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In De Elizabeth's upcoming dark fantasy YA novel This Raging Sea, 18-year-old Briar Winters seems like she has it all together: popular kid, straight-A student, with a group of best friends who are more like family. Only… they're about to leave her behind in their small Massachusetts town to head off to various colleges. Briar is terrified she'll be left to rot — and the shame around her biggest secret isn't helping matters.
That's where the story turns fantastical, leading Briar through centuries-old town secrets, haunted seaside carnivals, and oceanic monsters as she sets out on a quest to rescue her estranged friend Finn, who has gotten lost in time.
“It’s always been a story about two people loving each other fiercely in every universe, about friendship stronger than the laws of physics, and about quietly choosing love in the face of fear,” says Elizabeth about her debut YA novel. The former Teen Vogue editor began the book as a discovery draft, with just a few loose plot points and a lot of blank pages. Through its many drafts and iterations, she was always drawn to this story about the deep bonds of friendship, and “the idea that what’s lost isn’t necessarily gone," she says.
It's a special piece of art for Elizabeth, especially given the political hellscape we're living in.
“This is a story about two bisexual people living authentically, loving who they love, and being proud of who they are,” she says of her two main characters, noting that almost every supporting character is also queer. "There’s certainly a lot of angst and darkness to be found in this book, but being queer in TRS isn’t gloomy — it’s a joyous thing to be celebrated."
Further, this story centers around Briar's discover of her own agency and bodily autonomy, and it includes discussions of mental health and discovering different ways to be strong. “Her entire journey is tinged with the anger of a girl who is tired of keeping her voice down and remaining small, yet beneath her sharp edges, she’s soft and compassionate with the biggest heart for her friends,” Elizabeth says. “Ultimately, it’s my deepest hope that both Briar and Finn help readers feel seen, heard, and held.”
Below, feast your eyes on the cover of This Raging Sea (published by Holiday House) and dive into an exclusive excerpt from chapter 1 of the young adult novel below — available for pre-order here and for purchase on Sept. 23, 2025.
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Part One: LOW TIDE
Briar
Bad news tastes like salt.
It’s one of those certainties that Briar knows but can’t explain, like the way she can finish her best friends’ sentences without thinking. It’s as factual as anything in a textbook; it might as well be a law of physics:
When Briar Winters tastes salt between her teeth, terrible things follow.
She swallows the bitterness as she trudges through the dusty beach parking lot, flanked by her three closest friends. They might as well be her family.
Though, lately, it’s been hard to call Finn that at all.
Ahead, the ocean reflects a galaxy of rainbow lights. A towering Ferris wheel slices the black sky, and screams haunt the sticky, humid air. The seaside carnival is usually her favorite night of the year, but in just a week, Kai, Astrid, and Finn will be scattered across the country at their respective colleges like little red pins on a map.
And she’ll still be here.
In another universe, Briar would snap photos until her battery runs out, drink in every second. The night would become one of those rose-colored memories, forever crystalized in past tense. They’d say, Remember that time at the carnival? and think of right now, this moment.
Tonight could still be like that.
But if Briar can’t heal the wound that’s split open between her and Finn, they won’t remember it that way at all. Instead, they’ll think of a night drenched in quiet regret, each rolling wave like a taunt: It could have been; it could have been.
“Bee, what do you think?”
She snaps her gaze to Astrid’s as they approach the ticket booth. “What?”
“Nostril or septum?”
Briar blinks. “Huh?”
Astrid angles her face skyward, glossy braids spilling down her back. “I can’t decide which piercing to get before orientation next week.”
“Careful, your Libra sun is showing,” Kai says with a laugh.
Astrid slides a pretend glare toward Finn, who’s been silent this whole time. “Did you teach him that?”
Finn shrugs. “Just pierce both.”
Briar’s stomach twists at the detached clip of his voice, the sadness she knows is only there because of her. He looks so different from the Finn she remembers on graduation night, the last time things felt soft between them. His skin looks pale instead of sun-kissed, and his gold-streaked hair is haphazardly tousled, not styled like it usually is. Two half-moons hang beneath his stormy-gray eyes as though he was awake until sunrise, his desk strewn with math books and graph paper. Briar can easily picture him, glasses on, spinning theories into ink, and her chest aches with everything that’s still unsaid.
Kai and Astrid keep talking, but Briar remains silent as they move forward in line, slipping into a pool of ruby light from the sign overhead: Loch Creek Summer Carnival. In smaller print underneath, the Massachusetts town’s catchphrase: A haven since 1692.
Briar’s seen the slogan a million times, can trace her hometown’s roots to the cries of misunderstood women tied to burning posts. Loch Creek, a safe ground amid a sea of witchcraft hysteria. A haven. Some people believe the description still fits, pointing to the summer rush of tourists, the way many are so proud to live in Loch Creek that they never leave.
Her parents are like that. Which is why she can’t tell them that, to her, Loch Creek feels more like a trap. A place stained by tragedies no one ever talks about. Loch Creek’s sadness lingers beneath the surface, a haunting whisper to anyone who takes care to listen.
But to Briar’s ear, it’s more like a roar.
Astrid’s phone chimes, the name Ellie lighting up her screen. Unwanted envy gnaws at Briar’s insides. All summer, Astrid has been texting her future Vassar roommate, a gymnast from Kansas City who’s planning to major in political science like Astrid. It seems like Astrid’s phone buzzes every other minute with a meme, a text, a video. As though her future—the one without Briar in it—is always in the room with them too.
Whatever Ellie sent makes Astrid snort with laughter, her warm-brown skin glowing in the screen’s light. Briar watches her reply, gaze lingering on the woven friendship bracelet on Astrid’s wrist, identical to the one on hers. And before she can smother the thought, Briar wonders if this is what it’s like to be slowly replaced.
Kai notices too, but with a grin.
“Who’s got you smiling like that?” he teases, tucking a strand of chin-length black hair behind his ear as he looks. “Damn, I hope Northwestern sets me up with a good roommate. If I get some nasty dude who leaves his socks everywhere, I’m gonna riot.”
Briar offers a small smile and swallows the aching reminder that soon, Astrid, Kai, and Finn will be sitting in lecture halls, going to parties, making new friends. It’s easy to picture Kai in a film class directing an experimental short, Astrid at a debate podium arguing for a universal healthcare system. Finn in a physics lab, studying equations and time. All while Briar will be stuck in Loch Creek, working at the mayor’s office for a year before going to school somewhere close to home. Just like her parents always wanted.
They think they’re protecting her so nothing horrible ever touches their family again, but it feels more like being buried. She’ll become part of this town, immortalized like one of the statues outside of Old Town Hall. Limestone instead of skin, glass instead of eyes. Frozen in time as Loch Creek High’s head cheerleader and straight-A prom queen, a pearlescent picture of hard work and practiced smiling and bullshit bullshit bullshit. No one would ever think to look inside a statue of Briar Winters and see how it’s hollowed out, filled with skittering cockroaches that have made a home in the bottomless dark.
“What about you, Briar?” Kai asks.
“Huh?” Another chunk of conversation she missed.
He tips his head, and his curious stare seems to ask, What’s up with you tonight?
“Think you’ll miss anything from high school?” Kai adds.
Briar tries to count the times they walked into Loch Creek High together over the years: hundreds of doorways on hundreds of mornings. Their friendship has always been a constant. Like pi, a number that goes on forever but never changes shape. A connection forged at random when their kindergarten teacher assigned their seats, not realizing she was creating a family.
“I think it’ll be stuff like this that I’ll miss the most,” Briar says, twirling a loose honey-colored curl. “The little moments when it’s just us.”
And before Briar can stop herself, she silently adds, Before it’s just me.
“Isn’t it strange,” Kai says, “how we did so many things for the last time without realizing? Like, I didn’t think twice when I finished my last exam. I dropped that blue book on Mr. Halloway’s desk and peaced the hell out.”
Astrid snorts. “What should you have done? Taken a selfie with Mr. H. to commemorate the occasion?”
“I dunno.” Kai shrugs. “Awfully anticlimactic though. Go to class every day, and then pfft.” He flaps his hands like butterfly wings. “Over. Just like that.”
“That’s how everything is,” Finn counters. “You never realize things are over until it’s too late.”
Briar’s cheeks warm at the rough scrape of his voice, the way his words sound like a coded message only for her. She doesn’t have to look to know he’s remembering graduation night, how she fled from his apartment the next morning. The way he begged her to stay. The way everything has been wrong since.
“O-kay.” Astrid laughs. “That’s enough existentialism for one night.”
Kai’s face splits in a smile, but Finn only fidgets with the brass compass looped around his belt, the eighteenth birthday gift they all chipped in for earlier this spring. Briar studies him as he flicks the latch back and forth—and tracks his stare to a dark-haired girl a few paces ahead.
The girl’s back is to them, a thick onyx braid with streaks of blue slinking down her spine. She’s dressed in all black, fishnets tucked into knee-high boots, and Briar’s chest clenches with instant recognition:
Morgan Parker-Blake. A girl Briar has known her entire life. A girl she wishes she could forget.
Just looking at Morgan puts a knot of anxiety in Briar’s stomach. It’s easier to see her at school, where the rule may as well be written in the student handbook: Don’t talk to Morgan Parker-Blake. It’s part of Loch Creek High lore, like the D-stairwell is where people go to hook up and Mr. Bridges gives pop quizzes on the third Friday of the month.
No one talks to Morgan. And Morgan doesn’t talk to them.
She exists at the periphery of their world—a slab of scenery, silent and still. And Briar likes it that way.
Because if Morgan-Parker Blake is quiet, then she can never tell Briar’s most poisonous secret. It remains locked inside. Swallowed whole.
But outside of school, the rules are hazy. And right now, Finn is studying Morgan like he knows her. Like he has something he’s desperate to say, as if a million things have happened in the two months Briar hasn’t spoken to him. Her stomach sours at the possibility.
“Helloo-oooo?” Astrid calls, waving a hand in front of Briar’s face.
Briar jumps, her flip-flops skidding in the sand.
“Want me to get your ticket? Yes or no?” Her question has an edge, as though it’s the third or fourth time she’s had to ask.
“N-no, sorry, I’ve got it.” Briar fishes for her wallet before addressing the man working the window. “One please.” As an afterthought, she darts another look at Finn. “Two.”
Briar offers her hand to the employee, who stamps it with a dark blue crescent wave. She stares at the ink and tries to summon her apology to Finn. I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you why. I’m sorry I still can’t. Please don’t let this ruin us.
“Show that for reentry,” the employee orders. “Need to see yours too, buddy.”
“Finn.” Kai elbows him. “Finn. Finnegan.”
But Finn is somewhere else, eyes cloudy. Briar charts the lines of his face and silently wonders if they’ve run out of chances to talk about what happened, if time is slipping and slipping like a shell being tugged out to sea.
“Finn, he needs to stamp your hand,” she whispers. The first words she’s spoken to him all night. Longer, even.
For a moment, Finn looks right at her. Briar sucks in a breath, commanding her face to stay neutral. Because it’s Finn. The boy she’s been friends with for over a decade, years marked with springtime afternoons in tree houses, stretches of endless summer at the beach. Finn, who spent every Christmas at her house since ninth grade with his own stocking on her parents’ mantel. Finn, her best friend since kindergarten—the year Briar stopped talking.
Finn, who helped her start again.
She should talk to him now like she did back then, let every painful word spill out. But the thought of telling him what happened after graduation drives a blade of anxiety between her ribs, carving her into a mess of guilt and shame.
She can tell Finn almost anything—but not this.
Briar knows she needs to find another way to mend things. Before he’s in another time zone, before his mornings become her afternoons, before he’s only a voice on the phone and everything, everything topples off-balance.
Finn slides his hand into the ticket booth window, still looking at her.
And Briar silently pledges not to let them say goodbye while they’re still broken.
Dark fantasy YA novel This Raging Sea is out Sept. 23, 2025 and available for pre-order.
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