Reading with... Kayvion Lewis

photo: Marie Jones

Kayvion Lewis is a young adult author of all things escapist and high-octane. Her Thieves' Gambit duology will be published in more than 25 languages and is being adapted for film by Lionsgate. Lewis, a former youth services librarian, has been working with young readers and kidlit since she was 16. When she's not writing, she's breaking out of escape rooms, jumping out of airplanes, and competing in kung fu tournaments.

Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:

The Thieves' Gambit duology is about an international thieving competition that brings together the world's best teenage thieves to vie for the favor of the criminal underworld's elites.

On your nightstand now:

There are so many books on my nightstand right now, the stack is probably a safety hazard. At the top are Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes, a sci fi-horror about an exploration crew possibly afflicted by a violence-inducing disease on an abandoned planet, Daughter of the Bone Forest by Jasmine Skye, a YA fantasy about witches and shape-shifting familiars at a magic school, and The Night Ends with Fire by K.X. Song, which had me at "Mulan retelling."

Favorite book when you were a child:

Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn haunted me, but in a good way. When I was in fourth grade, I was entranced by this ghost story and kept rereading it, along with her other books, even though they kept giving me nightmares. 

Your top five authors:

Man, this is like asking me to pick my favorite Skittles flavors, cause honestly, I'd happily eat them all. Not that I want to eat other authors, I just meant I like most of them. You know what I mean! Anyways, uh, here are the authors:

Grady Hendrix (My Best Friend's Exorcism; The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Monsters)

Liselle Sambury (Blood Like Magic)

Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou (The Husky and His White Cat Shizun)

Jennette McCurdy (I'm Glad My Mom Died)

Kimberly Lemming (That Time I Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf)

Book you've faked reading:

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Why is Holden Caulfield a jerk? Did I even spell his name right? What did he get expelled for? These are questions I'll never have the answers to. And it's not that I didn't want to read it, but my 10th grade self was far too busy researching how to join the Peace Corps and crying about failing my driver's test to get around to it.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Rainbow in the Dark by Sean McGinty. Why haven't more people read this book???!!! It's written in second person and is one of the trippiest yet most poignant books I've read about the bond between siblings, the sometimes confusing nature of depression, and a desperate search for home even when you don't remember where home is--all told through the lens of a video game. 

Book you've bought for the cover:

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows. I picked this book off the shelf at my bookstore, and a passing bookseller even stopped to say, "Wow, that's stunning!" Did I expect I was going to be hit with a story that was equal parts political fantasy/murder mystery and dealt with trauma from assault and homophobia? Not my first guess. Did I love it anyway? YES.

Book you hid from your parents:

1001 Spells by Cassandra Eason. It's a spell book. Like, literally. I still tuck it away when my dad comes to visit. Can't have them knowing his only daughter is brewing potions and casting hexes in her free time.

Book that changed your life:

The Maze of Bones, the first book in The 39 Clues series by Rick Riordan! An international adventure? Cryptic clues? The treasure of a lifetime? This was the book that made me want to be an adventurer when I grew up. (And the book that gave me the idea to write adventure books when the "become Black Indiana Jones" career path didn't pan out.) Without The Maze of Bones, I'd probably be a physicist right now. Or a nurse anesthetist. Definitely not an author. 

Favorite line from a book:

"Does it scare you that much when you don't know stuff?" It's a simple line from The Strangers by Margaret Peterson Haddix, but it hit me really hard when I first read it. It captured the essence of how I was feeling about taking risks in my own life at the time. But even if you don't know exactly where your decisions will land you, you have to make them anyway. This line helped me realize that.

Five books you'll never part with:

The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk

Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury

My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan

Bungo Stray Dogs (the whole series) by Kafka Asagiri

You could pry these books from my cold, dead hands, but I'm downloading the e-books and taking them to heaven with me.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

The Selection by Kiera Cass. This was the first proper YA book I ever read, all the way back when I was 13. I'd read books I loved before this, but this was the first series I was properly obsessed with. (Like, "pretended to be sick so I could stay home and read the day the sequel came out" obsessed.) I'd love to go back and feel the exhilaration I felt reading it for the first time.

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