Once Upon a Bibliophile

BOOK- Oathbound (Legendborn #3)

AUTHOR- Tracy Deonn

GENRE- low fantasy, romance, Authuriana

RATING- 3.5/5

I like to think that I inherited the Legendborn Cycle from my brother. Over the years, his collection (which, until a few weeks ago, consisted of only the first two books) has slowly migrated to my bookcase. As is quite often the case with me, I wasn’t following any publishing updates for the third book, which is why this review is, in the grand scheme of things, about a year and a half late. Published in March 2025, yet not discovered by Once Upon a Bibliophile until late August 2026, Oathbound is, to quote Tracy, “the book that the Legendborn Cycle needed, but not the one [she] originally planned”.

MY THOUGHTS

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 her 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, a shapeshifter who can move between humanity, the demon underworld, and the Legendborn secret society.

Meanwhile, the other Scions face war while their Round Table is fractured, leaderless and missing its Kingsmage. 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 to admit, this wasn’t the sequel I was expecting, in many ways.

One of the things I loved about Oathbound was the fact that it subverted that ‘hero’ trope and let Bree be confused about who she was, and more importantly, refuse her ‘destiny’. The earlier book stuck the well used pattern of ‘unsuspecting character finds out they have magical powers and is thrust into saving the world’. No one could ever say that Legendborn and Bloodmarked were unoriginal or conventional, but Oathbound subverted conventions even more.

I loved how, for a while, it looked like Bree was about to become a villain. I’m a sucker for an antihero, and even more so if they used to be the hero.

However…

I think that the story would have benefited from a little more Bree-villainy. Like, I understand that shes gonna be a hero at heart and she’s gonna see the true power of love and friendship and blah blah blah but couldn’t you give me a little bit more before she turned back? She joined the dark side for like two seconds.

And I know that in the real world someone would be celebrated for doing what she does. She should be celebrated for doing what she does. But a small, darker part of my brain was demanding more. I felt like I had been given a taste of something so great, only to discover that it was not only a seasonal product on the last day of the season, but also a one time only, limited edition special offer that I had no way of getting hold of a second time, or that I discovered a new favourite tv program on the day it was getting taken off the streaming service.

What we did get was amazing and worked fine, but there was always an underlying sense of not fully committing to the plot the author has chosen. Firstly, the contrast between old Bree and new Bree wasn’t obvious enough for my taste. Considering that this book was mostly about character development, I didn’t notice that much of a change. Bree definitely hit rock bottom at the end of Bloodmarked, but her ascent back to her old self was too sudden, too vague, too unclear. Not only was the reader not presented with enough of a ‘bad’ character for her to evolve from, it was very hard to see the evolution at all.

One might compare it fast forwarding a documentary about dinosaurs- one moment they’re these feeble, reptilian creatures, the next they’re huge, bloodthirsty monsters.

Secondly, the plot also felt like it moved a little too fast. This might just be that it needed to keep up with Bree’s turbo-development, but it felt jumpy and a bit disconnected.

I have similar ideas when it comes to the multiple POVs as well. I had no idea that I had been longing for this since book one, but it turns out that I had. Now, not only did we get the story from Bree’s perspective, but also from William’s, Mariah’s, Natasia’s and Nick’s. But, once again, it felt like I had been given a taste of something, only to have it taken away. Specifically with William.

At the beginning of the book, William’s POV appeared quite often, as a useful tool for showing what was happening in the Order while Bree was away. But soon enough, the focus shifted from William to Nick and the Scion of Gawain lay forgotten in the past. This might have been tolerable; overall he isn’t a very important character, and while he played a large role in Bloodmarked, things were different now. This was disappointing, to say the least, but support characters come and go all the time, and at least he hadn’t died. But when he and Lark reappeared near the end of the book not only as probably-a -couple but heroes of their own separate quest… I could no longer justify forgetting about him. Not only had a large chunk of the story not been fulfilled, but I was denied the romance that I had been yearning for since my poor little guy lost Dylan. And got traumatised. On more than one occasion. But still stayed strong. And denied himself emotion in order to help Bree.

He deserved his own love story, does he not? And yet we were denied seeing this. We were teased with a budding relationship and cute nicknames…and then BAM. They’re gone.

Anyway.

Moving on.

While the multiple POVs did help see the bigger picture (most of the time ), they did make chronology quite confusing. Things would happen during one character’s POV and time would move on. Quite a lot. Weeks might pass before we got another POV, at which point we would go back to the same time the last chapter started at. And while there was vague time frames at the beginning of each switch, they mostly consisted of things like ‘three months after Bree Matthews disappeared’. It felt like I needed a timeline, or at the very least a very detailed spreadsheet, to decipher the chronology.

OK, so I’m (finally) done yapping about what my English Lit Nerd brain didn’t like about Oathbound. It’s high time to consult my Overly Emotional And A Bit Obsessive Reader brain.

As I said earlier, I actually did enjoy the multiple POVs, when they were done right. It felt great being in all those different character’s heads. I’ve talked about sense of community in a plot in some of my older posts, but this is a perfect example. For those of you who haven’t seen my other reviews, by this I mean the fact that the more people are involved, influenced and affected by the plot, the more meaningful and the more deep the story. Being stuck in one head throughout a series can bring an interesting sense of bias and opinion to a story, but, truth be told, it can get a bit dreary. But once you get a few more POVs, things are both more exciting and more interesting.

I liked how the characters were scattered across a lot of locations, as well. Despite me complaining earlier that I was missing chunks of the story, a more observant reading than me (and by observant I mean willing to read every word. I’m an awful skipper and skimmer when it comes to big blocks of text) would find a pretty comprehensive picture of the overall plot.

And again, depite me finding faults in the plot and pacing earlier, I did enjoy it. It was exciting and powerful and new and gripped my heart with both hands, poised at any moment to tear it apart.

The character, I, as usual, adored. OK, so I did mourn the loss of Sel quite tearfully, but you get used to it.

And the characters that did remain…wow. I hated Lark when he first appeared, but now… And Zoe and Elijah…MARIAH….

I’m going to stop before I break my keyboard from all the ellipsises. I have no words.

CONCLUSION

While it might seem like I’ve spent most of this review on the negative side, Tracy Deonn is truly an author to be admired. Not only did she write Oathbound so masterfully, but it contained some really serious messages not often found in fantasy books. Legendborn is so powerful, and I’m really glad that it’s part of the world.