Tomi Adeyemi previews “Children of Anguish and Anarchy,” her long-awaited trilogy finale
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Matt Winkelmeyer/WireImage Tomi Adeyemi attends EW's annual San Diego Comic Con party in 2022.
Often, finishing a long journey is even harder than starting it.
Back in 2018, Tomi Adeyemi published her debut YA fantasy novel, and Children of Blood and Bone became an instant sensation. Its construction of an alternate-history Africa, where a class of magic-users (known as "maji") were brutally oppressed by a bloodthirsty monarchy, displayed a similar level of detailed world-building as Harry Potter or Avatar: The Last Airbender, while also channeling the real-life pain of institutional police violence against Black people. A sequel, Children of Virtue and Vengeance, followed a year later. But fans have now been waiting several years for the upcoming third piece in this planned trilogy.
Wait no longer! EW can now reveal that the long-awaited conclusion to the Legacy of Orïsha trilogy is set to hit stores next year. It will be titled Children of Anguish and Anarchy. Check out an exclusive look at the cover below.
Here's the official synopsis: "When Zélie seized the royal palace that fateful night, she thought her battles had come to an end. The monarchy had finally fallen. The maji had risen again. Zélie never expected to find herself locked in a cage and trapped on a foreign ship. Now warriors with iron skulls traffic her and her people across the seas, far from their homeland. Then everything changes when Zélie meets King Baldyr, her true captor and the man who has ravaged entire civilizations to find her. The ruler of the Skulls, Baldyr's quest to harness Zélie's strength sends Zélie, Amari, and Tzain searching for allies in foreign lands. But as Baldyr closes in, catastrophe charges Orïsha's shores. It will take everything Zélie has to face her final enemy and save her people before the Skulls annihilate them for good."
Lola Idowu/Henry Holt Books for Young Readers The cover of 'Children of Anguish and Anarchy' by artist Lola Idowu.
As with the previous two books, Adeyemi very consciously chose the title of Children of Anguish and Anarchy.
"There is a lot of anguish for the characters in this book," Adeyemi says. "I mean, I put them through a lot throughout the entire series, but I think in this book in particular, the characters are both fighting a conflict out in the external world and also inside of themselves, because they've just been taken completely out of anything they ever thought they would be battling with. They've spent the first two books in the series fighting maji against non-maji, maji against the monarchy, fighting with the grief of the past and fighting for a new future. But in book three, they have to face a bigger enemy, a larger enemy, and it's something they never could have anticipated."
Adeyemi continues: "When it comes to anarchy, I know that's a loaded term, but in this sense it means a kind of 'breaking free.' It's not just tearing everything down, but about the beauty that can be born out of the chaos and destruction."
In a similar way to how Children of Blood and Bone channeled real-life experiences of police violence and Black Lives Matter protests into a fantasy world, Adeyemi says that Children of Anguish and Anarchy is her way of working through the historical reality of the Atlantic slave trade, as well as unfortunate political developments from recent years.
"Every book in this series has met me where I was in my life," Adeyemi says. "This series started with a heart that was heavy with police brutality and not being able to share that emotional PTSD. The things that were really heavy on my heart writing this third book was this onslaught of female rage. We obviously had the repeal of Roe v. Wade, and that hit us as an attack on women and female autonomy.
Adeyemi continues: "So that was something that was happening in America. But then I got to go to a Brazilian book festival last summer, and Brazil was where I first encountered the Orisha. It's where the spark for Children of Blood and Bone hit me when I went there fresh out of college. Going back as an author with a profile in their national newspaper was crazy! But as I was talking to the women there, they were telling me about the persecution they faced. It was a time where women were feeling not just unprotected by their government, but actually under attack. That is something that really fed into the creative process of this story. It's not male versus female, but just the idea of a woman not having ownership over her body, that being violently taken away from her and fighting to take that power back for herself, that's a very big throughline in this third book."
But despite the weight of the material, Adeyemi is happy to have seen Zélie's story to the finish line — and thankful to the readers who have been patient and encouraging while they waited.
"The first line of Children of Blood and Bone, excluding the opening prologue, is like, 'Pick me,'" Adeyemi recalls of her heroine. "She's just this feisty girl waiting for her chance to prove herself. I'm thinking of the final act of book three, and… I'm not going to describe it, but it's just like, wow. Finishing a series like this isn't something that was guaranteed, and it was an odyssey for me, personally. So to really be able to picture exactly where all these characters started and see all of their ends, it's incredibly cinematic, and it's making me really proud."
Readers can get a sense of Zélie's journey just by checking out the new cover and comparing it with the previous two. Together, they demonstrate her growth through the years.
"I think what the cover conveys the most is Zélie's growth and evolution," Adeyemi says. "In every book in this series, she's been sent on a harrowing adventure, and the finale is no different. When I look at this cover, I feel her power, her beauty, and her strength — the command she's harnessed from deep inside. I also see a clear homage to the Orisha and Santería — the source of inspiration that found me in Brazil, and started this entire journey. But most of all, when I look at this cover, I feel pride. As my dad says every time he looks at it, 'Zélie's all grown up,' and throughout this series, I feel like I got the opportunity to grow up alongside her."
Children of Anguish and Anarchy is set to be published June 25, 2024 through Macmillan's imprint Henry Holt Books for Young Readers.
Related content:
