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Write of Passage by Vanessa Riley

Write of Passage by Vanessa Riley

Auteur(s): Vanessa Riley
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 Join bestselling author Vanessa Riley as she delves into untold histories, reflects on current events through a historical lens, shares behind-the-scenes writing insights, and offers exclusive updates on her groundbreaking novels.

vanessariley.substack.comVanessa Riley Sciences sociales
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  • Revenge, Regret, and a Lick

    Revenge, Regret, and a Lick
    Jan 27 2026
    Revenge isn’t justice—it’s a dopamine hit with consequences.We love the fantasy of the lick back: the receipts, the public shaming, the Waiting to Exhale moment.But what happens after the fire dies out and you’re the one standing in the smoke? This essay asks an uncomfortable question: Is revenge power, or is it professional and spiritual suicide?Revenge, Regret, and a Lick Back I saw a viral clip from Oprah’s podcast about the science of revenge, and it mesmerized me. It’s a thought or a topic that I deal with when I write. Pro-tip: Real deep emotions that your characters embody resonate with readers.But back to Oprah.A woman in the podcast audience recounts a moment when she lost control. Consumed by suspicion, she triangulated her lover’s whereabouts using technology: combing through his laptop, pulling Uber receipts, matching dates to her calendar, and Googling addresses. The trail led straight to his ex-girlfriend. Proof in hand, she didn’t confront him quietly. She burned his clothes—Waiting to Exhale–style—posted flyers in the neighborhood with his photo stamped CHEATER, and I caught the vibe that maybe there was more she wouldn’t say on television.The anger was palatable. Right, in the United States, anger is rampant. We have more acts of government-sanctioned brutality and murder. Officials are lying. Some folks seeme outraged. Others are looking away, hoping for a reasonable explanation of murder. While the ones once told to be silent are questioning whether all lives really do matter.Back to Oprah again.Oprah responded with compassion and hard-earned wisdom. She admitted she’d had a similar moment in her twenties—and learned that instead of tracking someone down, sometimes the bravest act is to stop, to cool down, to get help, and to reclaim yourself before you do something that costs you far more than it costs them.Have you ever been there?So angry at how someone wronged you that you feel yourself tipping into something unrecognizable?I’ve written that moment. In Fire Sword and Sea, Jacquotte experiences a rage so pure and sharp it feels righteous. The pirate crew she serves is a meritocracy: everyone is equal as long as they do their job. But one pirate, eaten alive by jealousy, sabotages battle instructions and leaves the entire crew in mortal danger. I won’t spoil what happens—but terrible things follow.Jacquotte wants to kill him. Not metaphorically. She wants to drive her rapier through his heart, drag it up to his gullet and down into his gut. Based on what happens, her anger is justified. It’s righteous anger.And yet—she does nothing.She has to consider the crew. Her leadership. The sacrifices, she’s already made. The futures she fought for can be destroyed with one wrong move. In choosing restraint, something else breaks inside her. She almost loses her sanity.Revenge might have felt freeing, but it wouldn’t have solved the problem or undone the harm caused by one ignorant, jealous fool.James Kimmel Jr., author of The Science of Revenge, tells Oprah that revenge is a core emotion—an addictive one—that drives wars and conflicts. Or, as we say in the neighborhood: you can’t help but want to get your lick back.But revenge is often also professional suicide.Even when everything and a court of law is on your side, the world gets very small very fast. When word spreads about your clever act of vengeance, who will really trust you? You’re now the person who “crashed out.” Your stability and dependability are questioned. Team chemistry evaporates like smoke.I’ve had friends who didn’t care. For ten glorious minutes—right up until security escorted them out—they had their revenge.Before restraining orders are needed, I think we owe ourselves one hard question:Is it worth burning down your world just to set fire to theirs?The best villains say yes. But is that you? No? So, I’m advocating to turn the other cheek. Forgive. But I don’t know about that forgetting part. We’re not angels. We’re definitely not Christ. Forgetting that someone harmed you can put you right back in danger. They already stole your trust and your time—things you can’t get back.Yes, second-chance romances exist. But infidelity is a hard one to forgive, but so is belittling your dreams or gaslighting your pain. Refusing to admit wrongdoing while demanding your faith is wrong. When someone cannot acknowledge harm but insists they have your best interests at heart—that’s not a lesson to learn twice. That’s a situation to run from.So what is the ultimate revenge?Physical harm is wrong. Social harm is fleeting. The endorphin rush fades. The pain remains. And now you might also have a criminal record for trespassing. No thank you.At this stage of my life, I don’t actually want revenge.I want regret.I want a soul-stirring, chest-tightening, sleepless regret. I want them to know—deeply—that if they had only lived up to the values they preached, ...
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    12 min
  • The Scars We Carry

    The Scars We Carry
    Jan 20 2026
    Betrayal leaves no visible wound, only a hardened place in the heart—scabbed, protected, and difficult to penetrate. The question becomes, do we want to heal, or can we linger in hate and fire?Betrayal is one of the most disorienting experiences a person can endure. It does not arrive all at once; it sweeps through you in stages, much like grief. First comes shock, then self-doubt. Was I naïve? Was I fooled? Were there signs I ignored because I wanted to believe? You replay conversations, gestures, moments of connection, wondering which parts were real and which were carefully constructed illusions. There is a particular cruelty in realizing you were allowed—invited—into a false sense of security.What makes betrayal hurt the most is not just the deception, but the bond you believed you shared. Often, trust is built. Often values are mirrored: bonding on marginalization, feminism, activism, or other deeply held beliefs. You thought we saw the world the same way.And with this bond, one can say, I’m not alone, not alone in the mission, not alone in the place and time. Basically, I’m not alone or lonely anymore.Finding a like-minded person can feel like hope in an isolating world. And when that bond proves false, it shakes more than the relationship—it shakes your foundation, your sense of reality. You begin to question everything. What was authentic? What was performative? And inevitably, the most haunting question surfaces: If I can be misled, how do I trust again?This question lives at the heart of Fire Sword and Sea. Jacquotte Delahaye wrestles with trust at every stage of her life. As a cook in a tavern, she must decide who entering the building is safe, and who is not.When Jacquotte becomes a pirate, she’s surrounded by a crew whose survival depends on loyalty; that question becomes life-or-death. In love, it becomes even more perilous: who deserves her heart, and who should she flee from? We all recognize the trope of the “bad boy, bad girl”—and even then, there’s an understanding of risk.Hoping to expand our happiness, and unfortunately, to our detriment, we try. Then we fail, and every reason that seemed right masked all those wrong reasons.In Jacquotte’s story, betrayal cuts sharply when it comes from a friend, someone she would die for. The wound left behind is unforgettable. Her heart leans to be more guarded. As readers follow her journey, I wish for them to reflect on their own lives: and asking the tough questions:Where are they most vulnerable?Where does trust feel most fragile?How do they respond when someone they love or admire proves to be painfully human—or worse, willfully harmful?Recovery from betrayal is difficult, especially when it comes from someone you love. It hurts down deep when your admiration was for naught.Yet living with a grudge is harder. Holding on to ill will and being unable to forgive is terrible. These conditions are like living behind armor so heavy it prevents connection altogether. No one wants to become the person who’s constantly looking over their shoulder, questioning every kindness, every soft word. And yet, as a member of a marginalized community, I can say that this struggle is familiar. Betrayal is not theoretical; it is lived.President Reagan famously said, “Trust, but verify,” when referencing his mortal enemies. The word enemy implies intention, while mortal suggests an endgame. Jacquotte survives betrayal.Mostly.She carries with her a scar—a hardened scab over part of her heart.The scab is protective. It’s tender. Difficult to penetrate.One of the most personal and honest aspects of Jacquotte Delahaye’s character is how she navigates betrayal while balancing mercy, forgiveness, awareness, and pain. She is not idolized. She is real. A crew member betrays her profoundly, and yet she must decide how to move forward, because leadership demands clarity. If you are on her crew, she must be prepared to sacrifice everything for you.I’m not suggesting anyone make unwise sacrifices for those who’ve harmed them. Some acts are unforgivable.But we live in a moment that demands deeper conversations about accountability, justice, and grace. There’s a growing urge to harden our hearts—to refuse forgiveness entirely—especially when apologies arrive only after consequences. And yet, we must weigh these decisions carefully, as captains of our own ships.I do not claim to have the right answers. The Jacquotte I wrote doesn’t. She is flawed. She walks a delicate balance between forgiveness and holy anger.So I think about Jacquotte. As I went on a release week tour, she was on my heart. She lived an experience that left marks, taught her caution, and forced us to decide who she’d become in the aftermath.In life, the question is not whether we will be wounded, but when to choose healing—and what parts of ourselves we are willing to risk again.This week’s booklist:A book on recovering from betrayal:Waking the Tiger: ...
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    11 min
  • Fire Sword and the Crime of Womanhood

    Fire Sword and the Crime of Womanhood
    Jan 13 2026
    By the time you hear this, my twenty-ninth book will no longer be hidden, filtered, or quietly passed around behind publishing gates.It took two and a half years, a global history we were never taught, censorship, delays, stolen copies—yes, pirates—to bring this book into the world.Fire Sword and Sea is about women who refused to disappear, in a time when choosing your own life could get you exiled—or killed.And now, their story is yours.By the time you hear this, my twenty-ninth book will be live—released into the world, no longer hidden behind NetGalley or Edelweis or advanced reader copy structures.It took two and a half years of research, writing, revising, questioning myself, starting over, and fine-tuning every voice until each character could stand on their own feet and speak without apology. Fire Sword and Sea is now available everywhere books are sold—and, I hope, in your libraries. And if it’s not there yet, ask for it. Librarians listen.This book represents not just years of labor, but the weight of them—the questions I’ve been circling, the history I’ve been chasing, the fire I’ve been quietly tending while drumming up attention and conversations, wondering how the world would react when they finally got to see the finished product.And now, you can too.In Fire Sword and Sea, you’ll meet Jacquotte Delahaye—a Black woman of mixed heritage, French and African, who refuses to bend to authority that demands obedience. She wants freedom: the freedom to earn money and spend it as she chooses, the freedom to love whom she wants, not the man her father selects, or the love society deems “appropriate.” Jacquotte resists not because she is reckless, but because she understands that such rigid constructs for women have always been a cage.You’ll meet Bahati, a Black pirate of African descent, who resists every force that tries to dictate how she should labor, whom she should serve, and what she should endure. She chooses piracy not for glory, but for survival—for legacy. She wants a world where her nieces will never know poverty, never know enslavement, never have their lives narrowed by someone else’s greed.You’ll come to know Lizzôa, a spy in Petit-Goâve. If you have ever dreamed against the odds—if you’ve ever needed a guide who knows how to move quietly, how to gather information, how to turn whispers into strategy—Lizzôa is the person who will help you build what you were thought was impossible, what you were even told could never happen. Lizzôa doesn’t follow the orders of men or kings. No Lizzôa bends and reshapes everything with fire. Dreaming is living fire.And you’ll meet Sarah Sayon, a woman willing to do anything to escape a brutal relationship. Her resistance is not gentle. She uses fire to destroy evil and to cleanse the world that tried to break her.There are so many more on the crew in Fire Sword and Sea. You will find yourself and your role.This novel takes you back to a time to the 1600s, when women were given only two roles: wife or wench. Or as a friend said, a heaux or a housewife. This is the original respectability politics, where you fit in or were exiled or killed. Choice was a luxury that women were not meant to have.You may be thinking how can this be? My history books… Le Sigh. This was a time when the world had two true global powers—and they are not who you’ve been taught to expect. The gold belonged to Spain and to the Muslim Mughal Empire. That is why piracy was legal. Every European nation wanted what those empires possessed, and piracy became a sanctioned tool—a way to steal wealth while keeping hands clean and the crimes off your shores.Fire Sword and Sea is a muscular read.It’s a diverse read.It’s a powerful read.These stories and histories have been buried for far too long. With all that’s going one, reading about women who resisted, women who chose, women who refused to disappear quietly, is the book we need.And I’m taking this book on the road.I’ll be heading to Washington, D.C., Petersburg, Virginia, Severna Park, Maryland, St. Louis, Missouri, Austin, Texas, and several stops in Georgia, at Woodstock and Perimeter.Come out and join the tour. I would love to see you. I would love to talk with you about this book.We just kicked things off at the Gwinnett Library—and you readers and podcast listeners, you showed up. Registration sold out. The energy in that room was electric. My moderator, Jasmine Sinkfield, was amazing.And when you work this hard on a book—when you’ve shared many of the battles publicly, as I have—these moments matter.Fire Sword and Sea’s journey hasn’t been easy.There was censorship.Delays in shipping.Publishing slowdowns.Pirates stealing ARCs—yes, really. That happened.And a million other battles that drove me to my knees, again and again, in prayer.But we are here.I’m so excited for you to meet these women. To sit with their choices. To imagine what it meant, ...
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    10 min
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