Daughters Of Nri (The Return Of The Earth Mother): 1

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Though miles apart, both girls share an indestructible bond: they share the same blood, the same face and possess the same unspoken magic, thought to have vanished years ago with the lost gods. Being Igbo, this book was profound; seeing our culture written so beautifully in text in the genre of fantasy meant everything to me for black representation in books. The narrative style is very story driven rather than character driven or relying on action sequence after action sequence to keep the reader’s interest. To be entirely honest, I think a lot of the issues I had with this book mostly resulted from the fact that I'm currently editing a project of my own, so I've been coming at a lot of my recent reads with a very critical eye. I did have some qualms about minor writing things, but this prose has a lot of beauty in it, especially when describing the women of this novel and the magic/world.

I don’t want to reveal too much of the plot so I’ll leave it there but it did make me change my mind-set.The setting is incredibly engrossing, and since I'm not very familiar with the part of history the world was based on (medieval Nigeria I believe), it was fascinating to learn about. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.

Considering it had quite small font well as being fantasy, my intimidation was completely irrational - it was really easy to read and get through in next to no time.I loved this story, I think it was beautifully done, and if you’re a fan of strong female-led fantasy rich in culture and history, this one's for you. A lot of the dialogue feels a little clunky, and there were some scenes that I wasn't quite sure had to be there. If it was said once in a way that lets us know skin tone, okay, I could deal with it, but it's brought up again and again and again.

I definitely think the sequel will work a lot better because now the stage is set, and the last few scenes were really ramping up to some good action. At times, the main characters fall into the "special snowflake"/chosen one trope pretty heavily, but I guess doesn't bother me as much as it would other times. We are able to exist in a world of fantasy untouched by slavery and colonialism and dream of the magic that we could have wielded in an alternate reality.

Listen, I could go on and on and on about this book, I have a few issues here and there that have to do with personal preferences (mainly to do with the resolution of the villain’s arc, the POV style of writing that switches every time in the very short chapters and the slow start), but Ms Amayo did what she had to do. Once I familiarized myself with all the characters I found that I actually enjoyed the book and the couple of plot twists.