Legacy of Orisha
Children of Blood and Bone forces us to consider some of the more depressing facts our own reality, the picture of genocide and related atrocities forced upon the people of Orisha, or rather a group of people deemed to be of lower worth than the rest of the population, is all too familiar. In the case of Orisha the victims of ethnic cleansing were Maji (magic users), victims of The Raid, in which magic was destroyed and all Maji were rounded up by the authorities and killed at the behest of the King. At the time of The Raid, Zelie was a young girl and a Diviner, a Maji not yet come into her/his powers, a bystander as her Mother was led away and her Father beaten for attempting to intervene. The story commences after several years have passed and a now teenage Zelie is living with her Father and Brother. Together they scrape a living as fisher folk in a small coastal village, an ever increasing difficulty as the persecution of Diviners continues.
Amari is the daughter of the King, she has been enduring a more personal level of mistreatment at the hands of her overbearing Father and weak willed Brother. Her closest friend is a Diviner slave with whom she spends most of her time, until the day her father casually kills the slave whilst Amari is spying on him. This death sets off a chain of events which bring Amari and Zelie together and sends them off on a quest to restore magic to Orisha.
Although aimed at a YA audience the writing is mature enough for an adult audience without any feeling of condescension. The narrative may follow a familiar coming of age arc, but there are a lot of original ideas to be found in this work, standard fantasy stereotypes are conspicuous in their absence and replaced with giant African mammals. In conclusion I think that, romantic subplot notwithstanding, the praise that this book is receiving is broadly merited, it’s a bold, evocative and imaginative piece of work.
- Children of Blood and Bone (2018) – Amazon – Book Depository
- Children of Virtue and Vengeance (coming 2019) – Amazon – Book Depository