Rating: ★★★★☆
Audience: YA Urban Fantasy
Length: 656 pages
Author: Tracy Deonn
Publisher: Simon Teen
Release Date: March 4th, 2025
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Severed from the Legendborn. Oathbound to a monster.

Bree Matthews is alone. She exiled herself from the Legendborn Order, cut her ancestral connections, and turned away from the friends who can’t understand the impossible cost of her powers. This is the only way to keep herself—and those she loves—safe.

But Bree’s decision has come with a terrible price: an unbreakable bargain with the Shadow King himself, a shapeshifter who can move between humanity, the demon underworld, and the Legendborn secret society. In exchange for training to wield her unprecedented abilities, Bree has put her future in the Shadow King’s hands—and unwittingly bound herself to do his bidding as his new protégé.

Meanwhile, the other Scions must face war with their Round Table fractured, leaderless, and missing its Kingsmage, as Selwyn has also disappeared. When Nick is detained by the Order’s Merlins, he invokes an ancient law that requires the High Council of Regents to convene at the Northern Keep and grant him an audience. No one knows what he will demand of them…or what secrets he has kept hidden from the Table.

As a string of mysterious kidnappings escalates and Merlins are found dead, it becomes clear that no matter how hard Bree runs from who she is, the past will always find her.

Thank you Simon Audio for the gifted audiobook and Simon Teen for the gifted copy.

I’M STILL PROCESSING.

Bless an incredible audiobook that helped me move through this quicker because this era of life calls for audio reads and I have been waiting for this one for so long!!! And it delivered!!! DELIVERED.

I’ll start with my one small hiccup. The first 30% was rather slow with some key people being separated and on these side quests that I was waiting to wrap up and move along. But when they moved along? GOODNESS. I was glued to my headphones.

I loved the addition of more POV’s. I really liked seeing more angles of the story and thoughts from other characters. It expanded the world and politics and magic system too.

There was one character (trying to stay vague to prevent spoilers if you’re catching this review before reading the books) that I missed and wanted more of. I think that will definitely be happening in the next book but this had a middle book vibe that was hard to ignore.

STILL. Incredible writing, an amazing journey that touches on so many relevant and important topics. I love that these characters are strong AND also show weakness and growth. I am here for it all and can’t wait for book four!!

OH AND DON’T FORGET THE ROMANCE HAS ME IN A CHOKEHOLD. That is all.

Overall audience notes:

• YA Urban Fantasy
• Language: mild
• Romance: emotion based fade to black
• Violence: moderate – high

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