Namina Forna Books in Order

Namina Forna grew up in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where stories were part of everyday life. She later moved to the United States at age nine, but Sierra Leone has remained central to the worlds she builds.

Her early childhood unfolded as civil war made life in Freetown increasingly uncertain. Her father and grandmother helped shield her from that fear with stories about powerful women, African history, and places filled with magic. Those stories stayed with her.

Forna moved to America as a child and spent her teen years in Georgia. Reading gave her an escape, but it also showed her how rarely fantasy placed Black girls at the center of the adventure.

At Spelman College, she began putting language to questions she had long carried about femininity, power, religion, and the rules placed on girls. Women's studies classes helped shape the idea that would eventually become The Gilded Ones, a fantasy story rooted in a world influenced by Sierra Leone and West African traditions.

That was the seed.

Forna decided to become a novelist when she was nineteen and began writing books right away. After Spelman, she attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts, earning an MFA in film and television production. Her screenwriting training helped her focus on pace, visual scenes, and getting to the heart of a moment without letting it sprawl.

The route to publication was long. Forna has spoken openly about spending around twelve years pursuing writing, while facing hundreds of rejections across both fiction and film. She kept working through it, drawing on the steady, practical discipline that screenwriting demanded.

In 2021, The Gilded Ones introduced readers to Deka, a sixteen-year-old whose gold blood marks her as dangerous in the empire of Otera. The book starts with a brutal test of belonging, then opens into a larger story about sisterhood, survival, power, and the lies that keep an unjust system standing.

The sequels, The Merciless Ones and The Eternal Ones, follow Deka as the conflict grows from a fight for her own freedom into a struggle over the future of Otera. Readers who enjoy high-stakes young adult fantasy with determined heroines, close female friendships, monsters, gods, and big questions about who gets to hold power will find a lot to dig into here.

Forna now lives in London and continues to work across fiction, film, and television. When she isn't writing fantasy, she has mentioned enjoying good food and spending time with her much-loved dog.