ALEEMA
OMOTONI
Photo: Dujonna Gift
Aleema Omotoni is an award-winning British-Nigerian author. She writes novels that centre Black teens coming of age, falling in love, and navigating all kinds of contemporary and fantasy worlds. She loves knitting, podcasts about her special interests and colourful Autumn walks in her favourite London parks.
Her debut novel, EVERYONE’S THINKING IT, won the 2024 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work - Youth/Teens.
BOOKS
WINNERS & LIARS (2026)
US Edition
Derin’s acceptance into Cambridge University is the end of an era—just not the one she expected.
When she and her ultra-competitive Uni prep group, The Kenfield Set, were first invited to Professor Darnley’s summer ball, they planned on celebrating the group's success surrounded by the riches of his historical Kenfield estate—not kicking off the festivities with the professor’s
will reading.
But when the Darnley’s aristocratic children are disinherited, the students are offered the opportunity of a lifetime: compete in a Victorian, literary-inspired inheritance competition to be named the new heir—winner takes all!
For Derin, it's a chance to help her working-class family. But the remaining Darnleys won’t take losing their stately home and its multimillion-pound inheritance lying down. And into the mix, a mysterious note is slipped under Derin’s door alluding to a dark family secret lying in wait.
Now, Derin must balance the cutthroat games; scheming relatives; and a cute Kenfield intern amidst her dawning realization that the history of this inheritance might be
soaked in lies… and blood.
Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, Amazon, IndieBound, Indigo, Target and more!
US Edition
Cover Art: Hillary D Wilson
Cover Design: Corina Lupp
EVERYONE’S THINKING IT (2023)
US Edition
UK Edition
Mean Girls meets Dear White People in this big-hearted, sharp-witted UK boarding school story about family, friendship, and belonging—with a propulsive mystery at its heart—a loose reimagining of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream by debut author Aleema Omotoni.
Within the walls of Wodebury Hall, an elite boarding school in the English countryside, reputation is everything. But aspiring photographer Iyanu is more comfortable observing things safely from behind her camera.
For Iyanu’s estranged cousin, Kitan, life seems perfect. She has money, beauty, and friends like queen bee Heather. But as a Nigerian girl in a school as white and insular as Wodebury,
Kitan struggles with the personal sacrifices needed to keep her place—and the protection she gets—within the exclusive popular crowd.
Then photos from Iyanu’s camera are stolen and splashed across the school the week before the Valentine's Day Ball—each with a juicy secret written on it. With everyone’s dirty laundry suddenly out in the open, the school explodes in chaos, and the whispers accusing Iyanu of being the one behind it all start to feel like déjà vu.
Each girl is desperate to unravel the mystery of who stole the photos and why. But exposing the truth will change them all forever.
OUT NOW
PURCHASE HERE- Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, Amazon, IndieBound, Indigo, Target and more!
US Edition
Cover Art: Otesanya
Cover Design: Corina Lupp
UK Edition:
Cover Art: Otesanya
Cover Design: Jamie Gregory
Praise for
EVERYONE’S THINKING IT
2024 NAACP Image Award Winner for Outstanding Literary Work - Youth/Teens
"A thought-provoking novel about the high cost of fitting in." - Kirkus Reviews
"Recalling Mean Girls, Omotoni’s compulsively entertaining debut adeptly addresses topics surrounding bullying, classism, homophobia, identity, and racism via Iyanu and Kitan’s alternating chapters, which piece together their fraught relationship history amid the school’s current fallout in biting prose."
- Publishers Weekly
"Omotoni’s debut is equal parts intriguing and exciting. She does more than create a space for the necessary commentary on racism, sexism, and homophobia. She also takes us on an emotional roller coaster that has us rooting for both Iyanu and Kitan. Readers will relish the ending and both character transformations." - ALA Booklist
"An intensely readable young adult mashup of Mean Girls and A Midsummer Night’s Dream."
- The Guardian
"Brimming with high-stakes drama and a witty cast of both noble and nefarious characters, Everyone's Thinking It is a big-hearted, clever page-turner where a budding photographer's lens exposes lies and secrets that threaten to undermine an elite English boarding school. Two Nigerian cousins navigate race, class, romance, and a mystery while trying to carve out a space to be themselves, regardless of what everyone thinks.
You'll root for Iyanu and Kitan till the very end."
- Ibi Zoboi, New York Times
Bestselling Author
"With its compelling mystery, insightful social commentary, and charming romance,
Everyone’s Thinking It is a richly layered and remarkable debut."
- Elise Bryant, author of Happily Ever Afters
"A Gossip Girl for the new age that’s impossible to put down. Omotoni spins an intricate web of relationships among dimensional characters, all tangled in relevant questions of identity, oppression, and community. This is an absolute knockout debut, and once reading, everyone will be thinking it."
- Racquel Marie, author of Ophelia After All