It’s her one chance for survival and, more than that, it is the first time she has been offered the chance to belong. Deka and these other girls are Alaki – a group of extraordinary young women possessed of unique gifts and the ability to evade death.

A woman who presents her with a taste of the truth and a lifesaving choice: either she waits patiently for her village to destroy her or she leaves to fight alongside an army of girls with whom she shares an unusual kinship. She will be considered impure, demonic, and the consequences will be dire.Īs Deka awaits her deadly punishment, she is approached by an unknown woman. She prays that her blood will run red and pure.īut when her blood is revealed to be gold, her appalling fate becomes all too clear to her. Sixteen-year-old Deka dreads the ceremony that will determine whether she is allowed to become a full member of her community, fearing the day that she will be forced to bleed.ĭeka already suspects that she is not quite like everyone else and as the ritual day approaches, her anticipation only deepens. In the ancient, oppressively patriarchal kingdom of Otera, the value of a woman is determined by the purity of her blood. The Gilded Ones, the first book in the Deathless series, is her debut novel. She is driven by the tales of strong women handed down by her grandmother and seeks to increase the amount of black female heroes in western literature.

She moved to Atlanta in the US at the age of 9 in part to escape the escalating civil war in her home country. The Gilded Ones (Deathless #1) by Namina FornaĪuthor Namina Forna was born and raised in Sierra Leone. And also has a proper go at the patriarchy.

Here’s a brand new YA series that draws from the ancient stories of Western Africa…. Now, however, thanks to the gradual increasing visibility of our age, from blockbusters like Black Panther and newly emerging YA voices, the inherent magic of the West African mythos is finding wider appreciation. For a long time, the fantasy genre has been dominated by explicitly European models. West Africa is so rich in cultures, mythologies, ethnicities and beliefs it’s a wonder that more fantasy novels do not take inspiration from its vivid variety.

The gilded ones series