Book Review: Banished by Liz de Jager

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal

Series: Book 1 of The Blackhart Legacy

Publisher: Tor UK (February 27, 2014)

Author Information: Website | Twitter

Mogsy’s Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

At first glance, Banished may seem like another relatively routine venture into the paranormal young adult genre, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find this first book of Liz de Jager’s new series has a few surprises up its sleeve.

Displaying shades of Buffy, the book follows Katherine “Kit” Blackhart, a teenager who hails from a family of monster hunters tasked to enforce the peace between our world and the supernatural realm called the Otherwhere. Upon returning from her first solo assignment, Kit is told to stay at the Blackhart mansion to recover while her cousins head off on another mission, leaving her home alone. One night, she wakes up to a kerfluffle in the woods and finds herself rescuing Thorn, a prince of the fae, from a vicious group of redcaps. Whee! Have I mentioned how much I love stories about the Fae?

Anyway, on the run from enemies who are out to capture the prince, the two of them escape to London where they hope to find help, since all of Kit’s extended family seem to have mysteriously dropped out of contact. From here on out, it’s a full-tilt, no-holds-barred roller coaster ride of insanity as Kit and her allies race from one place to another to figure out just what the heck is going on. There are sword fights, explosions and magic aplenty, not to mention a whole line-up of supernatural threats including goblins, chimera, and even a dragon! I think my ARC was about 400 pages, but looking back, the book ended up feeling like a much faster read simply because it. Does. Not. Stop.

Events certainly moved at rapid pace. For the most part, this was excellent, taking us on an action-filled journey with the story’s courageous and kickass heroine. But whew! At times I actually wouldn’t have minded some slower sequences, if anything just to take a breather and let some of the details of the world sink in. That said, the breakneck pace didn’t hinder my enjoyment much, even if I felt a respite here and there could have given the narrative more opportunities to fill in some important information.

Kit, for example, is wonderful as a main character, though I sensed there’s still so much I don’t know about her. We know she carries a pool of magic within her, but the nature of that power isn’t fully explained, and I’m still not yet clear on the whys and hows of it. It’s also revealed that Kit wasn’t always a part of the Blackhart family of monster hunters, and that she only came back to rejoin them after her grandmother who raised her passed away. We get frequent glimpses of Kit’s past about her time with her nan when she goes back to her memories, but not the full story about why she was taken away in the first place. So yes, there may be a bit of mystery here that might leave readers wondering, but my guess is that this will be further explored in the later books.

Because the story moved along so quickly, it also felt like Kit and Thorn barely had the chance to know to one another before their feelings for each other deepened. In between all the action, there really wasn’t much time to develop Thorn and give his personality more depth (this goes for some of the other supporting characters like Aidan as well), so I wasn’t entirely convinced that their relationship would have blossomed so quickly in just a few days. Kit and Thorn’s romance was perhaps the main thing that could have used more attention, but otherwise I enjoyed the dynamic between these two characters.

While prolific readers of paranormal YA probably won’t find anything too new in the overall plot, there’s still plenty of fresh ideas here to keep things interesting, not to mention a few twists and turns you won’t see coming. All in all, Banished was great fun. Despite some minor criticisms, I think it’s a great beginning to a brand new series, and the author is one I would definitely read again. I’m really hoping we’ll see more of Kit and the Blackharts’ history in the next book, and I can’t wait to see what else Liz de Jager has in store.