Mara Brock Akil, showrunner, writer, producer and creator of shows such as Girlfriends, Being Mary Jane, Love Is__ and Netflix’s Forever, has her debut novel The Revelation of Dionne Daphne publishing June 30, 2026.
Crown Publishing imprint Storehouse Voices will release Akil’s fiction novel, which follows the titular magnetic heroine navigating emotions, secrets and a profound personal awakening as a thirty something NYC woman in the 90s.
“I wrote this novel with the intention of taking the reader through a story that may be familiar. One of isolation, shame, resilience and the redemptive power of love,” said Mara Brock Akil. “My hope is that readers will see themselves in Dionne and recognize the weight they’ve been holding and feel permission to release it. Stepping into fiction as a novelist has been a beautiful journey for me, expanding my storytelling into a new form and discovering what revelation looks like on the page and I am so grateful to have Storehouse Voices alongside me on this new journey.”
According to the summary, Daphne “is the beauty editor at a prestigious magazine, with a social life of the upper echelon, and a boyfriend that could have been plucked out of its pages. But all of this comes crashing down, when he arrives at her Brooklyn doorstep with life-threatening news that creates a crack in the facade of her picture-perfect life.”
This sends Dionne into her past to confront a dark secret she has suppressed since childhood.
Brock Akil has introduced audiences to complex, memorable characters such as Mary Jane from Being Mary Jane, Joan from Girlfriends and most recently Keisha from the hit Netflix show, Forever, which reimagines Judy Blume’s novel of the same name and has Season 2 in the works.
In 2025, she received the African American Film Critics Association TV Honors Legacy Award and will be honored with the Producers Guild of America’s Norman Lear Achievement Award on Saturday, February 28, 2026, in Los Angeles. Alongside the release of her debut novel, Brock Akil’s hit Netflix series, which reached No. 1 on the platform last year, will return for a second season.
English (US) ·