Revenge isn’t justice—it’s a dopamine hit with consequences.

We love the fantasy of the lick back: the receipts, the public shaming, the Waiting to Exhale moment.

But what happens after the fire dies out and you’re the one standing in the smoke? This essay asks an uncomfortable question: Is revenge power, or is it professional and spiritual suicide?

Revenge, Regret, and a Lick Back

I saw a viral clip from Oprah’s podcast about the science of revenge, and it mesmerized me. It’s a thought or a topic that I deal with when I write. Pro-tip: Real deep emotions that your characters embody resonate with readers.

But back to Oprah.

A woman in the podcast audience recounts a moment when she lost control. Consumed by suspicion, she triangulated her lover’s whereabouts using technology: combing through his laptop, pulling Uber receipts, matching dates to her calendar, and Googling addresses. The trail led straight to his ex-girlfriend. Proof in hand, she didn’t confront him quietly. She burned his clothes—Waiting to Exhale–style—posted flyers in the neighborhood with his photo stamped CHEATER, and I caught the vibe that maybe there was more she wouldn’t say on television.

The anger was palatable. Right, in the United States, anger is rampant. We have more acts of government-sanctioned brutality and murder. Officials are lying. Some folks seeme outraged. Others are looking away, hoping for a reasonable explanation of murder. While the ones once told to be silent are questioning whether all lives really do matter.

Back to Oprah again.

Oprah responded with compassion and hard-earned wisdom. She admitted she’d had a similar moment in her twenties—and learned that instead of tracking someone down, sometimes the bravest act is to stop, to cool down, to get help, and to reclaim yourself before you do something that costs you far more than it costs them.

Have you ever been there?So angry at how someone wronged you that you feel yourself tipping into something unrecognizable?

I’ve written that moment. In Fire Sword and Sea, Jacquotte experiences a rage so pure and sharp it feels righteous. The pirate crew she serves is a meritocracy: everyone is equal as long as they do their job. But one pirate, eaten alive by jealousy, sabotages battle instructions and leaves the entire crew in mortal danger. I won’t spoil what happens—but terrible things follow.

Jacquotte wants to kill him. Not metaphorically. She wants to drive her rapier through his heart, drag it up to his gullet and down into his gut. Based on what happens, her anger is justified. It’s righteous anger.

And yet—she does nothing.

She has to consider the crew. Her leadership. The sacrifices, she’s already made. The futures she fought for can be destroyed with one wrong move. In choosing restraint, something else breaks inside her. She almost loses her sanity.

Revenge might have felt freeing, but it wouldn’t have solved the problem or undone the harm caused by one ignorant, jealous fool.

James Kimmel Jr., author of The Science of Revenge, tells Oprah that revenge is a core emotion—an addictive one—that drives wars and conflicts. Or, as we say in the neighborhood: you can’t help but want to get your lick back.

But revenge is often also professional suicide.

Even when everything and a court of law is on your side, the world gets very small very fast. When word spreads about your clever act of vengeance, who will really trust you? You’re now the person who “crashed out.” Your stability and dependability are questioned. Team chemistry evaporates like smoke.

I’ve had friends who didn’t care. For ten glorious minutes—right up until security escorted them out—they had their revenge.

Before restraining orders are needed, I think we owe ourselves one hard question:Is it worth burning down your world just to set fire to theirs?

The best villains say yes. But is that you? No? So, I’m advocating to turn the other cheek. Forgive. But I don’t know about that forgetting part. We’re not angels. We’re definitely not Christ. Forgetting that someone harmed you can put you right back in danger. They already stole your trust and your time—things you can’t get back.

Yes, second-chance romances exist. But infidelity is a hard one to forgive, but so is belittling your dreams or gaslighting your pain. Refusing to admit wrongdoing while demanding your faith is wrong. When someone cannot acknowledge harm but insists they have your best interests at heart—that’s not a lesson to learn twice. That’s a situation to run from.

So what is the ultimate revenge?

Physical harm is wrong. Social harm is fleeting. The endorphin rush fades. The pain remains. And now you might also have a criminal record for trespassing. No thank you.

At this stage of my life, I don’t actually want revenge.I want regret.

I want a soul-stirring, chest-tightening, sleepless regret. I want them to know—deeply—that if they had only lived up to the values they preached, things could have been different. I want them to awake at night thinking about what could have been. I want my name to give them pause when it appears in lights.

I wish them regret.

I want people who believed themselves “the good guys”—the ones with liberal minds and Black friends—to reckon with how they’ve become tools of the state, how they uphold castes, patriarchy, and misogyny. I want them to rue how their misguided beliefs failed real people. I want them to remember every little lie, every weak excuse. I want them to sweat under the weight of their regrets.

That is a better revenge than anything my small, angry mind could invent.

No one torments the soul better than one’s own conscience.

So no—I don’t want revenge.

I wish my enemies regret.

What about you? Do you need to get that lick back, or could you be satisfied with your own stellar success?

As for me, in this house, that’s my choice. I’m pounding the pavement. I’m keeping my holy fire alive on the inside. I’m building a life so full—career, family, purpose—that those who discounted us, who cast us aside, who counted us out are stunned into silence. Maybe even repentance.

To get there, I don’t have to destroy anyone. I have to succeed.

I’m not wishing sickness or death or ruin on anybody. I’m wishing for my success to be so brilliant it can’t be ignored—and for the quiet, devastating realization that my hopes and dreams were the ones that got away.

This week’s book list is about revenge:

The Science of Revenge — James Kimmel Jr.A psychological and sociological examination of revenge as an addictive force that fuels conflict, cycles of violence, and self-destruction.

Beloved — Toni MorrisonExplores how unresolved trauma and righteous anger haunt both the wronged and the wrongdoer long after the act itself.

The Count of Monte Cristo — Alexandre DumasA masterclass in revenge as obsession, showing how total victory can still hollow out the soul.

Their Eyes Were Watching God — Zora Neale HurstonA story of choosing self-fulfillment over vengeance, and how living well becomes its own quiet reckoning.

Fire Sword and Sea — Vanessa RileyA meditation on righteous anger and restraint, where leadership demands sacrifice—and revenge costs more than blood. And it’s got pirates.

This week I’m highlighting Mahogany Books.

Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from Mahogany Books or from one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small, who are hanging with me.

Come on, my readers, my beautiful listeners. Let’s keep everyone excited about Fire Sword and Sea.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.

Enjoying the essay? Go ahead and like this episode, share, and subscribe to Write of Passage so you never miss a moment.”

Thank you for listening. I want you to come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

Special Event:

On February 5 at 7:00 PM, I’ll be appearing virtually with libraries across the country as part of the Library Speakers Consortium, discussing Fire Sword and Sea.

Check with your local library for access—and please join me. I’d love to see you there.

Betrayal leaves no visible wound, only a hardened place in the heart—scabbed, protected, and difficult to penetrate. The question becomes, do we want to heal, or can we linger in hate and fire?

Betrayal is one of the most disorienting experiences a person can endure. It does not arrive all at once; it sweeps through you in stages, much like grief. First comes shock, then self-doubt. Was I naïve? Was I fooled? Were there signs I ignored because I wanted to believe? You replay conversations, gestures, moments of connection, wondering which parts were real and which were carefully constructed illusions. There is a particular cruelty in realizing you were allowed—invited—into a false sense of security.

What makes betrayal hurt the most is not just the deception, but the bond you believed you shared. Often, trust is built. Often values are mirrored: bonding on marginalization, feminism, activism, or other deeply held beliefs. You thought we saw the world the same way.

And with this bond, one can say, I’m not alone, not alone in the mission, not alone in the place and time. Basically, I’m not alone or lonely anymore.

Finding a like-minded person can feel like hope in an isolating world. And when that bond proves false, it shakes more than the relationship—it shakes your foundation, your sense of reality. You begin to question everything. What was authentic? What was performative? And inevitably, the most haunting question surfaces: If I can be misled, how do I trust again?

This question lives at the heart of Fire Sword and Sea. Jacquotte Delahaye wrestles with trust at every stage of her life. As a cook in a tavern, she must decide who entering the building is safe, and who is not.

When Jacquotte becomes a pirate, she’s surrounded by a crew whose survival depends on loyalty; that question becomes life-or-death. In love, it becomes even more perilous: who deserves her heart, and who should she flee from? We all recognize the trope of the “bad boy, bad girl”—and even then, there’s an understanding of risk.

Hoping to expand our happiness, and unfortunately, to our detriment, we try. Then we fail, and every reason that seemed right masked all those wrong reasons.

In Jacquotte’s story, betrayal cuts sharply when it comes from a friend, someone she would die for. The wound left behind is unforgettable. Her heart leans to be more guarded. As readers follow her journey, I wish for them to reflect on their own lives: and asking the tough questions:

Where are they most vulnerable?

Where does trust feel most fragile?

How do they respond when someone they love or admire proves to be painfully human—or worse, willfully harmful?

Recovery from betrayal is difficult, especially when it comes from someone you love. It hurts down deep when your admiration was for naught.

Yet living with a grudge is harder. Holding on to ill will and being unable to forgive is terrible. These conditions are like living behind armor so heavy it prevents connection altogether. No one wants to become the person who’s constantly looking over their shoulder, questioning every kindness, every soft word. And yet, as a member of a marginalized community, I can say that this struggle is familiar. Betrayal is not theoretical; it is lived.

President Reagan famously said, “Trust, but verify,” when referencing his mortal enemies. The word enemy implies intention, while mortal suggests an endgame. Jacquotte survives betrayal.

Mostly.

She carries with her a scar—a hardened scab over part of her heart.

The scab is protective. It’s tender. Difficult to penetrate.

One of the most personal and honest aspects of Jacquotte Delahaye’s character is how she navigates betrayal while balancing mercy, forgiveness, awareness, and pain. She is not idolized. She is real. A crew member betrays her profoundly, and yet she must decide how to move forward, because leadership demands clarity. If you are on her crew, she must be prepared to sacrifice everything for you.

I’m not suggesting anyone make unwise sacrifices for those who’ve harmed them. Some acts are unforgivable.

But we live in a moment that demands deeper conversations about accountability, justice, and grace. There’s a growing urge to harden our hearts—to refuse forgiveness entirely—especially when apologies arrive only after consequences. And yet, we must weigh these decisions carefully, as captains of our own ships.

I do not claim to have the right answers. The Jacquotte I wrote doesn’t. She is flawed. She walks a delicate balance between forgiveness and holy anger.

So I think about Jacquotte. As I went on a release week tour, she was on my heart. She lived an experience that left marks, taught her caution, and forced us to decide who she’d become in the aftermath.

In life, the question is not whether we will be wounded, but when to choose healing—and what parts of ourselves we are willing to risk again.

This week’s booklist:

A book on recovering from betrayal:

Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter A. Levine & Ann Frederick

This focuses on the body’s response to healing from psychological trauma and painful memories.

Books centering betrayal in fiction:

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

A psychological thriller about marriage gone terribly wrong.

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Explores betrayal among friends and how certain ruptures change lives forever.

Fire Sword and Sea by Vanessa Riley. This is a fast paced saga that illustrates betrayal and community.

These are fictional accounts. We need good fiction to help us escape disappointments to learn to master forgiveness and fire.

This week, I highlight Black Pearl Books. You guys are amazing. Thank you for the hospitality in Austin.

Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from Black Pearl Books or from

one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small, who are in hanging with me.

Come on, my readers, my beautiful listeners. Let’s keep everyone excited about Fire Sword and Sea.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.

Enjoying the essay? Go ahead and like this episode, share, and subscribe to Write of Passage so you never miss a moment.”

Thank you for listening. I want you to come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

By the time you hear this, my twenty-ninth book will no longer be hidden, filtered, or quietly passed around behind publishing gates.

It took two and a half years, a global history we were never taught, censorship, delays, stolen copies—yes, pirates—to bring this book into the world.

Fire Sword and Sea is about women who refused to disappear, in a time when choosing your own life could get you exiled—or killed.

And now, their story is yours.

By the time you hear this, my twenty-ninth book will be live—released into the world, no longer hidden behind NetGalley or Edelweis or advanced reader copy structures.

It took two and a half years of research, writing, revising, questioning myself, starting over, and fine-tuning every voice until each character could stand on their own feet and speak without apology. Fire Sword and Sea is now available everywhere books are sold—and, I hope, in your libraries. And if it’s not there yet, ask for it. Librarians listen.

This book represents not just years of labor, but the weight of them—the questions I’ve been circling, the history I’ve been chasing, the fire I’ve been quietly tending while drumming up attention and conversations, wondering how the world would react when they finally got to see the finished product.

And now, you can too.

In Fire Sword and Sea, you’ll meet Jacquotte Delahaye—a Black woman of mixed heritage, French and African, who refuses to bend to authority that demands obedience. She wants freedom: the freedom to earn money and spend it as she chooses, the freedom to love whom she wants, not the man her father selects, or the love society deems “appropriate.” Jacquotte resists not because she is reckless, but because she understands that such rigid constructs for women have always been a cage.

You’ll meet Bahati, a Black pirate of African descent, who resists every force that tries to dictate how she should labor, whom she should serve, and what she should endure. She chooses piracy not for glory, but for survival—for legacy. She wants a world where her nieces will never know poverty, never know enslavement, never have their lives narrowed by someone else’s greed.

You’ll come to know Lizzôa, a spy in Petit-Goâve. If you have ever dreamed against the odds—if you’ve ever needed a guide who knows how to move quietly, how to gather information, how to turn whispers into strategy—Lizzôa is the person who will help you build what you were thought was impossible, what you were even told could never happen. Lizzôa doesn’t follow the orders of men or kings. No Lizzôa bends and reshapes everything with fire. Dreaming is living fire.

And you’ll meet Sarah Sayon, a woman willing to do anything to escape a brutal relationship. Her resistance is not gentle. She uses fire to destroy evil and to cleanse the world that tried to break her.

There are so many more on the crew in Fire Sword and Sea. You will find yourself and your role.

This novel takes you back to a time to the 1600s, when women were given only two roles: wife or wench. Or as a friend said, a heaux or a housewife. This is the original respectability politics, where you fit in or were exiled or killed. Choice was a luxury that women were not meant to have.

You may be thinking how can this be? My history books… Le Sigh. This was a time when the world had two true global powers—and they are not who you’ve been taught to expect. The gold belonged to Spain and to the Muslim Mughal Empire. That is why piracy was legal. Every European nation wanted what those empires possessed, and piracy became a sanctioned tool—a way to steal wealth while keeping hands clean and the crimes off your shores.

Fire Sword and Sea is a muscular read.It’s a diverse read.It’s a powerful read.

These stories and histories have been buried for far too long. With all that’s going one, reading about women who resisted, women who chose, women who refused to disappear quietly, is the book we need.

And I’m taking this book on the road.

I’ll be heading to Washington, D.C., Petersburg, Virginia, Severna Park, Maryland, St. Louis, Missouri, Austin, Texas, and several stops in Georgia, at Woodstock and Perimeter.

Come out and join the tour. I would love to see you. I would love to talk with you about this book.

We just kicked things off at the Gwinnett Library—and you readers and podcast listeners, you showed up. Registration sold out. The energy in that room was electric. My moderator, Jasmine Sinkfield, was amazing.

And when you work this hard on a book—when you’ve shared many of the battles publicly, as I have—these moments matter.

Fire Sword and Sea’s journey hasn’t been easy.

There was censorship.Delays in shipping.Publishing slowdowns.Pirates stealing ARCs—yes, really. That happened.And a million other battles that drove me to my knees, again and again, in prayer.

But we are here.

I’m so excited for you to meet these women. To sit with their choices. To imagine what it meant, centuries ago, for women to resist when survival demanded it—when a better life required courage instead of permission.

These women are phenomenal.And they chose their paths.

Readers, podcast audience. The ability to choose shouldn’t belong only to pirates.

May Fire Sword and Sea lead the way.

This is release week for Fire Sword and Sea. She’s here, as of January 13th, 2026. Available where all books are sold. Get a copy and learn about Caribbean women pirates—That’s Black pirates, integrated crews, and tons of secrets. Read their truth. Get folks talking about this book.

Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small, who are in this with me.

Come on, my readers, my beautiful listeners. Let’s get everyone excited to read Fire Sword and Sea. And I hope that you will join me on the tour. I’d love to meet you.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.

Enjoying the vibe? Go ahead and like this episode, share, and subscribe to Write of Passage so you never miss a moment.”

Thank you for listening. I want you to come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

Someone said, “Reading is elitism,” and I knew immediately—we’re in trouble.

When people start calling books the problem, it’s never about books.It’s about control.

A mind that doesn’t read is easier to steer.Easier to distract.Easier to convince that vibes are enough and history is optional.

But reading—especially our reading—was once illegal.Punishable by death.

So no—reading isn’t elitism.It’s survival.

I saw a screed on Threads that made me stop and stare.“Reading is elitism,” the post declared.

It left me scratching my head.

Why now?Why is this sentiment surfacing at a moment when people are desperate to escape the hellscape we’re living in—when they’re trying to learn, to grow, to imagine ways to resist?

Is it something more sinister?

Because an algorithm shaped by bots and billionaires has no interest in a smart, savvy, or hopeful electorate. It wants control. A mind that doesn’t read—one that lives on vibes alone—is easy to steer. It will thrive on chaos. It shall be misled, distracted, and ultimately enslaved.

That post made me angry. The kind of angry that pulls my inner poet out of hiding.

Yes, Vanessa Riley has been known to write poetry. If you’ve read Island Queen, Sister Mother Warrior, The Bewildered Bride, and others, you’ve already seen my poetic bent threaded through the prose.

And don’t you have a new book out? Fire Sword and Sea, next week, Jan. 13? Ain’t nobody have time for all this.

No. Nobody does, but I made time. For I got big mad.I reached for the pen—or rather, the keyboard.

What came out was a poem I now call Between the Book and Me.

Between the Book and Me

Reading is a privilege, a refuge, a right sorely won.

So miss me with the BS, the apathy.Because I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou).

Maybe it’s my generation.For we came from a time when we were raised as Beloved (Toni Morrison),and hoped for Something Like Love (Beverly Jenkins),Only to learn we were an Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison),Never a Native Son (Richard Wright).

We sought out books to find The Souls of Black Folk (W.E.B. Du Bois),but kept our gaze fixed on librarians and mentors,for Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston).

And they knew what books to pick for our good.They understood which passage would give us hope.

When we learned that life—she—was No Crystal Stair (Eva Rutland),

They gave us books that fed a Hunger (Roxane Gay),

Because they knew we would ache when Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe).

They understood that verses on a page, in a hymnal, on a screen,would become Kindred (Octavia E. Butler)—Something to remember, to retain, to hug.

That touch, that warm embrace, when nouns and verbs paint pictures,Keeps the flames of imagination burning.It will stoke The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin).

Reading makes a difference.When peaceful with a psalm or enraged and ready to fight Fire Sword and Sea (Vanessa Riley),Try opening a book—keep going—Fill your soul with words and dreams.Get so full you must Go Tell It on the Mountain (James Baldwin).

So it makes me sad when some insistOur whole story lives only in the Narrative of the Life… an American Slave (Frederick Douglass),or the Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Harriet Jacobs).

No. Black Boy (Richard Wright).No—Black girl.No bright child misled into craving The Bluest Eye (Toni Morrison).

Rise up from The Street (Ann Petry).Savor words as if they are rare,Growing sweeter when harvested in the mind like A Raisin in the Sun (Lorraine Hansberry).

If you read, you will learn this:That you are more than Sister Outsider (Audre Lorde).You are The Black Jacobins (C.L.R. James).You are an Island Queen (Vanessa Riley),Swaying to a Harlem Rhapsody (Victoria Christopher Murray).

You see, Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates)—Between a book and you—AreA mother’s prayer,A grandmother’s wisdom,An ancestor’s war song.

So don’t turn your back on reading.Don’t dismiss the act our forefathers and foremothers chose, even under the penalty of death.

Reading isn’t elitism.It’s essential to survival.It’s defiance, spelled out.It’s the way to live.

This week’s book list is in my poem. Go to the show notes. Get the full list. I’m supporting Novel Neighbor through their website and Bookshop.org.

We are less than a week away from the release of Fire Sword and Sea. She comes out on January 13th, 2026. Caribbean women pirates—That’s Black pirates, integrated crews, and secrets—of those who sailed the seas for adventure, a better life, or because they darn well felt like it. Read their truth. Get folks talking about this book.

Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from Novel Neighbor or one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small who are with me.

Come on, my readers, my beautiful listeners. Let’s get everyone excited to read Fire Sword and Sea.

Show notes include the poem mentioned in this broadcast.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com , under the podcast link in the About tab.

Enjoying the vibe? Go ahead and like this episode, share, and subscribe to Write of Passage so you never miss a moment.”

Thank you for listening. I want you to come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

January 10 - Gwinette Library with Jasmine Sinkfield (Click the image for Registration Links)

Jan. 12 - Resist Booksellers in Petersburg, VA

Jan. 13 - Release Day - Loyalty Books in DC with Victoria Christopher Murray

Jan. 14 - Park Books in Severna Park, MD with Kate Quinn

Jan. 15 - FoxTale Books in Woodstock, GA with Simone Umba

Jan. 16 - Novel Neighbor in St. Louis, MO with Pat Simmons

Jan. 17 - Black Pearl Books in Austin, TX with Ali Hazelwood

The title of this essay changed from ‘What the Hell’ to ‘Was I Really a DEI Hire?’—and then reality set in. 2025 was a year of whiplash: pride, disbelief, resistance. But I’m still here, with a new book coming in January, while finishing my thirty-first one. I’m a storyteller. And in 2026, I’m coming in hot. I choose ASCENT.

From Hellscape to Angel Wings – 2026, Come Get Me.

The title of this podcast essay changed several times before it settled into place. It moved from I’m So Glad We’re Almost Out of 2025 to What the Hell to Was I Really a DEI Hire? I want to talk to the manager—and then, reality and sense came to me.

That confusion, the whiplash between pride, dishonor, and disbelief, pretty much sums up my experiences in 2025.

Don’t get me wrong—there were extraordinary moments. This podcast and speaking to you weekly is something I enjoy. Speaking in front of a packed ballroom of over 800 people at the Jane Austen Society Conference was breathtaking. Traveling to NY for a girls’ trip and to share the stage with Eloisa James was amazing. Some of these moments I never imagined would happen. When I first began writing Regency-era stories, I encountered resistance from people who insisted diversity in that time period was “fantasy.” As if Black people magically appeared in 1865, to be liberated from talent-sourcing camps by a war between the states. And in 2025, we still love our euphemisms. We’re supposed to forget all the atrocities with no second thoughts about lineage and history.

For the record, there are entire civilizations—from African kingdoms to complex global networks—that existed. Beauty and scholarship and faith existed before the transatlantic slave trade and colonization.

But we’re encouraged not to think about any of that.

When I first said I wanted to write about Black women pirates, I’m pretty sure they thought it would be like the movie Girls’ Trip, just set on the high seas.

I don’t think the collective thinking—the industry, the world, the gatekeepers—was prepared for the history I uncovered. I found depth. I chose danger. I decided to make visible a period in the 1600s where women took a stand and chose violence. They fought for what they wanted.

And I see the conversations beginning. Folks are judging the women through modern lenses. Unfortunately, women are still critiqued the same way. They are made into third-class citizens for not choosing to have children, for not choosing to be a mammy, for choosing careers, ambition, and self-determination over settling. These are conversations we still need to have.

And we will have them—with fire, with sword, and seas of truth.

My upcoming novel is a naked exploration of feminine power. It’s leadership forged in chaos. It’s truth standing upright in a collapsing world.

Back to Publishing:

The landscape for 2025 has been equally surreal. Peers have had books that weren’t available on launch day. Others couldn’t get their advance copies because they were held up by tariffs in Canada. I’ve had porch pirates steal mine. Tracking shipments has become a chase that maybe my Lady Worthing might be able to solve. Who knew that a billion-dollar corporation couldn’t get a handle on UPS? Perhaps this is only affecting a few. Perhaps, it’s only an issue for certain publishers. Perhaps, only certain authors are in limbo. Oh, the DEI of it all.

And yet.

Here I am, a day or two before the New Year, finishing a WIP, my thirty-first book. Thirty-one. This one will be published in 2027—the fourth Lady Worthing mystery, Murder in St. James’s Park. I don’t think I killed enough people. Severn House will have to tell me. So no matter how chaotic or frustrating the system can be, there’s nothing I would rather do than sit down and write stories.

I’m a storyteller.

I come from a Southern mother who loved literature and a Caribbean father from who loved—loved—loved—telling stories. Storytelling is not just what I do. It’s what I am.

So as I step into 2026, my word—my declaration—is ASCENT.

Ascent means growth upward. Earned success. Elevation in status and income. It carries momentum. Inevitability. It is not loud, but it’s unstoppable.

My ascent into 2026 will be the manifestation of faithfulness. When you are faithful to your craft, faithful to your words, the seeds you planted return as harvest. The earth becomes gentle because you have cared for it. So no matter how crazy—and I mean crazy—this world becomes, no matter how many disappointments or kicks in the teeth you endure, do not give up.

Because if you give up, they win.If you give up, every lie they told gets declared as truth.

They don’t care that you’re tired.They never cared that you’re human.They do not care if you’re sane.

They will rejoice when you are defeated. That side partied too much in 2025.

And I’m sorry. I have my dancing boots on right now. I’m too stubborn to give up. I’ve come too far from where I started from. And I have too many stories to tell.

So my question to you, in this moment of crazy:Are you a leader?Are you a Moses?A Harriet Tubman?Or are you the woman who wrote Kindred? An Octavia Butler, gifted with foresight, who’ll break stereotypes and venture into the unknown.

I suspect some of you are. I know that your ascent is not accidental; it’s strategic. You’ve swung for the fences, and it’s your time.

So in 2026, choose ASCENT and leap into this new year with expectations. Let no one—and I mean no one—stop your rise.

This week’s book list is a mixed bag of identity, womanhood, and manifest:

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler – This is a foundational work on power, survival, and historical memory. It’s a classic. Let it be your entry to her storytelling.

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde – This collection of essays examines womanhood as a site of power, insisting that Black women’s differences, their anger, and lived experience are sources of knowledge, survival, and transformation.

Lara by Bernardine Evaristo – This novel traces lineage, migration, and identity across centuries, reflecting inheritance and storytelling.

This week, I’m highlighting Mahogany Booksellers through their website and Bookshop.org.

We are fifteen+ days away from the release of Fire Sword and Sea. She comes out on January 13th, 2026. Caribbean women pirates—That’s Black women pirates who sail the seas for adventure, a better life, or because they darn well felt like it. Imagine what their truth is. Help me get folks talking about this book.

Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from Mahogany Booksellers or one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small who are in this fight with me.

Come on my readers, my beautiful listeners. Let’s get everyone excited for Fire Sword and Sea and 2026.

Show notes include a list of the books mentioned in this broadcast.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.

Enjoying the vibe? Go ahead and like this episode, share, and subscribe to Write of Passage so you never miss a moment.”

Thank you for listening. Hopefully, you’ll come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

I love nonfiction. It plays a needed role in our psyche. I hunt for it and use these tomes in my research.But fiction is as essential as the air we breathe.When lives were never fully recorded, storytellers do the remembering.

Still a Storyteller

Right before I sat down to finish this essay—and to record this podcast—I completed the copy edits on my thirtieth book.

Thirty books. Nine with traditional publisher, Kensington Books. I am proud of all the writing I’ve done, but I’m particularly proud of A Deal at Dawn, a novel I’ll be talking about more in 2026. I’m proud of it for a simple, powerful reason: I told a story, a complete story, one with a beginning middle, climax and end.

When I was growing up, being called a storyteller didn’t always carry a positive meaning. Sometimes it was a euphemism for someone who told lies. Years ago, I was interviewed on a podcast by a preacher who genuinely could not understand why fiction mattered. He kept circling back to the same question: Why are you writing lies? As if nonfiction were the only form of truth that could be wholesome or valuable.

I love nonfiction. It plays a needed role in our psyche. I hunt for it and use these tomes in my research.

Fiction has the ability to transform, to tell a message or moral, and to leave impact in ways nonfiction or true to life people can often miss. When lives were never fully recorded, storytellers do the remembering.

Historical Fiction is important for marginalized groups. We often don’t have cradle-to-grave records of most human lives. Especially before computers, there are gaps—vast ones. The Truman Show, was a 1998 movie where Jim Carrey played a man whose entire life was scripted, recorded, and broadcast on television. I found the concept terrifying. And now, in our real world, where our apps listen to us, ads stalk us, and algorithms search for the precise moment where we are most vulnerable to be persuaded the invasion of our privacy is true.

I merely wish that all the people watching and recording… that all this was for our good. Instead it shapes narratives—often not to preserve truth, but to exploit it.

When I wrote Fire Sword and Sea, I had to piece together the life of Jacquotte Delahaye using the records of her contemporaries—white Europeans like Anne Dieu-le-Veut and Michel Le Basque. These lives. Anne’s and Michel’s were deemed important by the chroniclers. Their records survived. Jacquotte’s did not. That absence does not mean her life was less meaningful or less extraordinary. It means the people left to tell her story were also label unimportant. They weren’t given the opportunity to record and make sense of history.

I am profoundly aware of how fortunate I am to be in a position to tell stories like hers, about bold women who dared to dream and live different lives.

In the absence of storytellers, we are surrounded by people presenting lies as nonfiction and weaponizing so-called “truth” to influence the next generation.

I call on the storytellers to step up and do their job—those who care deeply about history, those willing to tell the good and the bad and, yes, sometimes the ugly, alongside the beauty—need to come forward and write. And if you can’t write, share the stories that moved you. Talk to friends about the storytelling that matters.

I watch the news and see stories about modern- or present-day activities being suppressed. There are times in 2025, where I wonder if storytellers will survive. The number of writers particularly in marginalized communities who’ve been impacted, by layoffs, positions eliminated, and those just so tired that they quit—I wonder about those storytellers in the upcoming years. It seems scary.

Don’t believe me, track Publisher Weeklys deal announcements or the sections that announce firings.

Traditional publishing is hard, impacted by an unwillingness to support authors or that they don’t want the heat that can come by championing true facts in a world where truth is something people want to shut down. I don’t know what it means to exist in a nation where only certain truths are permitted, while others must be redacted, distorted, or denied. How can anyone claim strength if they shatter at the mere presence of truth, hard ones that you want suppress?

There are days I look at the screen, I don’t know what to say.

Today, as I finish my thirtieth book—a novel that places sickle cell anemia, an ancient disease, at its center—I find myself asking: What is the truth of a “happily ever after” when forever is not guaranteed?

That may sound like heavy material for fiction. But that is exactly what storytellers do, make hard topics understandable and compelling. Storytellers want to sweep readers away from the status quo. Storytellers want to bolster a reader’s courage and humor. Sometimes, storytellers show paths where none seem to exist. Storytellers offer encouragement. And we, storytellers honor and tell the truth. All of it.

So even though the world feels shaky, I’m still here. I will still tell stories. Prepare to be sick of me.

Please stick around and join me on this journey. One of my goals for 2026 is to have bigger conversations with my heroes—people who ve dedicated their lives to storytelling that changes the world. I’m not just a reformed engineer. I was once a reporter for a college magazine. I’ve interviewed Desmond Tutu, Wynton Marsalis, and After 7. That doesn’t mean I’m a brilliant interviewer; it means I am lucky, persistent, and unafraid to put my mind to something and make it happen.

I plan on making a lot of things happen in 2026.

I need you with me in this upcoming year, in this season two of Write of Passage. I’ll continue to share essays about what I’m feeling, grounding them in history and context. And maybe—just maybe—I’ll also share conversations with heroes who are still faithfully putting pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, film to camera, who are telling the stories that shape and change our world and build up our resilience.

Books to make you a better storyteller or to make room for one In your life:

The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human by Jonathan Gottschall — A non-fiction exploration of how storytelling is fundamental to human psychology and culture.

Languages of Truth: Essays 2003–2020 by Salman Rushdie — A collection of essays about literary creativity, storytelling, myth, culture, and the power of narrative in human life.

And go watch:

The Truman Show (1998) — A chilling meditation on surveillance and manufactured truth, where a man discovers his entire life has been scripted, sold, and watched.

This week, I’m highlighting M. Judson through their website and Bookshop.org.

We are twenty+ days away from the release of course Fire Sword and Sea on January 13th, 2026. Caribbean women pirates—Black women pirates join French and Indigenous women to sail the seas in disguise. Imagine what their true is. Help me get folks talking about this novel.

Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from M. Judson Booksellers or one of my partners in the fight, bookstore’s large and small who are in this with me.

Come on my readers, my listeners. Let’s get everyone excited for January reads.

Show notes include a list of the books mentioned in this broadcast.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com under the podcast link in the About tab.

Enjoying the vibe? Go ahead and like this episode, share, and subscribe to Write of Passage so you never miss a moment.”

Thank you for listening. Hopefully, you’ll come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

On December 6, 2024, I sat down to write my feelings after licking my wounds from the America I woke up to on November 5. 2024.

The country felt less kind. Definitely, less gentle. This America willingly choosing boisterous, noisy incompetence, and the awful idea that your neighbor stole your opportunity. This choice was madeover competence, compassion, and stable beef prices.

So I did what I know how to do.

I wrote my feelings. I put pen to paper—or more accurately, fingers to keyboard—and I put all my thoughts and my heart on to the page. This essay launched my Substack.

I wrote a quote:

“But mama, I’m in love with a criminal,

And this type of love isn’t rational, it’s physical.

Mama, please don’t cry, I will be alright,

All reason aside, I just can’t deny, I love the guy.”

– Britney Spears, “Criminal” (Femme Fatale, 2011)

This was my Luigi Mangione phase.

To be honest, I was confused about Substack. Is is a newsletter? Is it a social media? Is it something else. But once, I played with the format and tossed up a podcast post, and you guys downloaded it, I got bigger ideas and turned to you guys for accountability. I would write one podcast essay for a year.

So the first podcast episode/ essay was The Weight of “Diverse”. My take of what was happening in publishing. Thrilling. And you tuned in. We’re almost at 17,000 downloads and hundreds of thousands of Substack views.

This was a unique challenge. I’m glad I stuck with this form of writing.

But, people often say, Vanessa, you write books. You’re always writing your heart. And that’s true. But there’s also a distance when I write about other people’s lives. It’s not me. I’m not the main character. Writing good historical fiction, romance, or mystery requires analysis. It requires restraint. I don’t pass judgment on the lives I’m bringing back to you.

In Sister Mother Warrior, I could not fault a Dahomey Warrior from following her king’s orders to sell captives any more than I can pass judgement on a 2025 sailor following his naval chief’s commands to bomb a fishing vessel. It’s the commanders of US Forces in the Caribbean and its chain of command that bringing back pirates.

But I digress.

If I were Jacquotte Delahaye, I might’ve stayed in the kitchen in Tortuga making soup, not run away to live a dream as a pirate. As a writer, I have to make their chaos—make sense. Otherwise, I’m not doing you the reader any good. And I refuse to dishonor the lives I’ve been entrusted with.

Everything I write in those books is layered on hard-fought facts: databases, archival digging, obscure records, and I do whatever it takes to bring readers closer to secret history, closer than they’ve ever been before.

Why?

I’m tired of women, particularly Black women and women of color, being portrayed as only victims in history. As if they survived history only through endurance, servitude, or some narrow “mammy-fixation” lens. My work insists they were complex, capable, and human.

But writing these weekly essay—this space—was different.

The first essay I wrote here was messy. Conflicted. It carried my trademark style to walk readers into someone else’s shoes, even when that perspective is uncomfortable. It also came with a promise I made to myself: that here, I would be open. Vulnerable. That I would talk to you as friends—friends willing to sit with my essay and listen.

For 52 weeks—an entire year—I’ve shown up. Most Mondays, I record in the evening, setting everything up so that by Tuesday at 9:10 AM, you’d receive something new. A weekly offering. A kind of fresh manna. Each episode was labor but it’s also a small love letter from me to you.

I’m, unapologetically, a write-aholic. But keeping that pace hasn’t been easy. There were nights I wanted sleep more than words. Days when another book’s edits or word count loomed. But when I commit to something I believe matters, I show up. I do the work.

For 52 weeks, you’ve allowed me to stand on the proverbial rooftop and shout my thoughts into what could have been a void.

But it wasn’t a void. You were there—listening, encouraging, learning, reflecting. Thank you.

This work takes effort. Real effort. From shaping ideas to wrestling them into coherence, then editing and distributing across platforms. We won’t even get into the technical gymnastics of getting everything out into the world.

Still, I’m grateful. I’m grateful we’re on Substack. On Apple Podcasts. On Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Spreaker, and YouTube. Each platform grows at its own pace, each teaches me something new. And I’m especially grateful that you are here.

As we head into the final weeks of 2025, I want to be clear: I’m not going anywhere.

Season Two begins next week. For the most part, this new year will continue as a weekly offering—my thoughts, shaped into essays. Occasionally, I may invite a guest, someone I’m learning from, someone who stretches my thinking. But this is not an interview show. There are plenty of those already. This space remains what it has always been: a place for reflection, curiosity, and shared thought. And when something special comes along, I’ll bring it here first—to my friends.

So thank you. Truly. Thank you for tuning in every week. For commenting, sharing, downloading, and telling others about this podcast. In some dark moments this year, your presence mattered more than you know. To everyone who has paid a subscription, you have blessed me. If I don’t have your mailing address, please email it to me. I have a writing journal that I’ve designed that I want to send to you.

And finally as I close Season One, I’ll leave you with this encouragement: we all have a right of passage. But I don’t want us to sail past each other like ships in the night. I want us to sit together—to talk, to think about the bigger ideas and the higher places we might go, together.

This week’s booklist is last week’s spotlight. Books coming out in January that need a little more love:

With Love, Harlem by ReShonda Tate — This is a fictionalized version of Hazel Scott’s story.

The Seven Daughters of Dupree by Nikesha Elise Williams — A multi‑generational family epic following seven Dupree women.

Burn Down the Master’s House by Clay Cane — A searing, urgent exploration of race, identity, and power .

Last First Kiss by Julian Winters — A second‑chance, slow‑burn romance about an Atlanta event planner.

Happy Habits for Successful Women by Valorie Burton — A practical, empowering guide that encourages women to adopt mindset and behavioral habits to become healthier, more resilient, and more aligned with their goals and values.

Behind These Walls by Yasmin Angoe — A twist‑driven psychological thriller in which a woman infiltrates a wealthy family’s mansion under false pretenses.

Murder From A to Z by V.M. Burns — A cozy‑mystery in which bookstore owner and and her sister uncover sinister dealings at a retirement village.

This week, I’m highlighting The Book Worm Bookstore through their website and Bookshop.org .

Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from The Book Worm Bookstore or one of my partners in the fight, bookstore’s large and small who are in this with me.

Come on my readers. Let’s get everyone excited for January reads.

Show notes include a list of the books mentioned in this broadcast.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com under the podcast link in the About tab.

Enjoying the vibe? Ready for Season 2? Go ahead and like this episode, share, and subscribe to Write of Passage so you never miss a moment.”

Thank you for listening. Hopefully, you’ll come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

Every writer, whether we want to admit it or not, is an entrepreneur. We create a product—a book—and then we turn around and sell it. Sometimes we sell part of our interest to a traditional publisher like Simon & Schuster or HarperCollins. Sometimes we go the indie route, selling directly to readers through a website or through a behemoth like Amazon. But no matter the path, one truth remains unshakable:

We are in business for ourselves.

We are the CEO, the marketing department, the shipping department, the PR team, and the person answering emails at 2 a.m.

We promote the product lines. We show up to the events. We handshake and livestream and book club ourselves into the good graces of the reading world.

I’m doing that now. As we gear up for the launch of Fire Sword and Sea, I’ll will be heading to D.C., Severna Park, Virginia, St. Louis, Mo, Austin, Texas, and of course Atlanta and all her glorious suburbs. Meeting readers is actually one of my favorite parts of the job. There’s nothing like seeing that gleam in a reader’s eye when they tell you what moved them, confused them, or delighted them.

There’s nothing like digging into the myths and the hidden histories that shaped a story.

And when I say hidden, I mean hidden. I will chase a fact to the end of the earth. I will travel to the places I’m writing about. I will battle through foreign language and archivists to get firsthand accounts. I want to return these people to you whole—the people who lived the stories I’m writing.

For Fire Sword and Sea, I boarded an old-time frigate—one that very easily could’ve been a pirate ship back in the day. I wanted to feel what it was like to sleep in a hammock practically touching tens of others, to understand how close the hull was to the crew cabin, to hear the groan of wood and water the same way they did.

There is no way you couldn’t hear the moans of the enslaved in the cargo hold. In the 1600s, human beings were the universal coin. People traded enslaved bodies like currency. That’s how they moved stolen property.

Moreover, the 1600s were wild. Theft was legal if you called it piracy. Danger was so normal it barely had a name. But it was also a time of reinvention. A time when you might have to disguise yourself—your gender, your class, your entire identity—to have the life you dreamed of.

And honestly? It doesn’t feel that far from being a small-business owner today. We change disguises, the various roles, to get our jobs done. And sometimes we forget why we got into this in the first place. We forget passion. And focus on market shifts. We ignore hunger to unleash something new into the world and get stuck in all the boxes that have to get checked—editing, research, marketing, PR, scheduling.

Recently I found people fight you or deprive you of resources when they don’t want your story told. In business, a Walmart will come and undercut you to price you out of the market. In the writing world, it will be the use of algorithms or the lack of oxygen to starve a book.

Sadly, some folks don’t want the truth. They don’t want to hear of a world where everyone could become a slave. They definitely don’t want to hear women who escaped and became pirates who led and commanded ships. I really think, some wanted me to write about a jolly old male crew singing sea shanties all day.

In Fire Sword and Sea, you’ll get adventure. You’ll get sailing crews. You might even get a spirit filled song asking for God’s vengeance. I wrote the truth. You’ll see the complicated leadership choices women in disguise had to make. You’ll see the danger of wanting something so badly that you risk everything to get it.

You’ll see the success, the heart break, and the compromises that may rot the soul.

Back to my small business.

Right now, I’m negotiating dates, confirming travel, juggling time zones, sorting release-week logistics—not to mention championing every other author whose book is coming out in January. It’s prime season. Prime real estate. Everyone wants and needs attention. I am no exception. If you preorder Fire Sword and Sea, I hope you feel the stories worth, believe the hassle, the grind, the late nights, and the tears.

But Lord… how many times have I said to myself, “I wish I had somebody else to do this”?

Let me bust a myth: even if you’re traditionally published, for the most part nobody is swooping in to handle your career or your new shiny book. You will still grind. You will still hustle. Traditional publishing gives glamorous promises—books everywhere, audiobooks, store distribution—but it does not give you a full marketing staff or sometimes the feeling that they give a damn.

Indies wear about 50,000 hats. Traditional authors wear about 32,000. Either way, your neck and back are still tired.

And that is why every writer—I don’t care which path you choose—has to ask:

What are you willing to do to have what you truly want?What are you willing to carry?How high are you willing to climb to make people hear your story?

Because at the end of the day, there is no one else. There’s no system. No machine. No cavalry.

There’s only you.You, shouting your story from every rooftop.You, standing on every chair.You, daring the world to listen.

We’re less than a month away now, and soon I’ll be taking Fire Sword and Sea across the country to talk about Jacquotte Delahaye, Lizzôa Erville, Michel Le Basque, Laurens de Graaf, and more: pirates who were—brave, reckless, brilliant. You will see them take to the took to the sea because no one else would do it for them.

Maybe that’s the lesson for all of us.

In the end, there is no one else.

There’s only the person who wants the dream badly enough to carry it forward.

And that person… is you.

This week’s booklist are books also coming out in January that need a little more love:

With Love, Harlem by ReShonda Tate — This is a fictionalized version of Hazel Scott’s story. She’s a jazz prodigy, a glamorous film star, a fierce advocate for civil rights, and she breaking barriers and rules.

The Seven Daughters of Dupree by Nikesha Elise Williams — A multi‑generational family epic following seven women of the Dupree lineage as they unearth dark secrets.

Burn Down the Master’s House by Clay Cane — A searing, urgent exploration of race, identity, and power in America.

Last First Kiss by Julian Winters — A second‑chance, slow‑burn romance about an Atlanta event planner reuniting with his first love when forced to cover a high-profile wedding.

Happy Habits for Successful Women by Valorie Burton — A practical, empowering guide that encourages women to adopt mindset and behavioral habits to become healthier, more resilient, and more aligned with their goals and values.

Behind These Walls by Yasmin Angoe — A twist‑driven psychological thriller in which a woman infiltrates a wealthy family’s mansion under false pretenses.

Murder From A to Z by V.M. Burns — A cozy‑mystery in which bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Samantha Washington and her sister uncover sinister dealings at a retirement village when a seemingly natural death turns suspicious.

This week, I’m highlighting Black Pearl Books through their website and Bookshop.org .

Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from Black Pearl Books or one of my partners in the fight, bookstore’s large and small who are in this with me.

Come on my readers. Let’s get everyone excited for January reads.

Show notes include a list of the books mentioned in this broadcast.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com under the podcast link in the About tab.

So Boss, Our stories matter—tap like, hit subscribe, share, and let’s keep this movement going with Write of Passage.

Thank you for listening. Hopefully, you’ll come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

“For the women who do right.

For the women who do wrong for the right reasons.

For the women who burn it all down, find beauty in ashes.

For the dreamers left behind—keep sailing.”

That is the dedication of Fire Sword and Sea. Four lines that came to me as a battle cry. It’s a reminder that womanhood, especially when tied to leadership, has never been a straight line. It bends, curves, breaks, and rebuilds. It demands courage. It requires clarity. And sometimes, it lusts for fire.

Recently, a friend—someone who does not read much historical fiction—got an early look at Fire Sword and Sea. She’s a reader of self-help, of business strategy, of the occasional thriller you can sneak into her hands. But she said something that stopped me cold:

“Vanessa, you wrote a book about leadership—about women’s leadership.”

At first, I blinked. That wasn’t the answer I was expecting. Yes, my heroine Jacquotte Delahaye is a pirate captain. And yes, pirate captains are leaders by definition. But what my friend saw was something deeper—something I wasn’t consciously aiming for but had apparently woven into every scene, every strike of a sword.

On a pirate ship in the 1600s, leadership wasn’t inherited; it was earned. Pirate vessels operated like meritocracies—any race, any nationality could join, as long as they could pull their weight. Jacquotte rises the only way a woman in that era could: in disguise. Hidden behind lies, she relies on her skill with a rapier, her mastery of the sea, her stamina and grit, and her ability to steer a stolen ship through storms both literal and moral.

Pirates didn’t buy their ships. They took them. And Jacquotte climbs the ladder of command one impossible task at a time.

Through Fire Sword and Sea, we see her rise, her missteps, her victories, her bruises—physical and spiritual. And that, my friend said, is leadership.

But leadership—especially women’s leadership—is a complicated beast.

We often talk about the women who lead in boardrooms, in startups, in medicine, in politics. But historically—and even now—women occupy the caregiver role by default. According to the report released in March by US Healthcare Workforce, 87 percent of nurses are women. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says 80 percent of healthcare workers are women. We are the hospice nurses, the physician assistants, the physical therapists. The ones tending to the young, the old, the fading, the forgotten. And in the 1600s, this was even more pronounced. Before physicians, there were women who gathered herbs, mixed tinctures, whispered prayers, held hands, and ushered people into life and into death and sometimes back again.

To lead, sometimes that caregiving must be set aside. And that choice weighs heavy on nurturers.

Then there is modernity:

How does being a mother affect leadership?

How does being a wife?

How does being the one expected to build the home, nurture the family, care for the elders and in-laws?

I remember climbing the corporate ladder and watching women I admired—women who mentored me—delay motherhood until the last biologically viable second. One of my favorite bosses, a brilliant Irish PhD in physics, once had suits tailored specifically to hide her pregnancy. Because at that time, maternity leave and career advancement could not coexist in the same equation.

This is the landscape women navigate. A landscape Jacquotte would have known in a different form, in a different century—but it’s still hauntingly familiar.

My friend, though, wanted to talk about the dedication.

For the women who do right.

For the women who do wrong for the right reasons.

Because in leadership, there is always a moment—a crossroads—when doing the right thing may mean becoming complicit in something that isn’t right. Sometimes survival demands choices you would never make in a perfect world.

We see the consequences of hubris and hard choices in our real world today. Not to get too political, but right now there is a crisis in the Caribbean that breaks my heart. U.S. forces have fired on fishing vessels, claiming they carried drugs. But no proof has been given. Witness accounts suggest at least one boat was attacked without cause, leaving two people clinging for life. It seems a second strike was orders to kill defenseless victims.

If drugs were aboard, they now sit at the bottom of the sea—destroyed by the same guns that struck the fishermen. This needless killing violates the Geneva Convention, the rules of war and basic humanity.

And now investigations must happen to see how leadership failed and who was complicit in illegal orders. It is a horrible situation when the people in all levels of the chain of command fail. It’s horrid, that those below followed orders that were illegal. Leadership—good or bad—always has accomplices.

And that is part of the burden.

In Fire Sword and Sea, Jacquotte and her crew face their own moral storms. In the 1600s, the “currency” of the seas was not just gold or silver. It was people. African people. A horrid truth I confronted in my research was located in merchant records.

I saw 17 guinea for a pewter bowl.

At first, I thought they meant the coin minted for King Charles II with gold from the country Guinea. But the coin of popularity in the Caribbean. The Spanish silver pieces of eight were. It was upon further digging that these records were referring to people. Everyone from Africa are commonly called Guinea in the 1600s.

So a pewter vessel was valued at seventeen Guinea. Seventeen human lives.

Imagine a world where a pewter bowl was worth more than a child.

So yes—Fire Sword and Sea has action and saga and mystery. But beneath the adventure, it wrestles with leadership, complicity, survival, and the cost of chasing freedom in a world built on stolen bodies.

This book asks questions:

What does it take to lead?

What is the price of doing the right thing?

What happens when you must choose between your principles and your people?

And how do women—across eras—navigate these impossible intersections of duty, ambition, and care?

I cannot wait to have deeper conversations with you about these choices and about leadership.

And so I return to Fire Sword and Sea’s dedication:

For the women who do right.

For the women who do wrong for the right reasons.

For the women who burn it all down, find beauty in ashes.

For the dreamers left behind—keep sailing.”

Books to get us diving deeper into leadership are:

The Soul of a Woman — Isabel Allende

A reflective nonfiction exploration of feminism, aging, ambition, and the fight for autonomy across a lifetime.

Take Care of Them Like My Own — Dr. Ala Stanford: A powerful memoir of a Black woman surgeon who turned grief, racism, and systemic neglect into a movement that vaccinated and cared for thousands during COVID‑19. Soror Ala is running for congress to lead the 3rd congressional district of Philadelphia.

The Broken Earth Trilogy — N.K. Jemisin

A brilliant speculative saga about oppressed women who wield world-shaking power, exploring trauma, leadership, survival, and righteous destruction.

I, Medusa — Ayana Gray

A bold, haunting retelling that gives Medusa her voice back, revealing the girl behind the myth and exploring power, wrath, injustice, and the cost of becoming the monster the world insists you are.

Birth of a Dynasty — Chinaza Bado (AKA JJ Mcavoy)

A sweeping tale of ambition, generational power, and the women who shape empires from the shadows, exploring the sacrifices, strategies, and emotional costs of building—and defending—a legacy.

We are six weeks away from the release of course Fire Sword and Sea on January 13th, 2026. Caribbean women pirates—Black women pirates join French and Indigenous women to sail the seas. Review this novel in Edelweiss and NetGalley. Vote for it on Goodreads. Help me get folks talking about this novel.

This week, I’m highlighting Baldwin and Company through their website and Bookshop.org .

Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from Baldwin and Company or one of my partners in the fight, bookstore’s large and small who are in this with me.

Come on my readers. Let’s get everyone excited for truth.

Show notes include a list of the books mentioned in this broadcast.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com under the podcast link in the About tab.

Don’t let this be a one-time thing—like, share, and subscribe to join the growing family at Write of Passage. Welcome aboard this ship. I heart you.

Thank you for listening. Hopefully, you’ll come again. This is Vanessa Riley.

The gift of hospitality shouldn’t be dead. But if I’m honest, I think in certain parts of the country, and in certain circles I’ve moved through, it might be on life-support. I’ve watched people forget how to say welcome to strangers.

I’ve seen other seem oblivious to making room at the table for others. This weekend while I was at Barnes and Nobles, I was handed an orange whistle and given instructions on how to blow it if I see an abduction happening. Because elections have consequences, brown people are not being treated with hospitality. They are literally under assault for being brown.

I want off this Ferris wheel of bad karma. I want humans to act with generosity instead of suspicion. I want the world I write about, the happy ever after, the place where victory comes for those who persevere.

You see, I am my mother’s daughter.I was raised in the gospel of killing them with kindness—and if you’re still hatefully breathing, I might go in for another round. If you’ve read any of my Lady Worthing mysteries, you know I believe in Columbo-type persistent. And in Jessica Fletcher style, I will stack a body count and keep digging until I find the truth. Determination is my love language. Stubbornness is too.

So when I run head-first into metaphorical walls—and Lord, have I met a few this year—it isn’t easy to step back and consider quitting.

While it’s natural for me to reflect on what I “might’ve, should’ve, could’ve” done differently, that level of introspection doesn’t just come with right and wrong. It adds farces and facts. Am I supposed to say the truth in a softer voice? Am I to ignore facts and write euphemisms like we don’t know that colonizers like Columbus came to kill and steal?

I suppose it would be easier to forget that pirates in the 1600s were Black women, that ships didn’t have an integrated crew, all while sailing with a cargo hold of chattel slaves.

Ooops. A company with a $65 Billion dollar market cap instructed me to say a cargo hold of chattel imprisonment.

Le Sigh.

And then we arrive at my favorite time of year: Thanksgiving, the holiday my mother owned. She held it close to her heart like the pride of a champion athlete. Forget the World Series or the Boston Marathon—Thanksgiving was her event. She trained for it all year. She curated pumpkin ornaments and gleaming charger plates in reds and deep oranges. She laid out gravy boats and soup tureens like treasured relics. And I fought—fiercely—to inherit the Fitz and Floyd pig that keeps the yeast rolls warm. Not just because it’s pretty, but because it symbolizes everything, she taught me: family gathering, long hours in the kitchen, bending over backward to make others feel warm and welcomed and in life pigs are allowed to be pretty.

Hospitality was one of my mother’s greatest legacies.I hope—truly hope—that I embody even a portion of that in my life and work. But I won’t lie: this year it has been hard.

Hard to be hospitable.

Hard to turn the other cheek when the other side of the equation seems intent on destruction.

Hard to smile when some would prefer you feel small, insignificant, or silenced.

Hard to create when your work is dismissed as nothing or there have been too many Caribbean books.

On social media, I may laugh and joke. I may sing polite praises of my enemies—and those who I no longer esteem as highly as I once did. There are exceptions, of course. And y’all know exactly who they are—65 Billion dollar company. But I digress.

In a few days, it will be Thanksgiving.And I am giving thanks.

I am thankful for my family.I am thankful for my friends.I am thankful for my colleagues—past and present.And I am deeply thankful for you, my listeners and my readers.

Without you, I wouldn’t have the hope I carry for the coming year.Without you, there would be no Write of Passage or stories reaching new tables.

No late-night messages about characters who’ve haunted me until I shared their story.

No shared laughter over inside jokes you’ve begun to catch—because you know me. And I love getting to know you.

Thank you for the letters, the comments.Thank you for the likes, the shares, and every conversation you sparked.Thank you for recommending this podcast, or my latest books Fire Sword and Sea, or old favorites like Island Queen or A Duke, the Lady, and A Baby. Your hospitality—your generosity—has lifted the low moments and made the high ones shine even brighter.

So as we gather around our Thanksgiving tables, I want you to know that I’m grateful for you. I’m hopeful for the new year—hopeful for the clearing away of old spaces, the opening of new ones. I am happy about the tables I sit at and the ones I walk away from with peace.

I am thankful for the power to know who I am.And the courage to become who I want to be.

I write about characters who make that choice every day—who decide, despite their flaws and wounds and circumstances, to grow into the person they long to become. My wish for you, for everyone within the sound of my voice, and for every reader who picks up one of my books is simple:

May you live your greatest adventure.May you become who you were always meant to be.And may that parent, that person who loved you so deeply—whether sitting across the Thanksgiving table or watching from above—look at you and see their brightest legacy shining.

This week’s books to reflect upon are:

Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara A powerful, modern meditation on the radical generosity that transforms people.

The Kindness Diaries: One Man’s Quest to Ignite Goodwill and Transform Lives Around the World by Leon Logothetis Inspiring real-life story of a man traveling the world relying solely on the kindness of strangers.

Hallelujah! The Welcome Table: A Lifetime of Memories with Recipes by Maya Angelou — A collection of essays + recipes that really celebrate food, memory, and welcome.

For a taste of fiction, food and healing, check out Bitter and Sweet by Christy Award winner Rhonda McKnight.

I can’t believe we are less than seven weeks away from the release of course Fire Sword and Sea on January 13th, 2026. Caribbean women pirates—Black women pirates join French and Indigenous women to sail the seas. If you’re a librarian, vote for this book now in Library Reads in Edelweiss and NetGalley. Indie Next is voting now too. Time is almost up.

This week, I’m highlighting Fox Tale Book Store through their website and Bookshop.org .

Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from FoxTale or one of my partners in the fight, bookstore’s large and small who are in this with me.

Come on my readers. Let’s get everyone excited for truth.

Show notes include a list of the books mentioned in this broadcast.

You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com under the podcast link in the About tab.

If you’re on board, press that like button, subscribe, and share Write of Passage. Never miss a moment. We have work to do. And I need You.

Thank you for listening. Hopefully, you’ll come again. This is Vanessa Riley.