Women in SF&F Month officially starts today with a guest post by Kamilah Cole! Her debut novel and the first book in her Divine Traitors trilogy, So Let Them Burn—which she described as being “about sisterhood, chosen ones, dragons, anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and the aftermath of war” in a post on Goodreads—was a National Indie bestseller for multiple weeks and a nominee for the Goodreads Choice Awards for Young Adult Fantasy. It was recently joined by the conclusion to the series, This Ends in Embers. She also has a romantasy short story in The Secret Romantic’s Book of Magic, coming out this summer, and an adult dark academia novel, An Arcane Inheritance, coming early next year. I’m thrilled she’s here today sharing about her journey to publication with “Let Your Stories Age Like a Fine Wine, Ladies.”

Cover Art by Carlos Quevedo Cover Design by Jenny Kimura

About The Divine Traitors Duology:

Whip-smart and immersive, the bestselling Divine Traitors duology is a Jamaican-inspired fantasy that follows a gods-blessed heroine who’s forced to choose between saving her sister or protecting her homeland—perfect for fans of Iron Widow and The Priory of the Orange Tree. Pitched as a “Jamaican Joan of Arc with dragons,” the first book, So Let Them Burn, came out in January 2024, and the sequel and conclusion, This Ends in Embers, came out in February 2025.

Let Your Stories Age Like a Fine Wine, Ladies

This month, I turn 35.

Five years ago, in November 2020, I sent my first query for the book that would become So Let Them Burn.

Let me set the scene. I was not doing well. I had made that terrifying leap from my late 20s to my early 30s, and what did I have to show for it? I was two years into my dream job—Assistant Publicist at my favorite publisher—but I still lived at home with my parents and I hadn’t made any progress toward my real dream of becoming a published author. I spent the last two years of my 20s in therapy, week after week, lamenting to my therapist that my life had reached a stagnant point and I saw no way forward. It was cost-effective to live with my parents. I had no book I thought worthy of sending to agents. And I was about to age out of the decade of opportunity, where if you didn’t achieve your dreams, you probably never would. The horrors of not being in my 20s!

Suffice to say, that was nonsense.

I sent my first query in November 2020. I signed with my agent in May 2021. So Let Them Burn hit shelves in January 2024. The sequel and finale, This Ends in Embers, came out in February 2025. I moved out of my parents’ house and across the country with my sister. I moved up the ranks at my job, switched publishers, found a position even more suited to my skills. I have two Adult books—An Arcane Inheritance and Untitled Standalone #2—another Young Adult duology—starting with Wicked Endeavors—and a short story in an Adult romantasy anthology—The Secret Romantic’s Book of Magic—all coming up in the next few years.

Basically, my early 30s have been some of the best years of my life, and, based on the opinion of friends in their 40s and 50s, it only gets better from here. There’s a fear in the writing community that if you don’t break in young, if you’re not a “prodigy” or “youthful success story,” then publishing won’t wait for you. I’m here to tell you that’s absolute nonsense. So Let Them Burn is not a book I could have written when I was in my teens or in my twenties.

It’s the story of two teenage sisters who went to war far too young and came back broken in very different ways. It’s the story of what happens when the Chosen One has fulfilled their duty, at age twelve mind you, and is now all powered up with no world to save. It’s the story of living in the shadow of someone else’s brilliance and trying to carve out your own place in the world. It’s about love and resentment, about the arrogance of youth and the politics of adulthood. It’s about anti-colonialism and dragons and girls kissing. It celebrates my Jamaican heritage, something I spent most of my childhood trying to separate myself from in order to assimilate, and it features a demisexual heroine, a sexuality I have only just begun to claim.

It’s the most me duology I’ve ever written, and it was only the start of what I hope will be a very long career across a very long life. This urgency that we, especially as women, feel to accomplish as much as we can as young as we can is a poison that affects us across all industries, reinforced by the ageism of society. Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Patricia Arquette explored it in 2016 with the sketch “Last F*ckable Day,” where they noted that the media decided when actresses stopped being hot enough to play love interests and started being old enough to play mothers. Lady Gaga said the same on stage at the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards, noting, “The world might consider a woman in her late 30s old for a pop star, which is insane, but I promise you I’m just getting warmed up.”

When I look back at that woman crying in therapy five years ago, I want to reach back, place my hand on her shoulder, and tell her to give herself time to cook, to let her stories age like a fine wine. Half a decade later, with the Divine Traitors duology, she ate. And the best is yet to come.

Photo by Lauren Banner

Kamilah Cole is a national bestselling, Dragon Award-nominated Jamaican-American author. She worked as a writer and entertainment editor at Bustle for four years, and her nonfiction has appeared in Marie Claire and Seventeen. A graduate of New York University, Kamilah lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she’s usually playing Kingdom Hearts for the hundredth time, quoting early SpongeBob SquarePants episodes, or crying her way through Zuko’s redemption arc in Avatar: The Last Airbender. You can connect with her on social media at @wordsiren or on her website kamilah-cole.com.