Elayi has written a number of novels that draw inspiration from her real life experiences and contemporary issues. In 2009, she published her first novel ["The survivor"] based on her experience of the civil war in Beirut. Two years later, Elayi wrote her second novel ["Secrets of granite"]; the book is inspired by her native Ariège region. ["The shadow of Saddam"] came out in 2015; the geopolitical thriller portrays Saddam Hussein before his seizure of power. Her 2017 ["Why I became a terrorist"] came two years after the Paris terrorist attacks, it follows a Spanish student's descent into extremism. Elayi's 2018 novel ["Arwad, a drifting Syrian island"] draws parallels between the fall of the insular Phoenician city of Arwad and war-time Syria. In 2019 Elayi published "Ange Garelli" where the Corsican protagonist is haunted by the discovery of a secret linking him to Napoleon Bonaparte.