Children of Blood and Bone

Children of Blood and Bone

Blurb

Orïsha was once a land full of magic and those who wielded it, known as the Maji. A land where ‘Burners’ had the ability to call forth and control flames, where ‘Tiders’ could manipulate the waves and ‘Reapers’ could summon the souls of those who had died.

For Zélie memories of those times are bitter sweet. On the one hand she can remember her mother whose face was like the sun and myths of the old Gods are woven into her childhood memories along with visions of her mother practicing the magic of a Reaper.

However, Zélie cannot think of her mother without thinking of the night the magic disappeared and they took her mother away.

Now there is a way to bring the magic back and Zélie may be the only one who can do it...but should she?


Our Review

Children of Blood and Bone is the first book in The Legacy of Orisha series and it is easy to see why the movie is already in development.

Tomi Adeyemi has created an intriguing world in Children of Blood and Bone, a world where inequality is rife and woven into the fabric of everyday life. A world where magic once and existed and now those who once would have wielded it are severely oppressed.

 Orïsha was once a land full of magic and those who wielded it, known as the Maji. A land where ‘Burners’ had the ability to call forth and control flames, where ‘Tiders’ could manipulate the waves and ‘Reapers’ could summon the souls of those who had died.

For Zélie memories of those times are bitter sweet. On the one hand she can remember her mother whose face was like the sun and myths of the old Gods are woven into her childhood memories along with visions of her mother practicing the magic of a Reaper.

However, Zélie cannot think of her mother without thinking of the night the magic disappeared and they took her mother away.

“I hear the myths she would tell me at night…Baba’s cries as the soldiers wrapped a chain around her neck. Her screams as they dragged her into the dark…I think about the way her corpse hung from that tree.

I think about the king who took her away.”

King Saran ordered that all the Maji be killed so that even the possibility of magic be eradicated. The children of the Maji, known as Diviners, were only spared because magic didn’t present itself until the age of thirteen.

Now those with Diviner blood are marked out by the white streak in their hair, once a sign of favour from the Gods but know a signal that they are ‘maggots’ and somehow beneath the general population.

Zélie and others like her are taxed beyond their means and preyed upon by King Saran’s guards. The language they once used is forbidden and those who cannot pay their taxes are taken to the stocks and treated as little more than slaves.

Children of Blood and Bone has a helpful guide in the front to help the reader distinguish between the different Maji clans, their titles and their gods.

The book is told from the perspective of three different people: Zélie, Princess Amari and her brother prince Inan.

11 years on from the day magic disappeared and Zélie is an angry and reckless young lady. Raging against the guards and the injustices they visit.

On they day we meet her Zélie is sparring against a girl called Yemi in an attempt to win the right to graduate. Their match is interrupted by yet another visit from the guards and Zélie loses her temper with one of them as he informs her teacher Mama Agba that taxes are to be raised yet again because of her association with ‘maggots.’

After the guards have gone Mama Agba angrily reminds Zélie that she needs to be more careful because who would look after her brother Tzain and her father if she was gone?

Through Mama Agba we learn all about the previous existence of magic and how the Maji were once revered but that reverence turned to fear, hate and violence before turning to the desire to do away with magic once and for all. Mama Agba tells the girls that she teaches them the art of the staff so that they can defend themselves in a controlled manner.

After the others have gone Mama Agba keeps Zélie behind and tells her that she has graduated. She presents her with an iron-lined staff but tells her now she knows how to win she also needs to remember there is also a time to fight.

Whilst they are talking, Zélie’s brother comes in and berates her for leaving their father alone. They rush to get back to him and when they arrive he is near drowned. Zélie feels incredibly guilty because since her mother was killed her father has been a broken man and has needed help from his children but she left him and that nearly cost his life.

“Before the Raid, he could fight off three armed men with nothing but a skinning knife in his hand. But after the beating he got that night, it took him five moons before he could even talk.

They broke him that night, battered his heart and shattered his soul. Maybe he would have recovered if he hadn’t woken to find mama’s corpse found in black chains. But he did. He’s never been the same since.”

With Tzain mad at her Zélie feels incredibly lonely and feels that her only friend is her ryder, a lionaire she raised from a wounded cub.

Baba tells them he was trying to get some more fish to pay the increased tax because if he didn’t the guards told him they would put Zélie in the stocks. In doing so he managed to lose their boat meaning they can’t get the fish to pay the tax.

Zélie comes up with a plan to earn them some more money for tax by selling fish to nobles at the market in Lagose. Whilst there Zélie is stopped by a girl who begs for her help to escape the guards. Zélie agrees with no idea what she is getting herself into.

Princess Amari was a character that really grew on me. Initially I found her really spoilt and a bit shallow but as the book progressed she turned into a character I loved.

When we first met Princess Amari, she is having dinner with her mother and some others and reflecting on her sheltered life up to this point and the fact she has never really left the confines of the palace. During dinner she learns her oldest, best and only friend Binta has been summoned to see her father the king.

Binta is a diviner and Amari is concerned about why he wants to see her. She rushes off to find out what is happening as she senses whatever her father wants it can’t be good.

When she goes to her father’s room she overhears a conversation about an artefact that washed up in one of the villages, a scroll that brings out latent magical abilities in diviners. The diviners became Maji when they came into contact with the scroll. The magic was weak but it was there.

Princess Amari is scared when she hears this because from a young age she and her brother have been taught magic is something to fear because her father’s first wife and son were killed by Maji.

Kaea has the scroll of her and whilst Amari looks on the guards bring Binta before the king to test it. They touch the scroll to her hand and light explodes from it. Then they kill Binta in front of her.

Afterwards she sees the guards take the scroll into Kaea’s room and Princess Amari can’t resist sneaking in to examine it.

After Zélie and Amari flee Prince Inan is summoned to the king and informed that he needs to hunt down his own sister and that he must do whatever is necessary to hunt down the scroll including burn down Zélie’s village.

When Zélie learns of the scroll from Amari she decides she needs to take it to Mama Agba to show her. Once there she realises that Mama Agba is secretly a Maji, and not just any Maji, she is a seer.

Mama Agba has a vision of Amari and Zélie journeying to an ancient temple to find out about a ritual inscribed on the scroll in the hope of bringing magic back for good.

With Inan in  hot pursuit though will they make it out the village before he burns it to the ground? Will Zélie be able to bring magic back to her people and is it the right thing to do?

Children of Blood and Bone was a fantastic book and I can’t wait to find out what happens in the next one. A completely unique read.

Our Final Rating...

Our Rating

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