Children of Virtue and Vengeance is the highly anticipated sequel to the breakout debut novel Children of Blood and Bones written by Tomi Adeyemi. The debut fantasy novel begins the amazing story of Zélie Adebola, following the prophecy of saving magic in Orïsha. Zélie’s kingdom used to have magic but under the orders of a ruthless king, anyone with magic was targeted and killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope. Few people remain with the power to use magic, and they must remain hidden or face death. Now, with the help of the ruthless king’s daughter, the princess of Orïsha, she has a chance to bring back magic to all the tribes of her people and strike against the monarchy that has oppressed magic wielders, and killed a generation. All the while Zelie struggles to outrun the prince, who is hellbent on the destruction of her and her kind, known as the Maji. Yet Orïsha’s greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to come to terms with the strength of her magic – and her growing fellings for the enemy.
Children of Blood and Bone was a smash record breaking success and left fans craving more from this story. Finally, after what felt like forever, Children of Virtue and Vengeance came out. But was it worth the wait of over a year?

Despite this worry of being unable to get back into this story, Children of Virtue and Vengeance immediately throws you back in with a war between the magi and the nobles. The only difference is that now the maji are not the only ones with magic. Nobles with magic ancestry now have magic and a war between the two has begun. The nobles refuse to give up the throne while the magi refuse to be powerless and abused once again. Zélie is dealing with the anger caused by all that she’s lost to restore magic. Amari is struggling with trying to gain power she feels is owed to her and Inan is struggling to rule his kingdom, all while trying to earn Zélie’s trust back.

This book sucks you in and makes you invested in everything that’s happening. Especially with Inan’s point of view, which, although he’s on the wrong side of this war, I still can’t help but want the best for him. This book also holds a lot of inspiration from real life. Children of Blood and Bone handles a lot of heavy issues, racism and police brutality are big themes and this continues through the second book. Without spoilers, this second book has not hurt my love for this series and I cannot recommend this book more. My one issue with Children of Virtue and Vengeance is the character Amari. Without giving spoilers, Amari’s character has taken a massive turn for the worse. I’d love to clarify more but that would spoil the story and would also make me furious just by writing about her faults.
Despite this, I still loved this book. I was worried about this sequel but it has proven to be amazing, like the first one. If you want to read this series, there are copies of the first book (Children of Blood and Bones) available in the school’s library.