Breakaway Books

Authored by Tracy Deonn; Published in 2020; Fantasy

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️

I have never been enamored with the legend of Arthur and the round table. I didn’t go through a phase of wanting to be either a knight or a fair maiden; although I loved magical fantasy, Merlin was not that appealing to me. All of that being said, the Legendborn twist on the Arthurian legend certainly held my interest.

In Legendborn, Bree is a bright black high school student accepted into an early college program in North Carolina. While there, she discovers an unexpected magical connection to her mother, who had died years previously. She quickly works to understand her magical legacy even as she is immersed into a resurrected Arthur’s round table on the college campus.

My first reaction to the novel is just how wildly imaginative it is. Taking the lofty court of Arthur and transporting it to a modern day American college campus takes work; weaving it into a tale along with America’s history of slavery seems like a magic trick in and of itself. The author manages it beautifully, slowly revealing more and more of the magical world that Bree finds herself in. Bree’s introduction to this world is a wild ride of half-corporeal demons and the insanity of her own heritage.

It was, frankly, unlike anything I’ve read before, and engaging from the start. Are they the most realistic college kids? Definitely not; I’m pretty sure they don’t attend any classes. Is the romance aspect a tad flat and predictable? Yes, but I get the sense that it’s set up to get more and more interesting as the series goes on.

I don’t always love a book narrated in the first person, especially when the narrator is supposed to be a college student. It can horribly awry—either coming off as unrealistically mature or just a tad annoying. Again, I found myself surprised, enjoying Bree’s point of view. It felt natural and real. 

A fantastic re-spinning of Arthur and the round table; I highly recommend Legendborn for young adult and adult readers alike!