Seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student and math tutor, and one of the only Black students at Jefferson Academy. Secretly, she is the developer of SLAY, a multiplayer online role-playing card game in which hundreds of thousands of Black gamers worldwide duel as Nubian personas using powers drawn from Black culture — a refuge she built after experiencing racial harassment in other games. No one in her offline life knows, not even her boyfriend Malcolm, who condemns video games. When a teenager in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute connected to the game, mainstream coverage brands SLAY racist and violent, and an anonymous troll infiltrates it, threatening a discrimination lawsuit and demanding control. Told partly through other players and Kiera's co-developer in Paris, Morris's debut explores Black identity in its many forms, online community, and the cost of protecting a space where she can be fully herself.
Author: Brittney Morris · Original publisher: Simon Pulse (New York), 2019