Nigerian Author Tomi Adeyemi’s Debut Fantasy Novel “Children of Blood and Bone” Lands Major Movie Deal with Fox Studios

23-year-orld writer Tomi Adeyemi’s debut novel Children of Blood and Bone has just been signed in a major movie deal with Fox 2000.

According to Deadline, the fantasy novel raked in a nearly 7-figure deal from the media house, after the publishing deal the writer was offered by Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group.

Plot:

The protagonist is Zélie, who at six years old watched the king’s guards hang her mother on a tree outside her home. She never forgot it. In the beginning, every Orïshan was a magi: born with dark skin, stark white hair and the blessing of the god’s magic once they reached adulthood. Yet over time, their population dwindled and they became Orïsha’s minority. Magic became a thing to loathe, dark skin transformed into a thing to hate. Ten years after the raid that killed her mother and took away magic forever, Zélie Adebola has one chance to bring magic back. Through a fortuitous encounter with the Princess Amari, Zélie comes into possession of a sacred scroll necessary to restore a connection to the gods and secure magic for another hundred years. This sets the young women on a quest to end the senseless violence and oppression by the lighter-skinned royal class. Danger lurks in this west-African inspired world, where lionnaires and cheetanaires roam, and the beautiful villages built over oceans, out of sand or forged in iron hide a dark underbelly of slavery and corruption. They find themselves pitted against a crown prince bent on wiping out magic for good.

The book has been said to be inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and it takes African cultures and blends it into a fantasy setting in order to bring a richness to the fantasy genre that is often filled with more Eurocentric stories.

The soon-to-be published author took to her twitter page to share the good news! Photo credit: Twitter | @tomi_adeyemi