scijessreads

I just… this is the twist on Arthurian legend that I didn’t know I wanted. Full of dark magic, family secrets, and societies with dubious intentions, Legendborn by Tracy Deonn manages to tackle urban fantasy with a new viewpoint.

Bree ends up in a world that she would never have imagined as a result of trying to understand what happened to her mother (after witnessing an event that she should never have been able to see). To get what she wants, Bree finds herself wrapped up with Nick (in more ways than one), untrusted by Sel (who thinks she’s there to take down the Legendborn), and constantly barraged with acts of racism both overt and subtle.

Bree is a young Black woman deep in the trenches of the South, and this history of human atrocity finds itself in every thread of her story, and the story of the Legendborn. The root of power, how it is wielded, and who can use it are all tangled in a web of racial inequity and survival.

This story pulls no punches and is all the better for it. We see a young woman trying to discover who she is, who her family is, and why she can do what she can do. We are allowed to see Bree and all of the layers of her masking, who she gives what pieces of herself, and how she decides what to risk. I cannot wait to read the next books in the series.