Hybrid Author Talk: The Princess and the P.I., Nikki Payne

Date and Time

• Monday, Sep 15, 2025  7pm - 8pm

Location

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Details

East City Bookshop welcomes back Nikki Payne to discuss her next novel, The Princess and the P.I., in conversation with Danielle Allen and Talia Cadet.

Note on Format: This hybrid event will have both an in-person component with limited seating as well as a virtual broadcast via Zoom Webinar. Both in-person and virtual attendees will be able to pose questions to the author during audience Q&A.

Audience members are encouraged to come dressed in their best detective outfits for the chance to win special prizes!

ABOUT THE PRINCESS AND THE PI

An amateur online sleuth must enlist the help of a jaded PI to clear her name while taking down a shady tech start-up in this exhilarating romantic suspense novel.

Fiona Addai is ready to set her plan in motion. To honor the anniversary of her brother’s death, she’s going to steal back his brilliant invention from the ruthless corporation that stole and claimed it as their own. As a famed Reddit detective known as @Princess_PI, Fiona has used her online connections and sleuthing skills to time every step down to the minute. But with one disastrous misstep, instead of getting justice, Fiona finds herself accused of murder.

Maurice Bennett is no stranger to insomnia. These days, he’s not losing sleep over the cases he’s solving—but running from the one he couldn’t. Instead, he’s been settling for small-time scandals that don’t stir up the guilt he’s buried. But when he spots Fiona Addai at the center of a murder investigation, something clicks. And for the first time in a long while, Maurice feels that old spark of intrigue.

However, Fiona is not the helpless damsel she appears to be. Sure, she needs Maurice’s help to clear her name, but she’s got conditions of her own: she wants a crash course in real-world detective work. Maurice isn’t exactly thrilled. With every late-night stakeout and tension-filled interrogation, their partnership, rife with tension and unexpected chemistry, unravels a dangerous web of corporate crime and familial secrets. To bring the real killer to light, they'll need to trust each other and that might be the most dangerous gamble of all.

By day, Nikki Payne is a curious tech anthropologist asking the right questions to deliver better digital services. By night, she dreams of ways to subvert canon literature. She’s a member of Smut U, a premium feminist writing collective, and a cat lady with no cats.

Danielle Allen is a novelist, educator, and life coach. Living authentically has been the key to her living her best life. With a background in social sciences, helping people better understand themselves so they can become the best version of themselves is one of her passions. Writing contemporary romance novels that aims to change the status quo of the genre is another.

Talia Cadet is a DC-based influencer and host. Over 260K TikTok, Instagram, Substack and YouTube followers love her daily lists, and lifestyle, books and Black-owned business videos. The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Rolling Stone love a list too! She's even been profiled in The Death of TikTok? episode of IMPACT, which is currently streaming on Hulu. When she's not posting, she's an in-demand host and moderator that has been in conversation with New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors like Kennedy Ryan, Victoria Christopher Murray, Dolen Perkins-Valdez and Tati Richardson. She's also been a part of lineups for major cultural events like the ESSENCE Festival of Culture and Harlem Book Fair.