It took her 5 years to reach this point. Nur Fatin Afrina, or perhaps better known via her nom de plume N. F. Afrina, started writing the story that finally shaped into ‘Not Here to Stay’ right after she finished sitting for her Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM). Since then, her manuscript has been rejected with the excuse that no one is going to be interested in it. She has even published a short story compilation entitled Inkling before finally getting the chance to finish and publish her first-ever full-length fantasy novel.
What Is ‘Not Here to Stay’ All About?
The novel is about a Worldsmith named Amani who accidentally conjured a mythical world she called Lagenda from her mind with the help of a past lover, Malik. However, after 5 years passed, she suddenly received a note from ‘M’. This note forced her to return to Lagenda to make sure the world will forever remain hers and hers alone. As you can probably tell, ‘Not Here to Stay’ is basically about the journey of healing oneself from past traumas. This is also evidenced by the chosen quote that was printed on one side of the exclusive bookmarks that were gifted to the early birds.
If healing yourself comes easily, then how will you learn the lessons?
Not Here to Stay
Receptions to the Novel
The book launch took place via Afrina’s personal online shop on Shopee. ‘Not Here to Stay’ received an outstandingly positive reception as it was entirely sold out within an hour, shocking the author herself. This could happen due to the reach of the author’s originally solid influence within the Malaysian online book community itself or buyers’ interest was piqued by the offer of the limited booklets. These booklets contain a number of deleted scenes and pages from the author’s personal journal and were gifted only to the first 100 buyers of the novel. On the other hand, people could also just simply be affected by the excitement of seeing the success of another Malaysian in achieving her dream. Whatever the reason may be, the novel went out of stock shortly after it was published, proving that Malaysians are still very much passionate about reading.
Not to worry though, if you are interested in this fantasy novel, just head on over to Ms Afrina’s Shopee page to cop yourself a copy as it is now back in stock. If you want to know more about the story itself, either visit Goodreads or Wattpad to read the synopsis and a snippet of the prologue. Happy reading!
