Legendborn #3
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.
I have been long awaiting the end of the trilogy, but guess what? There’s a fourth book coming. Nevertheless, although of course this book ends on a sort-of cliffhanger, in a way it does have a sense of finality to it as well. Many loose ends are tied up and I think it’s in preparation for the finale that will be the fourth book (we’ll see about “finale”).
It was such a long wait though, that I honestly had to Google so many things to catch up on memories I myself had forgotten. However, due to the fandom, there was enough information out there to catch me up without having to resort to re-reading the first two books, though I may want to do that sometime regardless. This was a good third book though, and judging from the review of my second book, I enjoyed this one more.
Oathbound is the third book of the series, and follows different POVs of some of our main characters, including Nick, Bree, and William. This picks up from the end of the cliffhanger of Book 2, where Bree essentially abandons all that she knows and has been taught since becoming indoctrinated into the Order, and chases her own freedom and power. Can she really trust the Shadow King in forging her own path forward, away from the Order? And what about everything she has left behind?
The characters were excellent. I really enjoyed the multiple POVs, and it read very much like a thriller in that sense with fast pacing. Because of the relative short chapters, it really provides that driving force to want to cycle through and find out more about each story. We got to see into the minds of a lot of the different characters, so this helped to solidify my knowledge of each character as we watched them grow throughout the story. There is also the great mystery of where exactly Bree “disappeared” to at the end of Bloodmarked, and that hangs over most of the story as well.
The continued world-building was also much appreciated. Granted, nothing is ever as magical as the first book divulging all the new details, but this book managed to provide even more of a glimpse into the past and how things came to be. I really enjoyed the different aspects that the author was able to pull back together in reverse chronological order, to explain things we already knew without creating too too many loopholes. Overall I really enjoyed the continued magic and world-building, though ultimately the focus wasn’t on the individual powers, but rather on the individuals who wielded them.
The story culminates into quite an exciting tense point before the climax, which does run on for an extended sequence. I also really enjoyed this sequence of events as a thriller reader, and thought the three or four storylines were very well woven together to form a cohesive story that provided both breadth and depth into the different characters. Ultimately a full story was developed here, so it isn’t the case that it was just an adventure-y third book where nothing ends up happening. This book was ultimately a lot about character growth and development, with some new relationships forming, but with more focus on the individuality of each character.
The romantic elements were sparse, but definitely there. I didn’t care for it too much, but neither was it too bad. I really enjoyed the new characters, actually, that were in this story, and some of them truly provided a lot of color and emotion to the story, which I really appreciated. The limits of humanity, and the cruelty of society (and humanity) were very well explored, and it didn’t feel quite so on the nose as perhaps it was in the second book. Nevertheless I really enjoyed the implied social commentary, and felt that it really tackled some of the more difficult questions, like the choice between self or others, and what one has to shoulder.
The ending is a cliff-hanger I suppose, although really it’s more just like open-ended questions were posed right at the end so that we can get ready for a fourth book. Before reading this I might’ve said I was ready for an exciting conclusion, but after reading this, I don’t mind that there’s just a little bit more to wrap everything up. There was a lot of history divulged here, and I think there’s certainly some relationships that could be tied up nicely, and also a conclusion to the Order-Shadow King-Humanity/Demons-Morgaines conflict that seems to be threaded throughout everything. Stay tuned for what is the fourth and hopefully the last book in the series whenever it comes out!
Down the Rabbit Hole 