At ten years old, while the world was locked down during the COVID-19 pandemic, Emilia Ramos published her first novel. Now, six years later, the Moonbeam and IPPY award-winning young author releases Valaztein—a sweeping, wildly imaginative adventure filled with dragons, Dark magic, sirens, poetry, music, and romance.
Available August 23 on Amazon and in bookstores, Valaztein is Ramos’s third novel and the centerpiece of her first international book tour, which will bring her to schools, theaters, libraries, and bookstores across the States and Colombia.
The novel follows Naomi Elistaire, an exiled princess who gathers an unlikely crew and sails across the known world in search of an army to reclaim her kingdom. Their journey takes them through upside-down deserts, ancient pyramids, siren-filled grottos, enchanted libraries, dragon caverns, and the courts of distant monarchs.
Ramos, one of the youngest published novelists in the world, calls the book “a one-way ticket.” Raised in a family of world travelers, she visited 63 countries before turning sixteen, and every kingdom in Valaztein was inspired by a place she experienced in real life.
The camel races and vast deserts grew from a week Ramos spent living in a ger in Mongolia with an eagle hunter and his nomadic family. The jagged Tsingy Tsingy, or “Forest of Knives” was inspired by Madagascar’s rock formations, which Ramos climbed herself. An iconic siren grotto came from the James Bond cave Ramos leapt into in the Exumas, while the novel’s whimsical theaters and libraries draw from the ones she explored in the heart of Vienna—where, Ramos jokes, she nearly got kicked out for singing.
That love of performance is woven directly into the book. Poetry and original music are braided throughout Valaztein, giving the story a theatrical, almost cinematic pulse. Ramos, a trained vocalist and performer, is bringing the novel’s world to life on tour by singing “The Siren & Her Sailor,” an original song from the book, at select theaters and bookstores.
Beneath its spectacle, Valaztein is also a story of exile, loyalty, courage, and found family—a novel about crossing oceans, surviving betrayal, and discovering where home truly lies.
For Ramos, the release is not simply the arrival of a new book. It is the next chapter in an artistic journey that began when she was ten—and a reminder that young artists do not have to wait for adulthood to tell stories that feel enormous.
Valaztein by Emilia Ramos is available on August 23 on Amazon and in bookstores!
ABOUT EMILIA RAMOS
EMILIA RAMOS is among the youngest published authors in the world, having released three novels at the ages of ten, thirteen, and sixteen. Her debut novel, Crown of Scales and Wonder, was published in 2021, and its sequel, Thieves of Time Forgotten, won a Silver Medal at the 2025 IPPY Awards and a Bronze Medal at the 2025 Moonbeam Awards.
Valaztein is Ramos’s third novel.
Her poems, plays, and stories have been featured in the Scholastic Awards, the Interlochen Red Wheelbarrow, the LaPlume Young Writer’s Contest, the StageWorks One Act Festival, & more.
Ramos composed, directed, produced, and adapted for the stage Heartless the Musical at Interlochen Center for the Arts, based on the original novel by Marissa Meyer.
She is the founder of Teatro con Corazón (Theater with a Heart) a non-profit based in Palomino, Colombia dedicated to education through the performing arts. TCC is funded through the Interlochen Miscast Cabaret, which Ramos began in 2024. In it, students at Interlochen Arts Academy raise awareness and funds for TCC through an annual performance of songs, scenes, and stories.
Her work has been featured on Univision and the HITN-TV Voces series. Learn more about Emilia on her website: emiliaramossamper.org.
Valaztein Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/0enOeuEy
Emilia Ramos Website: emiliaramossamper.org
Emilia Ramos Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emiramsa/
Valaztein Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/256283812-valazteinw