Nigerian author Akwaeke Emezi is set to publish their new romance novel Son of the Morning (Avon) on November 4, 2025!

Described by the publisher as a “steamy paranormal romance set in the Black South,” Son of the Morning is only Emezi’s second novel in the romance genre, following You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty published by Atria Books in 2022.

Check out the book description:

Tenderhearted Galilee was raised by the Kincaids, a formidable clan of Black women sequestered deep in the weeping willows and dark rushing creeks of their land. Galilee has always known that she’s different—that there is an old and unknowable secret around her very existence. It has been a hollow ache inside her since her childhood, something she assumes she will always have to live with.

Until she meets Lucifer Helel. He’s fronting as the head of security for her wealthy friend Oriaku’s family, protecting a mysterious, ancient artifact, but from the moment she lays eyes on him, Gali knows he’s not human. From her first incendiary touch, Lucifer knows something even Gali herself doesn’t—that she isn’t human either.

Enter: Leviathan. As Lucifer’s most trusted prince of Hell, Levi is ruthless and determined to eliminate the intolerable danger that is Galilee before she brings death and disaster to those he loves. While unseen battles rage between Hell, Heaven, and earth, Lucifer and Galilee’s attraction threatens to bring all the structures of their existence crashing down around them.

Soon, loyalties will be shattered and reformed as Kincaid secrets clash with the princes of Hell, driving even the most powerful to their knees. Galilee Kincaid must decide if she will step into herself and embrace the consequences of power in this astonishing, seductive, and wildly original fantasy.

Born and raised in Nigeria, Akwaeke Emezi is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Death of Vivek Oji, which was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize; Pet, a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature; and Freshwater, which was named a New York Times Notable Book and shortlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. They were also selected as a 5 Under 35 honoree by the National Book Foundation.

Emezi is one of the most prolific writers of the contemporary moment. This is Emezi’s tenth book overall and the second book to come out this year after the recently published YA fantasy novel Somadina (Knopf). Son of the Morning is available to pre-order here!