After turning Judy Blume’s classic novel into a critically acclaimed television series, Mara Brock Akil is debuting a book of her own.
Brock, responsible for hit series like Forever, Being Mary Jane, and Girlfriends and more, is entering the fiction space with her debut novel, The Revelation of Dionne Daphne.
“I wrote this novel with the intention of taking the reader through a story that may be familiar. One of isolation, shame, resilience, and the redemptive power of love,” Brock Akil said in a statement. “My hope is that readers will see themselves in Dionne and recognize the weight they’ve been holding and feel permission to release it. Stepping into fiction as a novelist has been a beautiful journey for me, expanding my storytelling into a new form and discovering what revelation looks like on the page, and I am so grateful to have Storehouse Voices alongside me on this new journey.”
What is the book about?
According to the official description, “The novel sees Dionne Daphne, a magnetic heroine navigating a whirlwind of emotions, buried secrets, and profound personal awakening. Dionne has everything a modern, thirty-something NYC woman in the 90s could dream of. She is the beauty editor at a prestigious magazine, with a social life of the upper echelon, and a boyfriend that could have been plucked out of its pages. But all of this comes crashing down, when he arrives at her Brooklyn doorstep with life-threatening news that creates a crack in the facade of her picture-perfect life.”
A new form of storytelling unlocked
No stranger to creating characters that the world loves through television, Brock is revered as one of Hollywood’s most influential and celebrated creators.
From the ladies navigating life in their 30s in Girlfriends to Mary Jane’s toil between career, love, and self-worth in Being Mary Jane, and the highs and lows of young love in shows like The Game and Forever, Brock Akil has captured the essence of the emotion and packages it in a way that makes those who consume it feel seen.
The Revelation of Dionne Daphne is powered by Storehouse Voices, which also published the recent expansion of Malcolm D. Lee’s The Best Man to a book series.
“Being both a lover of books and longtime admirer of Mara’s storytelling, I’d always wondered what a novel from Mara Brock Akil would look like,” Chelcee Johns, executive editor at Storehouse Voices, said. “I reached out with hopes she’d been thinking the same and after a few years of working behind the scenes, what has come is beyond anything I’d imagined. This debut novel wrestles with themes of sexual awakening and acceptance, family trauma, sudden love, and evolving friendship through a character with as much bite as she has tenderness. We’re proud to publish Mara’s debut at Storehouse Voices and can’t wait for fans and newcomers alike to join us on the release.”
The Revelation of Dionne Daphne is set to release on June 30, with copies now available for pre-order.
