Best Debut - Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Publisher – Simon & Schuster

Published - Out Now

Price - £8.99 paperback £3.99 Kindle e-book

After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants to escape. A residential programme for bright high-schoolers seems like the perfect opportunity – until she witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus . . .

A flying demon feeding on human energies.

A secret society of so-called “Legendborn” that hunt the creatures down.

A mysterious 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 about her mother. Now Bree will do whatever it takes to discover the truth, even infiltrate the Legendborn. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and foretell a magical war, Bree must decide how far she’ll go for the truth. Should she use her magic to take the society down – or join the fight?

For the Best Debut category, I’m looking for two main things a really distinctive voice and style for an author and a story that adds something to it’s genre. I’m really pleased to say that Legendborn by Tracy Deonn does just this taking a story of a young woman entering a magical world and adding a whole variety of different elements and perspectives tp make it an enthralling smart beginning to a new series I’m already keen to get my hands on next year!

Bree was looking forward to joining UNC Chapel Hill’s Early College programme as a bright 16-year-old Black woman keen to escape her small town and experience the wider world and follow in the footsteps of her mother’s own studies. Her mother though reacted angrily to this surprise and before they could talk further her mother tragically dies in a car accident. On autopilot Bree and her best friend Alice arrive and on first day of campus strange things happen. An illicit party is broken up by a fight but Bree witnesses that behind it appears to be a strange magical force and two students end up fighting these and when they realise Bree is a witness making her forget what she saw momentarily…. something she realises also happened in the hospital when she was told about her mother’s death. Upon being caught in the aftermath of the party she is assigned a mentor Nick and another magical monster encounter reveals Nick too is aware of this hidden world on campus.

Bree discovers UNC is home to a secret group known as Legendborns who have their roots in King Arthur and his knights 1500 years ago. The offspring of the Knights have various ruling families, and every generation has a Scion who if the battles against evil require it will find themselves fused with the spirit of a Knight and bonded with a Page who will share that power. Nick has walked away but is the heir of the major family linked to Arthur himself. He shares a distrust of the families and their groups so when Bree reveals she thinks a member of the group is behind her mother’s death they agree to return to the group as Knight and potential squire. Bree has to go through trials to prove herself worthy of being a Page but she is really looking for clues.  Unfortunately, the world is seeing a huge rise in demonic activity and Bree herself gets various suspicions thrown at her.

This is an absolutely fascinating world and what makes it work is how Legendborn takes the standard plot of someone entering a magical world and learning the rules in a battle against evil and throwing in surprises, right and centre. Bree isn’t your standard chosen one immediately taking her destiny – this her story instead is one of a woman who is trying to deal with her grief and get answers to allow her to move on. Deonn deftly gives s a character that knows they’re in pain and dealing with anger even against her best friend and father rebelling but quite sure yet what to do next. She puts herself into this world of magic and knights not to fight the Evil Ones but get some justice. She is also funny, geeky, and kind and as she meets various members of the fraternity who views her as allies, rivals or with pure hatred and scorn.

The world Deonn creates wrongfooted me at first. I am not a fan of ordered magic systems so characters explaining Scions, Pages and magic known as aether was starting to lose me but suddenly, we find there are other types of magical practitioners and these are less ordered and show this world is not actually fully understood by its magical communities. Indeed we soon start to see some wider differences in the various communities. The Legendborn are virtually all white European and very wealthy families who know their family trees. Bree is Black and like so many US families won’t be able to trace a family tree beyond the 19th century. This story challenges fantasy that loves its family trees and privileged elders and betters when someone who isn’t from any part of that community enters the scene. The reactions to Bree we see are uncomfortable and also importantly not limited to the magical. We see how Bree has to behave in front of police officers differently than other students and how teachers decide she is automatically angry and unruly if she challenges an unfair ruling. In terms of setting despite this glossy educational world of luxurious fraternity houses we see a world of statues for slaveowners and unmarked graves for slaves that remind us of the world we are all in. It is a sobering realistic take on how our world wouldn’t change too much if magic was real

Alongside Bree we get two really interesting characters who also evolve with the story. Nick the reluctant leader coming back to the fold who is kind and funny but hides his own family trauma which give him and Bree an unexpected connection. Between the two the angry and suspicious Sel a Kingsmage ‘Merlin’ a sorcerer bonded to Nick to protect him no matter what. He immediately sees Bree as a likely threat and throws more and more obstacles in her way. Deonn makes us reassess each of these characters that they don’t simply fit college star and angry teen roles. As the Trials for Pages get harder and demonic attacks increase, we get into a really interesting story that is constantly on the move and yet at the same time creates so many foundations and clues for the wider story to take off from you’re not going to find a story that just goes for the obvious.

Legendborn is a hugely entertaining read that kept me surprised as the story developed. I really appreciated Bree as a character and how this tale looks at our standard tales of magical groups and chosen ones to remind us in the twenty-first century that there is more to life than heroes who come back to magical schools and yet still have wealth and allies everywhere who just accept them without question (I mention no names but this story beats some with a quidditch stick). Deonn is a name to watch and can’t wait to see what happens to Bree and her world next.