Plot twists with newest book in The Legendborn Cycle

After an excruciatingly long wait – nearly two and a half years, the third book in The Legendborn Cycle series was finally released on March 4, 2025. 

Genre: Urban Fantasy with a subgenre of Southern Black Girl Magic

Background information –

Written by #1 New York Times bestselling author Tracy Deonn, the series centers around Briana “Bree” Matthews, a 16-year-old attending UNC-Chapel Hill’s Early College program (the fictional counterpart to UNT’s TAMS program) as she grapples with the grief of her mother’s untimely – and suspicious – death. When Bree encounters a supernatural attack from what seems to be a demon on her first night at college, she goes looking for answers: answers about the attack, answers about an inscrutable young “Merlin” who unsuccessfully tries to wipe Bree’s memory of aforementioned attack, and – most of all – answers about the same supernatural mysteries surrounding her mother’s death, an effort that leads her to join a secret society of “Legendborn” students with the help of self-exiled former Legendborn and knight-errant Nicholas “Nick” Davis.

(Entering kind-of-spoilers territory…)

The first book, Legendborn, reveals some both surprising and not-so-surprising truths about the secret society. First, the secret society isn’t just any secret student organization – it’s instead the cover for the modern-day Knights of the Round Table. Yes, the Arthurian legend of the twelve knights oathed to King Arthur. These reincarnated knights, or Legendborn, are charged with the sacred duty of protecting humanity from the demons that lurk in the darkness and preventing Camlann, a full-fledged war between demonkind and man. Assisting these Legendborn are the Merlins, descendants of the original Merlin, who himself was a half-demon, or cambion.

Upon entering the world of the Legendborn, Bree finds that Nick is none other than the Scion (or modern-day incarnation, if you will) of King Arthur himself. And that inscrutable “Merlin”? He is Selwyn “Sel” Kane, one – if not the – most powerful Merlin of his time and Kingsmage (or sworn defender) of the Scion of Arthur. Unfortunately for Bree, not only is the relationship between Sel and Nick severely fractured, but Sel has seemed to have made it his duty to reveal Bree’s true identity as a demon in disguise. As the story progresses, Nick and Bree work to find the truth regarding Bree’s mother’s death, while Sel tries to back Bree into a corner and Bree attempts to confront her grief – and her mother’s hidden past – headfirst.

(If you don’t want any spoilers, stop reading here.)

By the end of the first book, the reader has learned some rather important information:

Nick is not the Scion of Arthur – he is the Scion of Lancelot.
Instead, the true Scion of Arthur – who pulls Arthur’s famed Excalibur from its resting place in the midst of a skirmish with demons – is Bree Matthews.
The circumstances surrounding her Scionship are far from the norm – Bree is the Scion of Arthur due to the rape of one of her ancestors at the hands of a former, slave-owning Scion of Arthur. Similarly, Nick’s position as Scion of Lancelot is due to a former Scion of Lancelot’s infidelity with the wife of the aforementioned slave-owning Scion of Arthur.
The skirmish in which Bree pulls Excalibur from the stone – and the Camlann to which the Legendborn are rapidly progressing towards – aren’t a product of natural demonic occurrences; they are a concerted attempt by Nick’s father, Martin Davis, to accelerate Camlann and allow Nick to be “Called” (or summoned) by Arthur and fully assume his powers (both his political powers as king and magical powers as Scion) as Scion of Arthur.

The book ends with Nick kidnapped by his father (and his father’s Kingsmage), Bree struggling to come to terms with the generational trauma surrounding her new powers, and Sel torn between his duty to his sworn charge and his newfound king.

The second book, Bloodmarked, largely focuses on Bree’s attempts to find Nick (who, incidentally, is her boyfriend), and Sel’s attempts to both keep Bree safe in her efforts to find Nick and challenge the growing influence of his own demon ancestry. By the end of the book, Nick and Sel are reunited, but Bree has been kidnapped with the mysterious Shadow King, an extremely powerful demon who leads a lot of other (less) powerful demons. It’s important to note two pieces of information at this point:

Bree is an Awakened Scion of Arthur, meaning that Arthur has Called her and that she has fully come into her powers as a Scion of Arthur.
The death of an Awakened Scion of Arthur at the hands of a demon, or Shadowborn, will permanently end the Legendborn cycle, meaning that the powers of the Legendborn will forever fade… leaving humanity defenseless against the Shadowborn.

This finally brings us to the book in question: Oathbound. Oathbound opens with Bree in the custody of the Shadow King, separated from her friends, allies, and the Legendborn. Bree must navigate the dangerous circumstances of her bargain with the Shadow King, while Sel and Nick both grapple with the challenges of their new reality.

Review –

When it came to Oathbound, I walked in with really high expectations. I had been waiting for this book to come out for a really long time, and more or less, those expectations were met.

I’d like to preface this by saying that I walked in expecting a certain kind of trajectory with the plan and certain events that I thought would happen and saying what actually happened was far different from those expectations would be the understatement of the century. That being said, I honestly loved most of the directions Deonn decided to go in with this book. 

I particularly appreciated the choice to toggle between points of view – it was not only the right decision for this book, given the numerous plotlines unfolding at the same time, but it also allowed for some of the side characters to get a little more “screen time” and added more depth and nuance to the story, particularly when these POVs were used to reveal previously unknown information or backstories of the main characters.

I think the biggest shortcoming in this book – one that I myself didn’t realize until I was reading some other reviews and commentary on Oathbound – was how Bree’s point of view kind of fell flat at times. I found myself skimming through many of the chapters at the beginning of the book where it’s just Bree in the Shadow King’s custody at least, in part, because it felt like she was falling into that quintessential trap of a young, teenage heroine. To me, it felt like she spent an unnecessary amount of time talking about her feelings and overthinking and just doing a lot of talking, instead of doing. And I think the disappointment over that stems from two main factors. 

First, over the course of The Legendborn Cycle, Deonn has consistently done a phenomenal job of keeping the POVs engaging, keeping Bree’s inner voice and that narration something that you actually want to read. And so, I walked into this book with high expectations for Bree’s POV and those weren’t necessarily met. Secondly, Bree – as I mentioned earlier – is quite literally the king. She is the ruler, the embodiment of King Arthur. And while that mantle was unexpectedly thrust upon her, there are still expectations of a king and, to be frank, I expected her to be more concerned with Arthur and the Legenborn’s overall mission. I expected her to actively try to get back to Nick and Sel, or at the very least, try to manipulate the Shadow King in a manner that was a lot more focused and apparent, rather than just – what felt like, to me – mope around about the problems she was facing.

I should probably mention that the chapters in question are maybe in the first 15-20% of the book, and things pick up fairly quickly and Bree’s POVs get a lot more interesting (although they still don’t necessarily meet that mark) after she reunites with a couple of important characters. I should also mention that I am being extremely nitpicky and, for the average reader, Bree’s POV – especially when reading all the books for the first time and with little time in between them – is still fairly engaging, especially when she’s focused on actually undermining the Shadow King.

I would give this book 4.5/5 stars. Like I said earlier, it went in a completely unexpected direction and, to be completely honest, it’s been over two weeks since I first read it and I’m still mulling over the ending of the book and trying to hypothesize how Bree, Nick, and Sel will fix things in the next book. 

Recommended for: anyone interested in urban fantasy and people who like drawing parallels between fantasy novels and modern social structures, particularly when it comes to racism.