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Your next favorite book
is waiting.
by Aleema Omotoni
Knives Out meets Death at Morning House in this thrilling standalone mystery layered with family secrets, the whitewashing of history, and a high-stakes literary competition for the keys to a Victorian-era English estate—from Aleema Omotoni, the NAACP Image Award-winning author of Everyone's Thinking It.
Derin's acceptance into Cambridge University is the end of an era—just not the one she expected.
When she and her ultra-competitive Uni prep group, the Kenfield Set, were first invited to Professor Darnley's summer ball, they planned on celebrating the group's success, surrounded by the riches of his historical Kenfield estate—not kicking off the festivities with the professor's will reading.
But when the Darnleys' aristocratic children are disinherited, the students are offered the opportunity of a lifetime: compete in a Victorian, literary-inspired inheritance competition to be named the new heir—winner takes all!
For Derin, it's a chance to help her working-class family. But the remaining Darnleys won't take losing their stately home and its multimillion-pound inheritance lying down. And added to the mix, a mysterious note is slipped under Derin's door alluding to a dark family secret lying in wait.
Now Derin must balance the cutthroat games; scheming relatives; and a cute Kenfield intern amid her dawning realization that the history of this inheritance might be soaked in lies ... and blood.
"Deeply developed characters, shocking twists, and thought-provoking historical intrigue." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Recalling Mean Girls, Omotoni's compulsively entertaining debut adeptly addresses topics surrounding bullying, classism, homophobia, identity, and racism via Iyanu and Kitan's alternating chapters, which piece together their fraught relationship history amid the school's current fallout in biting prose." —Publishers Weekly
"Omotoni's debut is equal parts intriguing and exciting. She does more than create a space for the necessary commentary on racism, sexism, and homophobia. She also takes us on an emotional roller coaster that has us rooting for both Iyanu and Kitan. Readers will relish the ending and both character transformations." —Booklist
This information about Winners & Liars was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Aleema Omotoni is an award-winning British-Nigerian author. She writes novels that center Black teens coming of age, falling in love, and navigating all kinds of contemporary and fantasy worlds. She loves knitting, podcasts about her special interests, and colorful autumn walks in her favorite London parks. Her debut novel, Everyone's Thinking It, won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work—Youth/Teens. You can visit her online at aleemaomotoni.com.
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