Banished review

Banished
Liz de Jager
February 27th 2014
Tor UK

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.

Banished had a lot of things in it which I love. An awesome heroine, blonde fae boys, werewolves, dragons! (well, a dragon, but that's more dragon than most books have, so!), evil ancient gods, action, adventure, romance. You know, that kinda stuff.

And if that isn't enough to make you want to read it, then first of all, how? And second of all, I should probably write an actual review that doesn't just consist of a list of things which I like. Banished is an exciting, action-packed, fun urban fantasy (Set in the UK! Another thing to go on The List of Things I Love That Are In This Book) about Kit Blackhart, a girl who fairly recently found out that she beings to a family which fight fae (the bad fae). I liked the fact that the story started not at the point at which she found this out, but a few months later where she'd really gotten into her training. I like books where we meet characters at the point at which they find out about all the supernatural stuff or whatever they're involved in, but it can get a little repetitive at times so I was kind of glad we didn't have to through that. 

But there is still a whole lot of world building, which I think was really well done. There's a lot of mythology to adjust to, but it's pretty gradual so I never felt like it was too much or too little, and I'm excited to find out more about the world which Liz has created. And also possibly more dragons? No? (I'm only half joking. If I had it my way I would put dragons in almost everything. But I won't be sad if there are no more dragons. I'll stop talking about dragons now.) Plus I hope we get to find out more about the werewolves and how they fit in with the mythology and the fae, which I'm hoping will happen in Aiden and his family are in the next two books more. Also, I would love to find out more about the Blackharts themselves and to have Megan and Marc and Kyle be in it more. 

I also really like Thorn (aforementioned blonde fae boy) and his relationship with Kit. It was a slow build, and I felt like there was definitely mutual respect for each others abilities and stuff in there which is always a plus for me when it comes to romances. And seriously, Kit is such a badass, and there is definitely something up with Thorn as well, and I loved that they kept on helping each other get out of some pretty bloody bad situations. Also Thorn was pretty hot. And I feel like there is a potential for a love triangle with Aiden, Thorn and Kit, but there was nothing too overtly or annoyingly love triangle-ish in Banished which made me pretty happy.

Anyway, I really enjoyed Banished and I am really looking forward to the next two books. It's a really strong UKYA urban fantasy debut which has real potential to be something even more awesome than it already it. (Also, did I mention the dragon? Really. I love dragons.)