Legendborn is very much a YA novel, and I mean that as a compliment. But enemies lurk in every corner: can Bree get to the bottom of her mother’s death without falling victim to the Shadowborn or those who defend against them? Determined to play detective, Bree infiltrates this society and gets closer to one of its highest-ranking members, who also has his reasons to support her entrance. Soon after the start of the school year, Bree gets caught up in an on-campus club of sorts that seems to be playing at being a secret society-except that Bree quickly discovers there’s definitely something supernatural at play, and it might be connected to her mother’s death. She is grieving the loss of her mother in a car crash, and she isn’t feeling very grounded. Tracy Deonn effectively borrows from Arthurian legend, reshaping it, adding elements of West African and Caribbean folklore and tradition, to create a compelling world and tell a story that packs all kinds of punches.īree Matthews is 16 years old but has been admitted to the “Early College” program at UNC–Chapel Hill. So when this series crossed my Twitter feed one day, I couldn’t not windmill-slam the “place hold” button on both Legendborn and its sequel. I devoured all sorts of retellings and reimaginings, like Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord series. I remember borrowing Malory’s Morte d'Arthur from my library multiple times despite being way too young to pick my way through the Middle English prose. There was definitely a span of adolescent years during which I was obsessed with Arthuriana.

Legendborn cover