Anika Noni Rose is bringing one of her favorite books to the screen. Deadline reports that BET’s ‘The Quad’ actress and her production company, Roaring Virgin Production optioned the Young Adult fantasy series “Shadowshaper” for television and film.

Publishing in 2015 by Arthur A. Levine Books, Shadowshaper centers on Sierra Santiago, who lives in Brooklyn and discovers a magic that infuses ancestral spirits into paintings, music and stories – also known as shadowshaping. However, someone is killing off the shadowshapers one by one and the killers believe Sierra is hiding their greatest secret.

Samantha Annis/Arthur A. Levine Books
Samantha Annis/Arthur A. Levine Books

“Shadowshaper was a book I couldn’t put down,” Rose told Deadline. “At a time when so many are feeling powerless, Sierra Santiago is a young Afro-Latina heroine who finds her power within herself… A face and culture we rarely see on screen; she is the heroine we’ve been searching for, only to find she lives right next door.”

The book has been a bestseller and was named a 2015 New York Times Notable Book. A follow-up to the fantasy cypher series is Shadowhouse Fall and is due out in September.