Publication Date: April 15, 2025
A social media influencer’s empire is burned to the ground—literally. The top suspects? The five daughters who made her famous.
What do you really know about the people you’ve made famous?
“Mother May I” Iverson has spent the past twenty-five years building a massively successful influencer empire with endearing videos featuring her five mixed-race daughters. But the girls are all grown up now, and the ramifications of having their entire childhoods commodified start to spill over into public view, especially in light of the pivotal question: Who killed May’s newlywed husband and then torched her mansion to cover it up?
April is a businesswoman feuding with her mother over intellectual property; twins June and July are influencers themselves, threatening to overtake May’s spotlight; January is a theater tech who steers clear of her mother and the limelight; and the youngest . . . well, March has somehow completely disappeared. As the days pass post-murder, everyone has an opinion—the sisters, May, a mysterious “friend of the family,” and the collective voice of the online audience watching the family’s every move—with suspicion flying every direction.
A campy and escapist exploration of race, gender, sexuality, and class, The Influencers is an evisceration of influencer culture and how alienating traditional expectations can be, ripe for the current moment when the first generation of children made famous by their parents are, now, all grown up—and looking for retribution.
When someone kills the family matriarch’s new husband and burns down the house, it doesn’t take long for the whispers to start implicating her daughters.
Author Anna-Marie McLemore delivers a snarky tale in The Influencers. At the center of the story is May Iverson, who created a path to success in the days before being an influencer was an actual thing. She’s built a solid reputation as Mother May I.
However, what worked when she first started out isn’t quite hitting the mark now that her five daughters are grown and there’s plenty of money. Plus, her daughters are finished with being chained to their mother’s fame.
The daughters, whose names fall in a monthly theme (January, March, April, June, and July), have their own stories to tell as part of the generation that grew up in front of the camera where clicks and likes are translated into dollar signs.
It’s a murder mystery married to reality television with an aging matriarch and grown daughters tired of performing on demand. At its core, it also focuses on the complexities of family relationships.
The Influencers serves up a satirical look dissecting the social media world and its impact on relationships.
Anna-Marie McLemore (they/them) is the author of eleven novels for young adults, including William C. Morris YA Debut Award finalist The Weight of Feathers, Stonewall Honor Book When the Moon Was Ours, New York Times Editors’ Choice Blanca & Roja, Lambda Literary Award finalist Lakelore, and National Book Award nominees The Mirror Season and Self-Made Boys. The Influencers is their adult debut.
