Legendborn (The Legendborn Cycle)
An Instant New York Times Bestseller!
Winner of the Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe for New Talent Author Award
Filled with mystery and an intriguingly rich magic system, Tracy Deonn’s YA contemporary fantasy Legendborn offers the dark allure of City of Bones with a modern-day twist on a classic legend and a lot of Southern Black Girl Magic.
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.
Winner of the Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe for New Talent Author Award
Filled with mystery and an intriguingly rich magic system, Tracy Deonn’s YA contemporary fantasy Legendborn offers the dark allure of City of Bones with a modern-day twist on a classic legend and a lot of Southern Black Girl Magic.
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.
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Readers say *Legendborn* is a rich, genre-blending YA fantasy reimagining Arthurian legend through a Black feminist lens, praised for emotional depth,...
Wow. Tracy Deonn achieved so much in one book that it's hard to put into words. She not only pulled from her own experiences of grief of losing her mother but also that of multigenerational pain, loss, and suffering of marginalized black people in the South. Although only a small glimpse, I'm sure, of what she's felt in her life, it spoke volumes to hear the internal dialogue of the MC as she deals with racism and hate. And through all this, she also manages to weave a fantastical romance, magic, and lecacy with the background of King Arthur and the knights of the roundtable. True craftsmanship. I just ordered the next two books because I can't wait to read more.
I went into this book not knowing anything about it other than the cover is beautiful and the girl at the books store hyping it up like I’ve never experienced before… And for good reason! I love that this story is an Arthurian retelling that has many twist and turns and information that will make your head spin!
This is also my first book that has focus on growing up black and the history or lack there of that comes with it which was extremely interesting and such an eye opener!
I will recommend this book to everyone!
This is also my first book that has focus on growing up black and the history or lack there of that comes with it which was extremely interesting and such an eye opener!
I will recommend this book to everyone!
Excellent YA fantasy book, I only have it a 9 because of me trying to keep up with all the Welsh dialogs and remembering the pronunciations. Other than that I can't wait to read the 2nd series.
I got to the 28% mark before I decided it was time to DNF this book. To be fair, I'm not going to rate it because I didn't finish it, but I will give my thoughts about what I read and what prompted me to make that decision! First, let me tell you about the things I enjoyed about the book. One (and superficially), the cover is gorgeous! I enjoy a cover that, at least, gives you some idea on what you're getting into. So many covers don't say much and leave much to be desired and that might be why I'm fascinated by covers from the 1960s to the early 1990s when covers were super inventive and really let you know something about what was contained in the book. So this cover was a beautiful plus for me! Two, I love the representation in the book. I especially enjoyed the author paying attention to the use of pronouns. Awesome! Three, I'm not sure if this is the author's debut novel, but I can sense that her voice is going to get stronger the more she writes. While this story may not have been for me, I would not say no to reading something else by this author. Alright, now onto the main reason(s) why I couldn't finish. While the writing, itself, is great, there was just way too much info dumping going on which forced me to go back into the previous paragraphs more times than I cared to just to try and make sense of it. It came across more convoluted than cohesive. All in all, the story didn't interest me. I wanted to love this because so many others did, but I don't think it was for me and that's okay! I encourage anyone who stumbles upon this to try it out anyway! This may turn out to be your new favorite book!
Literally the best written fantasy book ever in the history of fantasy books. There was quite a bit of world building at the beginning to get used to but I couldn’t stop reading after I picked it up. It was written so well that I felt like I was in the book.
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