Review: Banished by Liz de Jager

Bookish Details:
Series: Book #1 in The Blackheart Legacy Series
Pages: 400 (Paperback)
Publisher: Tor UK
Release Date: 27th February 2014
Source: ARC Provided by Publisher
Buy it From: Amazon UK

Synopsis:
Sworn to protect, honour and slay. Because chaos won’t banish itself…

Kit is proud to be a Blackhart, now she’s encountered her unorthodox cousins and their strange lives. And her home-schooling now includes spells, fighting enemy fae and using ancient weapons. But it’s not until she rescues a rather handsome fae prince, fighting for his life on the edge of Blackhart Manor, that her training really kicks in. With her family away on various missions, Kit must protect Prince Thorn, rely on new friends and use her own unfamiliar magic to stay ahead of Thorn’s enemies. As things go from bad to apocalyptic, fae battle fae in a war that threatens to spill into the human world. Then Kit pits herself against the Elder Gods themselves – it’s that or lose everyone she’s learnt to love.

My Review:

If you want an amazing new adventure to fall in love with, this is the series you need to pick up next.

With plenty of action, heroic missions, awesome characters and a cute prince, Banished has everything you want to read in a story.

What I instantly liked about this story is that Kit already knew who she was and what responsibilities she had. In most YA fantasy books, the story usually follows the teenage girl as she discovers she’s actually not a normal girl. I like that Kit was introduced from the beginning as someone who wasn’t just an ordinary teenager.

The plot is completely epic from start to finish. I was worried about coming across the same fantasy story clichés, but Banished makes everything feel refreshed. It takes the creatures and myths that you might already know and twists them into a new and improved story element. 

Although the fantastic battle scenes and epic plots were great to read, it was the characters that really made me fall in love with this story. I adore Kit. She’s completely badass and has a great funny side, which is everything I love in a lead character. She’s definitely not the damsel in distress and is always willing to throw herself in front of danger to protect her friends.

I may or may not have completely fallen in love with Thorn, the cute prince with some not-so-cute problems. He is such a wonderful character and I’m really excited to see how he progresses through this series because I’m sure there is so much more to his story that we don’t discover in this first book.  

I also really liked Kit’s family. Her cousins and her Uncle Jamie are all great characters and I think each of them will play their own important role in the future of this series. I’m looking forward to finding out more about them. 

The writing of the story is gorgeous. I felt like everything was told in a very cinematic way and the detailing is vivid, making it easy to clearly imagine how each scene would play out. There is always something exciting going on to keep you turning those pages.

Overall, this is a completely stunning debut and I’m eagerly anticipating the second instalment of this story. I know there is so much more to come and I can’t wait to sink my teeth into it. I’m predicting big things from Liz de Jager in the future! 

Royal Rating: