SLAY

ΓÇ£Gripping and timely.ΓÇ¥ ΓÇöPeople ΓÇ£The YA debut weΓÇÖre most excited for this year.ΓÇ¥ ΓÇöEntertainment Weekly ΓÇ£A book that knocks you off your feet while dropping the kind of knowledge thatΓÇÖll keep you down for the count. Prepare to BE slain.ΓÇ¥ ΓÇöNic 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 PantherΓÇôinspired video game she created and the safe community it represents for Black gamers. By dayseventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors studenta math tutorand one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at homeshe joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card gameSLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developernot her friendsher familynot even her boyfriendMalcolmwho believes video games are partially responsible for the ΓÇ£downfall of the Black man.ΓÇ¥ But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY worldnews of the game reaches mainstream mediaand SLAY is labeled a racistexclusionistviolent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worsean anonymous troll infiltrates the gamethreatening to sue Kiera for ΓÇ£anti-white discrimination.ΓÇ¥ Driven to save the only world in which she can be herselfKiera 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?