With her next book, E L James is straying far from her spicy roots.
The author of the Fifty Shades series of BDSM-themed erotica novels has a young-adult fantasy novel coming later this year, Cosmopolitan reports. Bloom will publish the author’s Land of Ghosts, her first novel for young readers,in the fall.
James made her literary debut in 2011 with Fifty Shades of Grey, a romance novel that originated as a work of fan fiction featuring the characters from Stephenie Meyers’ Twilight novels. The novel, about the sexual relationship between recent college graduate Anastasia Steele and wealthy entrepreneur Christian Grey, was originally self-published and subsequently released by Vintage in 2012. The book was a massive bestseller.
She followed that up with two more books in the series, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed; all three were adapted as films. A parallel trilogy, which retells the stories from Christian’s point of view, debuted in 2015 with Grey. James has written two other books, a romance duology composed of The Mister (2019) and The Missus (2023).
Land of Ghosts will follow Emily Beauchamp, who loses her immediate family in a tragedy and moves in with a distant relative. There she encounters and falls for a young man who might be a ghost.
“I think what I loved about this story is that at its heart, it’s about love after loss, and the possibility that even when everything is taken from you, the universe can still surprise you,” James told Cosmopolitan. “It’s very different from anything I’ve written before, but readers can expect a whirlwind of feelings, a passionate but fraught love story, and some amazing twists and turns.”
Land of Ghosts is scheduled for publication on Oct. 20.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
