Rosewater cover art

Rosewater

The Wormwood Trilogy, Book 1

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Rosewater

By: Tade Thompson
Narrated by: Bayo Gbadamosi
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

 ***Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award***

Winner of the inaugural Nommo Award for Best Novel, Africa's first award for speculative fiction
Shortlisted for the Kitschie Award for Best Novel

John W. Campbell Award finalist for Best Science Fiction Novel

'A magnificent tour de force' Adrian Tchaikovsky

'Mind-expanding and utterly addictive' Mark Haddon

'Smart. Gripping. Fabulous!' Ann Leckie

'Mesmerising' M. R. Carey

'An astonishing book. I wish I'd written it' Lauren Beukes

Rosewater is a town on the edge. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious alien biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry and the helpless - people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumoured healing powers.

Kaaro is a government agent with a criminal past. He has seen inside the biodome, and doesn't care to again - but when something begins killing off others like himself, Kaaro must defy his masters to search for an answer, facing his dark history and coming to a realisation about a horrifying future.

Rosewater is the start of a vibrant and compellingly told trilogy by one of science fiction's most engaging new voices - perfect for fans of N. K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season, Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice and Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy. ©2017 Tade Thompson (P)2018 Hachette Audio UK Science Fiction Fiction Africa

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Making Wolf cover art
The Long List Anthology cover art
Children of Time cover art
Starter Villain cover art
All Systems Red (Dramatized Adaptation) cover art
Kindred cover art
Dhata Mays cover art
Nobody Gets the Girl cover art
Columbus Day cover art
Elantris (3 of 3) [Dramatized Adaptation] cover art
Alien: Covenant Origins cover art
Breakfast of Champions cover art
The Invasion of the Body Snatchers cover art
Children of the Deterrent cover art
The World Walker cover art
The Very Best of the Best cover art
All stars
Most relevant
A book about a sensitive. Kaaro is able to read minds and also to form a link with others like himself. Such people did not exist before the alien invasion, and now they are all dying. Kaaro needs to find out why.

The story is set in Nigeria, not so very far from Lagos, where the aliens have established a bio-dome and the humans have grown a town around it, a town called Rosewater. It oscillates between “Then” – a time in the past not so very long after the first confirmed alien arrival on Earth (around 2044 - 54) and “Now” (around 2066-67). It builds a picture of how things got to where they are and at the same time paints a picture of how things are.

This is a different, African, take on alien invasion. The Africans have been invaded before – by white men. They have a different attitude and a different reaction to that evinced by the British and the Americans.

I totally loved this unusual take on alien invasion and on psy powers. It is a really refreshing book with an unusual storyline, unusual preconceptions, unusual characters and an unusual way of telling it. I’m really looking forward to books 2 and 3 in the series being published later this year so I can dive right back in. Having said that, it does not strictly need any more. It is completely able to be read as a stand-alone book.

I found the time changes between chapters and the way this split up the two converging story lines a bit irritating, but not a major problem. I ‘read’ this on Audible. I loved the narration by Bayo Gbadamosi. His warm and sometimes amused-sounding, sometimes bemused-sounding voice was completely perfect for the story being told.

Loved it!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
struggled to concentrate for much of this. I admire the outline and ideas behind the story, and was abstract in a niel gaiman type way but was not drawn in by the protagonist

ethereal and abstract

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This novel keeps adding surprises and amazing twists and new key-characters, as it jumps back and forth and in between the time line of the story,. We see it all through the first person narrator, the main character, Karu, a young man who's unwillingly involved in hugely important, world-saving matters because of his special abilities. This story has it all: mind reading and all kinds of other special abilities, sci-fi elements, including different types of aliens, sociopolitical commentary on past, present and future (the story is set in Nigeria, in our future), women as key characters choosing their own destiny and saving Karu and the world (a lot), security procedures against "network" attacks, and so much more. The narrator is brilliant. My only regret is that I haven't read this sooner.

Amazing story, perfect interpretation

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Rosewater is a fabulous and fascinating series with a great mix of characters, themes and ideas. This series is now part of my all-time favourites, one I will be recommending for years to come. Lots of other great reviews to read, and I wanted to avoid spoilers, suffice to say if you like interesting sci-fi, questions about environment, culture, politics and relationships, then this is a series for you. One criticism is that initially I found the story time jumps a bit irritating, but there is a reason for them. I thoroughly enjoyed the whole series.
Wonderful narration. Initially I was apprehensive about the slow and measured narration approach, but that was quickly proven to be not an issue. Lots of different characters are easy to recognise due to the diverse range of voices used to help differentiate and personalise them. The different characters come across brilliantly, distinct from each other, fabulous voice acting.

Rosewater A Fabulous & Epic Series

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A very imaginative storyline with an engaging carust of characters. African setting/ values added to the contrast with western SF.

Great SF

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews