Reni K Amayo Books in Order

Reni K Amayo is a British Nigerian fantasy writer based in London. She was born and raised there by Nigerian immigrant parents, in a family where medicine was the expected path. Books offered a different kind of future, and fantasy especially gave her imagination plenty of room to roam.

As a child, she considered several careers, including law and even astronautics. Mathematics eventually led her to Imperial College London, where she earned an MEng in Aeronautical Engineering. It is a degree she has described with a sense of humor as largely unused, but the mix of logic and storytelling has stayed with her.

Writing was never far away. During demanding periods at work, Amayo wrote in the gaps, on trains, at lunch, after hours, and on weekends. There were poems she did not plan to share, short stories, and the beginnings of several novels. The practice mattered before there was any clear plan to become a published author.

Then she found a story she couldn't leave alone.

In 2014, on a packed train, an idea arrived that she wanted to read for herself: a story about twin sisters in the Kingdom of Nri who are connected to lost gods. She kept working on it, drawing on her interest in African, especially Nigerian, mythology, culture, and history. That idea became Daughters Of Nri, published in 2019.

Daughters Of Nri introduces Naala and Sinai, sisters separated at birth who grow up in sharply different worlds, one in a village and one amid palace politics. Their story blends magic, survival, family, and resistance to abusive power. In Descendants of the First, the sisters must face the strain of a kingdom already breaking apart, as old forces begin to return.

These books are for readers who like young adult fantasy with a strong sense of place and characters who have to make hard choices. Amayo builds her imagined Nri from African cultural and mythic roots rather than treating the setting as a generic backdrop. Questions of belonging, sisterhood, freedom, grief, and the cost of power keep returning as the characters learn what they can do.

Her route into publishing also grew from the first novel. While looking for a way to bring the book to readers without losing sight of the audience she wanted to reach, she helped found Onwe Press, an independent publisher. It gave her a hands-on role in getting Daughters Of Nri into the world and in supporting stories from underrepresented voices.

She writes big fantasy stakes, but the personal parts matter just as much.

Amayo now lives near Greenwich with her husband and continues to write fantasy centered on strong female characters and worlds shaped by African cultures, mythology, and lore. Away from the page, she has mentioned the simple comforts of coffee, rainy-day reading, long walks, notebooks, cake, and a good place on the sofa. Her work invites readers into expansive invented worlds, but it begins with the familiar urge to ask what might be possible for a young woman who refuses to be told her limits.