter between the characters was like sitting in on a masterclass. I really enjoyed the book’s deep dive into the double standards that exist for women and men in relationships. It’s focus on sisterhood and solidarity among women was super powerful too. This was another book that had rivals-to-lovers vibes, which always hits.

The Acolyte. Osha & Qimir are everything. #Oshamir is going to always live in my head and in my heart rent-free. I didn’t know how much I needed a hot Star Wars villain who wielded a light saber until Qimir showed up on screen in all his sexy glory. Also, my man had it down BAD for Osha and I stan a Black queen being worshipped, especially in SFF!!!!
Bel-Air. Season 3 just premiered and I’ve been obsessed with this remake since Season 1. Not many productions can effectively achieve taking an old show that’s as iconic as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and remaking it into something that feels timely, fresh, and just as iconic. The show also explores the intersections of class and race in a really moving way. Now on to my completely absurd commentary on this show: the new Geoffrey is fine as hell. So is Uncle Phil. I’m here for the exploration of poignant themes and the eye candy with these two.

I enjoyed family trips to the beach and NYC this summer. My pair of preschooolers won’t stop calling NYC “the big city.” They’re begging to go back. I haven’t been to New York in over a decade and I fell in love with it all over again. It was the first time my kids, mom, and husband have visited and they fell in love with the city too. There truly is something magical about NYC. My very Southern mom said: “It’s like traveling to a whole different world.”
I attended Steamy Lit Con in Anaheim, CA at the beginning of August. As the name suggests, it was both very steamy and lit!!! Haha. I got to be apart of a romantasy panel with Nalini Singh, Zoraida Córdova, Justinian Huang, Nisha J. Tuli, and Juliette Cross. Yes, I was dealing with a bit of imposter syndrome the entire time because I was sitting among titans of the genre. Nalini has been one of my idols for over a decade. Her Guild Hunter series is basically my entire personality like 365 days of the year. In fact, if I never read about Elena Deveraux, the heroine of the Guild Hunter books, there’d likely be no Ikenna Amari. The Guild Hunter series is one of absolute favorites, and it laid the foundation for my love of deadly heroines that talk a ton of shit and have no problems throwing hands to back it up—or committing murder when folks get disrespectful. There’s also super hot angel smut…so there’s that too.

This section is actually blank for now. But there’s a reason!

I get a lot of questions about the ins and outs of traditional publishing, including what the query process is like, how to go about looking for an agent, what happens pre and post acquisitions, etc. I am still very much learning as I go with a lot of things, and I am certainly no expert. But if you’ve got questions, shoot them at me via the comment or message button. I’ll answer some in this space in future newsletters.

The Lit Corner

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