Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

read by Bahni Turpin

Children of Blood and Bone takes place a richly-detailed mythical African country called Orïsha, in which magic is very real. That is, it’s real until a ruthless, despotic king decides that magic and the dominant social order can't coexist. So he finds a way to sever the people’s connection to the gods; after that, it’s effectively dead. He then proceeds to persecute and oppress the former magic-using caste, calling them “worms” but treating them worse than any animal.

Our protagonist, Zélie, has the distinctive white hair of a (potential) magic user, and still has flashbacks to the night her mother was hauled off and killed by the king’s soldiers. As a “worm,” Zélie lives in grinding poverty and constant fear of the random cruelty of the king’s brutal guards. Not only is she not safe, but nobody associated with her has any real expectation of safety or fair treatment. 

Very much against her own better judgment, Zélie finds herself helping a young woman escape from the king’s guard… and that young woman turns out to be a royal princess, and in possession of an item that just might let Zélie bring magic back. If she can learn how to use it, and whom to trust, and if she can stay ahead of the king’s guard and get to a mythical island on the one day of the year that it appears.

What’s wonderful about this book is the way it takes what could be a fairly standard fantasy plot line and enriches it, transforms it, and fills it with surprises. Not simply by setting it in a mythical Africa instead of a mythical Europe, though Adeyemi does a wonderful job of that (Nnedi Okorafor calls it Africanjujuism); but also by taking individual elements of the plot (the romantic interest, the rules by which magic works, the hero’s journey) and subverting them.

In short, this is a very solid and compelling read, especially for anyone who loves fantasy or who used to love fantasy but has become bored with how derivative the genre has become.