Release Date: November 8, 2022
Series: Legendborn #2
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Description
The shadows have risen, and the line is law.
All Bree wanted was to uncover the truth behind her mother’s death. So she infiltrated the Legendborn Order, a secret society descended from King Arthur’s knights–only to discover her own ancestral power. Now, Bree has become someone new:
A Medium. A Bloodcrafter. A Scion.
But the ancient war between demons and the Order is rising to a deadly peak. And Nick, the Legendborn boy Bree fell in love with, has been kidnapped.
Bree wants to fight, but the Regents who rule the Order won’t let her. To them, she is an unknown girl with unheard-of power, and as the living anchor for the spell that preserves the Legendborn cycle, she must be protected.
When the Regents reveal they will do whatever it takes to hide the war, Bree and her friends must go on the run to rescue Nick themselves. But enemies are everywhere, Bree’s powers are unpredictable and dangerous, and she can’t escape her growing attraction to Selwyn, the mage sworn to protect Nick until death.
If Bree has any hope of saving herself and the people she loves, she must learn to control her powers from the ancestors who wielded them first–without losing herself in the process.
My Thoughts
Deonn also expands the worldbuilding for the rest of the hierarchy—particularly the regents, vassals, mageguard, Merlin forces, and lieges—not just for the internal politics but, for example, what it’s like to be a BIPOC underling who doesn’t have a blood lineage to fall back on. There’s a lovely moment about halfway through where Bree meets another Black woman in the Order and the two talk about their experiences navigating that treacherous space. Later, she meets her Black elders who are able to offer Bree guidance that can help her not just survive but thrive. I’ve been on all three sides of that conversation, as the young Black person, as the older person hugging my younger cousins and telling them they’ll get through it, and as the elder defending and educating the younger generations. These moments are crucial for Black teens to read and experience, and Deonn does an excellent job exploring each aspect. We see Bree lean on her elders and community while also learning how to stand on her own, how to incorporate what she’s been taught while recognizing she still has much to learn. This is brilliant, nuanced work we don’t see a lot of in YA fantasy.
Read the rest of this review at Tor.com.
Buy at bookshop.org (affiliate link).
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