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Brianna Matthews just wanted to find out the truth about her mother’s death, which has cast a long shadow of grief over her life. But infiltrating the Legendborn Order, a society of people descended from King Arthur and his knights, just opened up a whole new can of worms. The Legendborn teens and young adults fight demons who prey on humans’ emotions. And every so often in the centuries since Arthur’s reign, a huge battle takes place, in which the Legendborn are all awakened, guided by their ancestors and wielding their special powers.
Bree turns out to be Legendborn herself, a surprising development among the mostly white Order. She’s Black, and not only is she a “Scion” of Arthur himself, but she is a Medium and Bloodcrafter, able to wield a different kind of magic, rootcraft, from her mother’s line, back generations of women.
The leaders of the Order, the Regents, are wary, even afraid, of Bree’s powers and don’t like that she’s an outsider, much less Black. She’s an unknown quantity. So they trick her and take her to a locked-down facility, to “protect” her. At the same time, Nick, the Legendborn teen Bree fell in love with, has been kidnapped. All she wants to do is rescue him.
Luckily, some in the Order are in Bree’s corner, and they help her go on the run. Selwyn, the “Merlin” who had sworn to protect Nick as the presumed Scion of Arthur, now sticks to Bree’s side to protect her. While Bree’s powers are unpredictable and she has yet to learn to control them, Selwyn is a bit unpredictable himself. And as the story progresses, it gets harder to ignore her growing attraction to Sel.
For Bree to have a chance to save herself, those she loves, and the human world, she has to find a way to learn from her ancestors how to control her powers. But she’s facing plenty of opposition and danger as she does so.
Bloodmarked raises the stakes much higher than they were even in the first book, Legendborn.
This is a pretty long book (573 pages), and the action is pretty much nonstop, with danger lurking in every direction throughout. It’s hard for Bree and readers to know who is trustworthy. The story gets pretty complicated, with a lot going on, and I definitely had no idea the direction it would go in, when I started reading and as the plot continued. And as I came to the end, I still have no idea where the story will continue in the third!
This is a fantastic young adult fantasy book that combines ancient Arthurian legend (including plenty of old Welsh) with Black history of enslaved people in the American South. Ancestry is vital to the plot, as well as the impact of slavery, grief and loss through generations. That thread of plot is central to the story but it’s not overbearing. It’s powerful and uses a well-written fantasy to get the message across to readers without being heavy-handed. I really admire what Deonn has done here.
Rated: High. Profanity includes 13 uses of strong language, about 20 instances of moderate profanity, around 45 uses of mild language, and around 50 instances of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes a few scenes of kissing. There are references to the past, in which an enslaved woman was raped. Violence is fairly frequent, with a lot of serious injuries and blood. Demons take various forms to attack humans.
