Release Date: September 15, 2020
Series: Legendborn #1
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Description
“After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.
A flying demon feeding on human energies.
A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down.
And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw.
The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates.
She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.”
My Thoughts
Bree begins the novel feeling alone in the world. After her mother died, she lost her last connection to the maternal branch of her family tree. Those of you who can track your family line back through the centuries and kingdoms cannot understand what it feels like to not know your history. In the basement of their lodge, the Knights display a massive obsidian Wall of Ages detailing the lineages of every member going all the way back to the Round Table. Bree looks upon it and feels not awe but sorrow and frustration: “who could have written down my family’s history as far back as this? Who would have been able to, been taught to, been allowed to? Where is our Wall? A Wall that doesn’t make me feel lost, but found.”…
Read the rest of this review at Tor.com.
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