The ceremony is attacked by deathshrieks – legendary monsters who scream loudly. Deka is filled with fear and anxiety because of a compulsory ritual for 16-year-old girls called the Ritual of Purity that serves to banish girls who bleed gold when cut instead of red from society. The novel is set in the West Africa-inspired kingdom of Otera, where 16-year-old Deka lives in the village of Irfut with her sick father, her mother having recently died of a redpox infection. It was acquired by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, in a six-figure deal after several rejections from publishers. The book is the first in a planned trilogy called The Gilded Ones series, originally titled the Deathless series before publication. She stated in an interview that she first got the idea when she had a recurring dream of a girl in a golden armor walking in a field while she was still an undergraduate at Spelman College before writing the novel years later using elements of West African mythology and Sierra Leonean culture. She later found that western literature lacked African characters and black female heroes, and she was driven to change this. She also heard stories about African civilization such as the Walls of Benin and Great Zimbabwe told to her by her grandmother and father to distract her from the Sierra Leone civil war. Development įorna stated that as a child she heard stories about strong women, such as Mami Wata, the goddess of water, and the Dahomey Amazons.

Forna's debut novel, it was published on February 9, 2021, and quickly entered the New York Times Best Seller list and Indie Bestseller lists.

The Gilded Ones is a 2021 young adult fantasy novel by Sierra Leonean American writer Namina Forna.

The gilded ones book review