In the Shadow of The Fall
By Tobi Ogundiran
A review by Jamilla @ LandsAwayBooks (a Wordpress blog)

I’ve been on a Yoruban mythology kick lately and had been THROUGHLY enjoying myself! So thankful and excited that these stories are becoming more common in bookstores.

This is my first foray into works by this author and after this, I simply must read every word they’ve ever written!

In the Shadow of the fall, we meet acolyte, Ashâke, who longs to hear the voice of the Orisha — and after five seasons of silence, any one will do. Acolytes are taken in from young, and spend each day in meditation and contemplation of the gods, until, when they’re of age, an Orisha calls out to them and they ascend to priesthood, to a life of service outside of the temple walls.

Desperate amidst the unrelenting silence, angry after watching acolytes younger and far less wiser than her ascend, Ashâke does the unthinkable, she sneaks out of the temple and builds an idan to trap a god.

Things go utterly awry and our intrepid heroine’s quiet life is swept away completely as the gods she seek maybe much closer than she could ever imagine.

An age old mystery, shapeshifting cultists and the thunder and fire of beckon.

Thank you to Netgalley & TorDotCom for the review copy!

This was a really good novella that had me hooked from the start. I don't think I have ever read a book about orishas before, so I think my biggest complaint is that it was a novella and wasn't a full novel, meaning I didn't get to see more of this awesome world.

The ending definitely leaves you knowing that there will be more, so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more of this world and the main character, Ashake (sorry, on mobile and can't add the special character).

Solid 4.5 stars.

Tobi Ogundiran has crafted a masterful African mythology tale. This book sucks the reader in with its premise but then gives the reader a sense of more at the end. This novella main character Ashâke takes the reader on a journey of self exploration as she battles with the idea why she hasn’t become an Orisha. Not knowing her story has just begun. The antagonist of the story brings a sense of fear to the reader. I can’t wait to read more from Mr. Tobi.

This novella had me enticed from the very start. It follows Ashâke on a wild unexpected journey growing up as an acolyte to the orisha. I loved the imagery and unique world building in this book! I found this a quick read and I am excited to see where this story goes.

This book was a great novella and beginning of a duology. The characters and history was all there to keep me reading and wanting more. If you are a fan of NK Jemesin you will most likely enjoy this!

Never has a novella left me so speechless, so intrigued, and so absorbed by a story—in such a short amount of time, too. In the Shadow of the Fall is a fast-paced, immersive fantasy that follows Ashâke as she navigates her life as an acolyte, one that is flipped on its head. From the start, we're introduced to an alluring, well-crafted world with intriguing characters and an engrossing plot. I couldn't stop reading. The atmosphere is felt from the first page with Ogundiran's prose, and the mystery behind Ashâke held my interest throughout. Not only are the world and characters so captivating, but the storyline itself—more specifically, the level of emotion pulled—gripped my heart. I enjoyed the twists, and Yaruddin's threatening presence was hugely felt through the page. If you're looking for an epic fantasy with cosmic-level stakes, while retaining its personable characters, read this novella. I will be—impatiently—waiting for the next installment. Seriously, this was an incredible read.

A huge thank you to the NetGalley team at Tor/Forge for this egalley in exchange for an honest review! 5.0 ⭐️

4.5 out of 5 stars
Tobi Ogundiran creates a rich and magical world on the page in the novella, In the Shadow of the Fall. Ashâke is a young sheltered woman who is tired of being passed over for promotion into the priesthood of the orisha. She tries to take control by calling and binding an orisha to herself since none has selected her for their service. This goes terribly wrong and she ends up injured and punished. This spurs her to leave the temple where she learns much more about the world, how nothing is as it seems, and how fickle life is going from moments of great joy and acceptance to tragedy and disaster in a few heartbeats.  
Ashâke starts out a bit self-centered and I wasn't sure if I liked her when she started talking about what she deserves when faced with someone else's private pain she had just forced to be discussed. She doesn't know the power she has to harm by only focusing on herself. Hopefully this is a lesson she has learned through the dramatic climax of this book but we won't find out if she really learned the lesson until we see her in the next book. 
The story starts a bit slow building up the world for the reader and establishing Ashâke's place in it with a parallel story of danger looming. Once Ashâke leaves the shelter of the temple, the pace picks up as Ashâke finds a group of nomadic storyteller singers who welcome her and tell her history she has been sheltered from that rocks her faith.  The pace skyrockets toward the end of the book with her old world of the temple and priesthood colliding with her new knowledge of the world at the same time that the antagonist with no respect for life finds her causing a seismic transformation. We readers are left wondering who Ashâke will now be and what she will do in the second half of this duology.
Overall this story was fun and interesting and fueled the imagination! In the Shadow of the Fall reminded me a lot of one of my favorite books, Lirael by Garth Nix. They both begin with a young woman not advancing at the pace of her peers due to not having powers awaken, finding mischief to get into in the meantime, and having the woman discover her path is different from her peers and always was meant to be. 
Thank you to NetGalley and Tordotcom for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The writing is lovely. I stopped after the second chapter (14%) but I would imagine an easy three stars for the target with four to five for the right readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for the ARC.

This book was a fast read! I was able to read it in one sitting. I enjoyed it, it was a tale of the Orisha unlike any I’ve ever read. It was very fast paced and my only regret is that it wasn’t longer. It definitely could have been slower during certain parts.

I went into this book already excited just by the description alone. I however wasn’t expecting such a rich and varied storytelling from a novella. The world was impeccably established, the characters given a richness and life that is tangible and heart wrenching. Ashâke is a dynamic character from the first page, the cast of characters you meet including the mythological and religious ones are so vivid it’s unbelievable. No matter how briefly you meet them, each leaves an impact.

I feel as if I’ve read an entire series and not merely an introduction. I am dying for more and I cannot wait to see the rest of the story!

A masterful tapestry of culture, mythology, religion, and character development.

Thank you NetGalley and Tordotcom for offering me an Arc of this spellbinding series beginning!

thank you netgalley and tordotcom for this ARC in exchange for an honest review

first of all, can we take a moment to appreciate how gorgeous the book cover is?! 🥺 i'm not gonna lie it was one of the reasons why i wanted to read this book beforehand. IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL!! (and it captures perfectly a great scene from the book) :)

so, in 'In the Shadow of Fall', we're going to follow our main character, Ahsâke, an young acolyte, who has been constantly failing to ascend to the priesthood for many years. she was taken from her home when she was a little girl and she has dedicated so many years of her life in the temple of ifan. but for some unknown reason, the orisha won't talk back to her as they did to all of her colleagues. to ascend to priesthood, an orisha needs to choose you. so, in a desperate moment she tries to summon and bind an orisha into an idol to answer all her questions and well... the summoning attempt doesn't work out as well as she thought it would be.

most of the times i have problems with the size of a novella. usually it's larger than a short story but shorter than a romance. which means i don't get the proper time to dive into the world and care for the characters. but that didn't happen in this novella.

the author has done an amazing job building the characters and the worldbuilding was great for a fantasy book with so few pages and the writing was excellent 👌🏽. the pacing was awesome and the book had some interlude with some different and interesting POV characters. i really did enjoy the time i spent knowing this story and i'm pretty sure i'd read many more pages about this. 

the problem i had while i was reading it was how naive the MC could be sometimes. i didn't buy (be aware the next sentences will contain some spoilers. you can skip to next paragraph that has no spoliers) how fast she changed her mind about the faith she had grown up along with. to me, it felt like there was a gap between the time she believed in the orisha and when she did not. the way some griots, that she didn't know well enough, just sang to her a story about a crucial part about the history of the gods that would break the foundations of her faith, and she believed it with not many thought as she should, was at the least, intriguing to me. sure that since the beginning we knew she wasn't quite good with her beliefs, but a religion grows deep roots into a person life and, for me, it must be more deeper into a person who wanted to be a priestess.

well, it is a four stars to me and now i'm desperate to know what will happen in the conclusion of this duology and I fear i will only know it next year 😭🤌🏽.

Thank you to the publisher for the eARC!


A beautiful cover for a great book! I quite enjoyed this novella.
From the start, I was invested in Ashâke's character and I loved reading about her. The Interludes in between were great to read too. The author did an amazing job fitting such a great story in just 160 pages! It was short and amazing which made it even better to read. The characters, culture and legends were great to read of.

This is a great way to start off 2024! I thoroughly enjoyed this novella, and my hope is that the author is hard at work on more stories set in this world. The setting seems to be West Africa, most likely Nigeria, and we learn a lot about the mythology/folklore of the region, which is quite fascinating. Ogundiran effortlessly makes us care about the main character, who is lost both figuratively and literally. The ending is particularly well-executed, leaving the reader wanting more while still being satisfied by what has been revealed thus far.

I encourage everyone to check this out—it’s a quick read and well worth your time.

My sincere thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for an advance copy in exchange for my honest feedback!

This novella was nothing short of phenomenal. Easy and smooth worldbuilding coupled with unique and exciting POV characters made this one of my fastest reads in a long time. While I was initially concerned about the amount of worldbuilding that would need to happen in a 160-page novella to fit the hook, it was done in a masterful way that never once took me out of the story. The characters were fully fleshed out and realized, as were their world and the roles they played within it. Each character gets a spotlight that shines more on their history, role, shortcomings, and struggles.

My only "negative" was that some plot points felt a smidge rushed or that they could have been foreshadowed more, but I believe that has more to do with my drive in mysteries to figure out the reveals before we learn them as less to do with the quality of the work. I wish I had more foreshadowing around the big reveal, but I was pleased with it and loved the complexity it brought to the story. The setting was lush and full of danger and secrets, and I loved it!

Cheers to my first novella of 2024! 🎉

I will read more of Tobi Ogundiran's writing and look forward to future reviews! Thank you to NetGalley for this advanced copy of IN THE SHADOW OF THE FALL by Tobi Ogundiran.