Rickey Fayne Makes His Debut with “The Devil Three Times” — See The Cover! (Exclusive)
'The Devil Three Times' is "a story about family, the transformative power of love and the meaning of freedom," says the author
'The Devil Three Times' is "a story about family, the transformative power of love and the meaning of freedom," says the author Miya Fayne; Liitle,Brown Author Rickey Fayne :max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/rickey-fayne-the-devil-three-times-011625-23e90d36a72e43e29ccb4263fbb4e9a4.jpg "The Devil Three Times, a novel by Rickey Fayne")
Rickey Fayne has a debut novel coming out this summer, and it's poised to take the literary world by storm.
The Devil Three Times, a historical fiction novel from the newcomer author, comes out on May 13, 2025 — and PEOPLE can exclusively debut its cover.
The upcoming book will follow “a Black family in West Tennessee as they are repeatedly visited by the Devil,” according to an official synopsis.
“Yetunde awakens aboard a slave ship en route to the United States with the spirit of her dead sister as her only companion. Desperate to survive the hell that awaits her at their destination, Yetunde finds help in an unexpected form — the Devil himself,” the synopsis teases. “The Devil, seeking a way to reenter the pearly gates of heaven, decides to prove himself to an indifferent God by protecting Yetunde and granting her a piece of his supernatural power. In return, Yetunde makes an incredible sacrifice.” Liitle,Brown 'The Devil Three Times,' a novel by Rickey Fayne
The book will span eight generations and 175 years, far beyond Yetunde’s "mortal lifespan,” so the Devil will also visit many of her descendants during “their darkest hour of need.” Her descendants include Lucille, a conjure woman; Asa, who passes for White; Louis and Virgil, who risk becoming a 20th-century Cain and Abel; Cassandra, who speaks to the dead; and James, who struggles to make sense of the past while fighting to keep his family together.
“The Devil offers each of them his own version of salvation, all the while wondering: can he save himself, too?” asks the official description.
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“I’ve always been fascinated by the way people tell stories,” explained the author in a press release shared with PEOPLE. “What their word choice, cadence and points of emphasis reveal about who they are, what they’ve been through, what they value.”
“Each member of my family had their own way of putting words to what they’d seen and known,” Fayne continued. “I can still hear the sound of the falling tree that broke my great uncle’s back. Feel the shock my grandmother, who was a sleepwalker, felt when she woke up one night in the woods. See the shotgun my great-grandfather brandished when a lynch mob tried to claim his son. A story that only my father, who was a boy at the time, could find the humor in.”
The author described his debut as “a story about family, the transformative power of love and the meaning of freedom."
The Devil Three Times hits bookshelves on May 13 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.
