Book Review
Title: The Gilded Ones (Deathless #1)
Author: Namina Forna
Genre: YA/Fantasy
Rating: ****
Review: I didn’t know much about the Gilded Ones but the synopsis gave me Divergent vibes which intrigued me as that is a love it or hate it series. We are introduced to Deka who is about to go through the Ritual of Purity as all 16 year old girls do in order to be accepted into her village as a pure woman which would grant her permission to marry and start a family of her own. However, Deka is aware her mother was an outsider to the village and didn’t go through the Ritual so there is no way of knowing if she was pure, plus one of her father’s cousin was impure when tested and this worried Deka immensely. As her time approaches the village is attacked by creature called Deathshrieks which Deka is able to make leave and that is when she learns her blood runs gold instead of red showing her as impure. She is taken away to be killed as is the custom with impure women but no matter the method used, Deka is able to heal and revive herself over and over again. After being killed nine times a woman comes to herself and tells Deka she is an Alaki, this means she is basically immortal and has powers of her own as we see with the healing but instead of being killed, she is given a choice. She can stay in the prison cell she is in while others try to kill her and take her blood to be sold or join the army of Alaki that the Emperor Gezo has created in order to confront and destroy the Deathshrieks and Deka obviously chooses freedom but asks for her father to be told she is dead. As far as openings go this isn’t anything original but it was captivating and I can’t wait to get more invested in Deka’s journey.
As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, Deka names the woman White Hands because of the gauntlets she wears as she hasn’t given us her real name yet. She is taken along with Britta to Hemaira, the City of Emperors where she is to be trained with other alaki to be soldiers. Before they leave Deka also gets to meet two equus, creatures very similar to centaurs named Masaima and Braima and they develop a little friendship as Britta is also trying to get closer to Deka. Once they board the ship to take them to the city, Deka falls into a deep sleep known as the glided sleep for a whole month but doesn’t show any signs of starvation, even she is unaware of how long she has been asleep. When they arrive and see the other alaki, Britta and Deka realise how lucky they are as most of the other alaki have been treated poorly by those sent to bring them to the city with some being starved and other raped by their handlers. There they learn that they are going to be paired with a jatu soldier who will be their friend and brother in arms. Deka is lucky enough to be paired with a recruit named Keita who spoke up earlier when one of the girls attacked the soldiers and explains that they did have a choice, serve the Emperor, or return and face the Death Mandate which no one wants to do. The bonding process makes each pair uruni, similar to parabatai and I am very interested to see how the relationship between Deka and Keita will change over the course of the novel. After being paired with the uruni, the girls are divided into groups and taken to their respective training camps, Deka is lucky enough to be in a group with Britta, Belcalis (the girl who attacked the soldiers) and two southern girls who look similar to her mother, Adwapa and Asha. We see some key differences between the girls here as Belcalis is looking to escape as soon as she can while Adwapa and Asha don’t share the same religious beliefs as Deka and Britta which only serves to divide them when they should be working together and watching each other’s backs because no one else is going to protect them when things get rough.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, the girls are introduced to other alaki who have been training for a year who will be the ones doing the majority of their training and helping them adjust to their new lives. They are also introduced to the okai, the Emperor’s female assassins and one of them thinks Deka is familiar, that evening Deka seems to be remember her mother wearing the umbra, the symbol of okai on a necklace which is punishable if the person wearing it isn’t a member of the okai. This sparks a lot of questions in Deka about her mother’s life before she met her father as she knows her mother was alaki because her blood ran red but there is a lot that Deka doesn’t know about her own history. However, during her training she is coming to realise that alaki are superior to humans in terms of speed, strength, and a lot of other factors but their bodies aren’t prepared for it. When they go running for the first time Deka finds she can run a lot faster than a normal person but the exhaustion when she stops is immense and it is going to take a lot of conditioning for them to be ready in seven months to face the Deathshrieks in battle. We do get some good bonding moments her as the group of five joined by Katya vow to be bloodsisters and help each other out whenever and wherever they can to make sure that they survive the twenty year service and get what they were promised.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, I was enjoying the story but I was hoping the main plot would kick in soon. We get some plot progression but a lot of things happen with the characters in a very short space of time which made the pacing feel off. The first is that we have gone from the beginning of their training to two and a half weeks in and Deka is finally able to find out if her mother was one of the okai. It turns out she was but Deka is told her mother was already pregnant when she left the service and a death warrant was issued for her but there was a noble who protected her. Knowing this Deka realises that her father can’t be her father as the timing is wrong and this mysterious noble might be the key to finding out what really happened to her mother before Deka was born. However, she doesn’t really have time to dwell on this as their training is increasing and one day some Deathshrieks are spotted nearby thanks to Deka and while they try to get away silently Katya screams drawing the attention to them and she dies as a result, not a false death but her true death which badly hurts the groups since all Katya wanted was to return home to the man she loved and even her uruni leaves the jatu returning home because he can’t bear witnessing any more death. In the aftermath of this, the Lady of Equus returns as a teacher and she has selected Britta, Deka, Belcalis and Gazal as an elite team as they excel above the others in different areas. The teachers have also become aware of Deka’s unique ability to command the Deathshrieks which they are trying to look into but it isn’t until White Hand talks to Deka about her reoccurring dream that she finally unlocks the key to commanding the creatures intentionally but it still takes a huge toll on her which is why the others especially Britta were chosen, to protect Deka in her vulnerable state. After this the girls and their uruni are spending some time together and Keita is horrified to learn of how Belcalis and Deka were treated before they were brought into the army and we can possibly see a romantic relationship developing between Deka and Keita. The group are also informed they are going on their first raid weeks before the others in order to road test Deka’s ability and this panics her as the lives of others are on the line now not just her own.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, I was enjoying the story but I didn’t really have a clear understanding of where it was going. During the raid Deka uses her gift in order to make the Deathshrieks docile enough to kill easily but feels guilty about it as they can’t even defend themselves. As we saw earlier Deka has no problem defending her sisters against the abuse the people give them even when they aren’t willing to sacrifice their own lives in order for the alaki not to be defending them and yet she feels guilty over killing these creatures and there might be a reason for that. In the cave where the Deathshrieks were nesting we see the remains of many humans but there was a little girl Deka saw fleeing into the woods but no one else did. They group of alaki explore the cave and find a temple to the Gilded Ones but they don’t look like demons here as the girls think they look like Gods and they agree not to say anything about the temple as it felt sacred to them and it shouldn’t be disturbed. However, Deka finds a creature there that can shapeshift and it binds to her after consuming her blood and she names him Ixa. At first the others are wary of the creature but Deka’s instincts tell her that he is harmless and she is allowed to keep him. The Lady of the Equus returns and this time it is to train Deka to use her gift without speaking however, the author chooses to jump over all of this which I didn’t enjoy as it seems like Deka masters everything so easily as we don’t see her struggle and fail but she does eventually learn to command the Deathshrieks with movement as well as words. The elite group rename themselves the Death Strikers and make quite a name for themselves and they are even summoned before the Emperor himself where Deka learns he and White Hands are cousins as she was the one who put forward the idea of having alaki soldiers. The Emperor informs them that they have been chosen to march at the head of his army in the upcoming battle with the Deathshrieks and he hopes it will be the end of that problem altogether.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, I still didn’t know where the novel was going. I was sure it wasn’t going to be about Deka’s heritage as that has disappeared after finding out her mother was an okai. I don’t think it is going to be about Deka’s journey as an alaki as that is being glossed over, so it has to have either something to do with the Deathshrieks or it is going to end up being a romance novel, which I wouldn’t be happy about. As the group continue to go on raids, Deka gains more control over her gift but the Deathshrieks show a level of intelligence she wasn’t prepared for as on one raid they specifically target her because of her ability to control them giving them the upper hand and they also wear devices that lessen her control over them. Deka survives thanks to Ixa but Britta is injured and she seems to be dying until Deka commands her not to. We see that Deka’s influence is spreading from the Deathshrieks to the other alaki as well but not to the human soldiers. Also, during this raid, she is able to understand the Deathshrieks, while others just hear clicking noises Deka is able to understand it as speech where the Deathshrieks refers to her as Nuru and call her a traitor and Deka is beginning to suspect that White Hands lied to her about being half Deathshriek as that is the only way she can explain these new changes. As they ride out with the Emperor’s army to face the horde of Deathshrieks Deka isn’t sure if she is doing the right thing as the so called creatures seem almost as human as them but when they start attacking them with weapons like spears and catapults, she has no choice but to defend herself. At this point I had no idea how the story was going to end.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, the final battle begins but one Deathshriek calls out to Deka claiming to be Katya and when Deka believes her she commands the other Deathshrieks to protect Katya marking her as a traitor. Deka is going to be killed and Keita asks to be the one to do it as her uruni and decides to dismember her and Deka realises that he knows she can’t die that way and he is betraying the army to save her and allows it. When she awakes even as her body is still healing Keita and Ixa are bringing her to the Deathshrieks where she belongs as all alaki are reborn as Deathshrieks after their final death. There Keita has to leave her even though he doesn’t want to with them sharing their first and possibly last kiss. White Hands is also there are answers all the questions Deka has had while she is healing and explains that her role as the Nuru is to awaken the goddesses, The Gilded Ones and help them restore peace to the land which the jatu conquered by imprisoning and killing their mothers and sisters. As Deka heads to the temple of the Gilded Ones with her friends at her side they realises that the Emperor is already there waiting for them and he has both Britta and Keita bound with him. He explains that the true jatu where the male offspring of the goddesses and while they didn’t have the abilities the daughters had they weren’t completely defenceless but Deka shows what her training has amounted to when she bests the Emperor and forces his army to kneel before her as she wakes the goddesses. In the aftermath, Deka is reunited with her friends, the other uruni and Keita while the jatu and the Priests scatter across the land hiding and plotting but the alaki are ready for them as they understand why their mission is so important as it has lead to girls and women suffering and dying that needs to be stopped.
Overall, The Gilded Ones was a very interesting book with a great magic and political system with plenty of intrigue to keep you guessing throughout the novel. However, I did feel it was missing some key elements, take Deka for example, at lot of the scenes that would have made us like her and sympathize with her where cut like the training scenes, more of the raids, more of her trying to interact with the Deathshrieks in order to understand them. I think it needed just a little more and it would have been a solid 5 star read for me but it fell a little short. I will definitely be picking up the sequel in the future to see what has become of my favourite characters and to see where Namina Forna takes this world and these characters.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
I received this copy for review consideration from Terminal Tours.
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