Q&A: De Elizabeth, Author of ‘The Raging Sea’

We chat with author De Elizabeth about The Raging Sea, which follows 18-year-old Briar Winters who must untangle the horrifying eldritch secrets of her picture-perfect coastal town in order to save the boy she loves after he disappears from time itself in this YA dark fantasy for fans of Bly Manor.

Hi, De! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?

I’m a dark fantasy and horror author who is passionate about writing books featuring bi representation, messy characters who don’t shy away from their flaws, and chaotic villains. My stories all sit at the intersection of haunting and romantic, and I love writing the kind of horror that feels healing and comforting. Outside of writing, I adore all things Mike Flanagan, musical theatre, my cats, and spending time with friends and family.

When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?

Writing has always been my first love. I started writing stories as a child, which grew into dabbling in fanfiction as a teen, which grew into writing books.

Quick lightning round! Tell us:

• The first book you ever remember reading: Not a singular book but I was obsessed with the Baby-Sitters Club series growing up. (I was most like Mary Anne.)
• The one that made you want to become an author: Lord of the Rings. Reading Tolkien’s worlds made me want to create my own.
• The one that you can’t stop thinking about: I’m never not thinking about Bunny by Mona Awad!

Your debut novel, This Raging Sea, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?

Five words I’d use to describe This Raging Sea are atmospheric, haunting, romantic, nostalgic, and twisty.

What can readers expect?

This Raging Sea is a dual POV YA dark fantasy that follows 18-year-old Briar whose life is flipped upside down when the boy she’s silently loved since childhood, Finn, disappears from nearly everyone’s memories. From time itself. Readers can expect a sweepingly romantic story full of physics magic, found family, and tons of yearning across time and space. They can also excpect a celebration of bi existence, as both main characters Briar and Finn are bisexual and say so on the page. There’s also an unhinged villain who is hunting both main characters that might make readers question, “If villain, why hot?”

Where did the inspiration for This Raging Sea come from?

The idea for this story was born out of four words: lost doesn’t mean gone. I started with the seed of an idea, about a boy who disappears from time itself, and the haunted girl who will love him fiercely in every universe. Those four words, however, felt like the soul of this story. TRS is a book about all different kinds of loss—the loss of a love, of a family member, of a friend you can’t quite get back, of your younger self. But there is a thread of hope that emerges throughout, a reminder that those things always live on inside of us. That lost truly doesn’t ever mean gone.

Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?

In This Raging Sea, Briar is forced to team up with her worst enemy, Morgan, who happens to know the dark secret she’s hiding from her friends. I loved working on their scenes; their dynamic was so much fun and also incredibly rewarding to write. Like many people, I’m a big fan of enemies-to-lovers, but with Briar and Morgan, there’s a different vibe at play. What does it mean to share a secret with your enemy but keep that same secret from the people you love? What does it mean to have so much in common with the girl you’ve hated your whole life? These are the kinds of questions Briar has to grapple with as she has no choice but to trust the one person who could end her. Briar and Morgan were both such a delight to spend time with, I could have written a zillion more chapters with just them alone.

Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?

During my first developmental edit, I essentially ripped up Finn’s POV and rewrote it from scratch. Upon its first draft, this book was a 50/50 dual POV, with chapters switching back and forth between the two main characters. But because of some plot elements, and the fact that Finn simply has more information than Briar and the reader, it worked better to condense Finn’s POV into fewer chapters. To overcome this, I created an outline that detailed all of the key moments in Finn’s POV. This ultimately became my road map to moving those details around. It was like a giant puzzle that took a while to put back together.

This is your debut novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?

It was not a linear journey! TRS is my first published book, but it’s not the first book I wrote, nor is it the book that landed me a literary agent. My agent and I worked on a different book together before I wrote This Raging Sea. After a round of revision together, TRS went on submission to editors and I was fortunate that we found the perfect home for it. Once it sold, I returned to that first book that I worked on with my agent, rewrote it completely, and that’s now my adult debut, She Haunts Me Still, coming next year. All of this is to say: A book might be shelved, but it’s never truly dead.

What’s next for you?

My adult debut is publishing next summer from Dutton Books. It’s a romantic horror novel called She Haunts Me Still that follows three theatre majors as they race against time to untangle a tragic and deadly curse that dates back to the New England Vampire Panic. After that, I have another YA dark fantasy coming in 2027 from Holiday House Books, titled A Death Kissed Song. This one follows an ambitious but struggling cellist at a prestigious music conservatory as she joins a secret society led by her former childhood best friend, now her academic rival.

Lastly, what books have you enjoyed reading this year? Are there any you’re looking forward to picking up?

Some of my favorites from 2025 are V.E. Schwab’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, And They Were Roommates by Page Powars, and Katabasis by R.F. Kuang. Books I’m looking forward to in 2026 include Kelly Andrew’s The Gravewood, An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole, and Adalyn Grace’s The Wretched Divine.

Will you be picking up The Raging Sea? Tell us in the comments below!