For fans of YA or fantasy, or both, the name Tomi Adeyemi is a familiar one. Adeyemi stepped onto the literary scene with her YA debut, Children of Blood and Bone, which launched the Legacy of Orïsha trilogy and is currently being adapted to film. Adeyemi will talk about her forthcoming dark academia novel The Siren (Holt, Sept.) at BookCon on April 18.

The first thing that comes to mind with the title The Siren is the mythological creature whose singing lures sailors. But sirens can also be a sound that acts as a signal or warning. Which of those definitions feels closest to your book?

It is entirely a mixture of both. And I think what’s beautiful is whether you were thinking of these independent mythological women, or the sirens you hear from an ambulance, both of them are harbingers of doom. They are both warning signs.

How do you typically find your way into a character, and how did you discover Emery in writing this novel?

They’re all different fragments of who I was. The unique thing about the stories I write is I am being so raw—it is straight from my soul. With Emery, it was about finding magic in real life and crawling back to the feminine archetypes.

Did your own experiences at Harvard help shape your take on dark academia?

There’s something different about being an outsider versus being an insider and writing about these genres. It is that feeling of being at the football game or at the frat party, and you’re like, I’m doing what they told me I was going to enjoy doing on Disney Channel.
I made it, and yet I hated everything. When I got to college, I was put in positions of asking myself, Who am I? You’ll feel that in Emery’s journey.

What makes sisterhood such an integral part of the novel?

I feel within every cell of my being that sisterhood is sacred—to truly have one woman whom you can link arms with and walk through the absolute storm that is this life. There’s nothing more powerful or more special than that bond and those people who are there for you truly on both the darkest days of your life and when the sun is shining.

What are you looking forward to at BookCon?

I’m so excited for my fans who have followed me to this point to meet me as I am now. I was 23 when I wrote Children of Blood and Bone, and I’ll be 33 when this book comes out. I’m feeling this deep sense of pride.

Return to main feature.