Powerful: A Powerless Story

Powerful is part of a series of books referred to as The Powerless Trilogy, named for its first book, Powerless. Lauren Roberts began writing Powerless when she was an 18-year-old college student and a prominent poster on BookTok, a community on TikTok made up of readers and book content creators. She says she was encouraged to write a novel after her followers responded enthusiastically to a passage of her writing that she read aloud online (Ramirez, Amanda. “Q & A with Lauren Roberts.” Publisher’s Weekly, 23 April 2024). According to an interview with Today, Roberts relied on her TikTok followers as a kind of writing group, reading scenes to the community and soliciting feedback (Vitali, Gabrielle. “Lauren Roberts Started out Reading Chapters to Her Social Media Followers. Now She’s a Bestselling Author.” Today.com, 30 April 2024). Roberts initially self-published Powerless, and its success led Simon & Schuster to acquire it and publish her subsequent novel, Reckless.

Roberts sets her trilogy in the Kingdom of Ilya with a ruling class known as “Elites,” who gained special powers after surviving a plague and banished anyone without these powers, branding them as “Ordinary.” In Powerless, protagonist Paedyn poses as an Elite in order to stay safe in Ilya. After she saves the life of Prince Kai of Ilya, Paedyn and Kai fall in love, but Paedyn is sent to compete in the Purging Trials—a violent competition that celebrates the power of the Elites. In Reckless, Paedyn and Kai’s romance is tested; having survived the Purging Trials, Paedyn leads a revolution against the Elites, and Kai, the brother of the new king, is tasked with bringing her to justice. After the success of the first two books in the series, Roberts’s editors approached her about expanding the series to include other characters’ stories. In Powerful, referred to as book “1.5” in the series, Roberts explores the story of Paedyn’s best friend, Adena. It takes place just after Paedyn is taken away to participate in the Purging Trials and follows Adena’s struggles to survive in Ilya, her eventual romance with another Elite named Makoto, and their mutual effort to find their loved ones among the Purging Trial competitors. The final book in the trilogy will be Fearless, set to be published in April 2025.