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A review by marybells
The Banished of Muirwood by Jeff Wheeler
3.0
Hmmm...the horse is definitely dead, but let's keep beating it for a bit longer! Yay!
The Banished of Muirwood picks up a couple of centuries after the Wretched of Muirwood series. In the previous series we were left with the final scene of Lia and her husband Colvin finally sailing away from the 5 kingdoms to allow the scourge to take place and literally kill everyone left except for the total dickhead Dieyre. During their absence (of about a century or whatnot), everyone is dead and a new tribe of people (the Naestors (spelling?!)) arrive and see the awesome abandoned kingdom and take over. Dieyre, super old and still awful, teaches them how to read the tomes (books) of the Mastons so they can learn how to control the Medium. However, they cannot control it without kystrels and so a new male society is formed who can control the medium. Woo hoo.
And, flash forward to the present. Maia is a princess of Cosmoros (and great x3 granddaughter of Lia) and she is on a mission to save her kingdom. Her father, after not being able to sire a son with her mother, the queen, has totally renounced all of his maston vows and banishes Maia from the kingdom and makes her "the bastard". Not cool at all. Anyway, the story totally goes in this weird Cinderella dive where her step-sisters and step-grandmother literally torture her by taking all of her things and emotionally/verbally abuse her. Like some sort of saint, Maia still stays "cool" until her father calls on her to go on this mission to save his kingdom (its a bit of a long story there). Maia then is joined with a kishion (assassin) where her mission makes her accidentally become a hetaera (the chicks who are cursed and if they kiss anyone they will kill them due to Lia being all "oh no you don't try to hook up with my man b*tch, I will cut you" in the earlier series). Super great. She then starts to relive all of her terrible memories including one time where she was being forced to come down to dinner in a sh*t soaked dress because her bowels were all messed up. Dude...what the hell?! She then goes on this huge adventure while a demon is possessing her and forces her to marry the King of Dahomey and then try to kill the great seer of the land.
Yea. Insane.
Absolutely loved the previous series of these books but man it just felt like Wheeler kept kicking this chick while she was down for fun and still expecting her not to carry some serious emotional baggage. If my dad did this kind of crap to me, no way would I run into his arms and give him a big hug as he calls me "bastard". I mean this girl has to have a major spine to survive this whole ordeal but she's a total pushover with her dad who hasn't treated her well for over 10 years. Just seemed like she was purposely written as a saint instead of a human being which was frustrating. I get the book would have been hella darker if he had written her in a more human way, but atleast it would have been a bit more believable for the series.
Also dont even get me started on the King of Dahomey. She's all in love with him etc etc and yet he willingly marries a hetaera just so he can try to conquer all of the kingdoms and become emperor. What?!?! Talk about bad taste in men. Yeesh.
Final thoughts: Maia, grow a spine.
The Banished of Muirwood picks up a couple of centuries after the Wretched of Muirwood series. In the previous series we were left with the final scene of Lia and her husband Colvin finally sailing away from the 5 kingdoms to allow the scourge to take place and literally kill everyone left except for the total dickhead Dieyre. During their absence (of about a century or whatnot), everyone is dead and a new tribe of people (the Naestors (spelling?!)) arrive and see the awesome abandoned kingdom and take over. Dieyre, super old and still awful, teaches them how to read the tomes (books) of the Mastons so they can learn how to control the Medium. However, they cannot control it without kystrels and so a new male society is formed who can control the medium. Woo hoo.
And, flash forward to the present. Maia is a princess of Cosmoros (and great x3 granddaughter of Lia) and she is on a mission to save her kingdom. Her father, after not being able to sire a son with her mother, the queen, has totally renounced all of his maston vows and banishes Maia from the kingdom and makes her "the bastard". Not cool at all. Anyway, the story totally goes in this weird Cinderella dive where her step-sisters and step-grandmother literally torture her by taking all of her things and emotionally/verbally abuse her. Like some sort of saint, Maia still stays "cool" until her father calls on her to go on this mission to save his kingdom (its a bit of a long story there). Maia then is joined with a kishion (assassin) where her mission makes her accidentally become a hetaera (the chicks who are cursed and if they kiss anyone they will kill them due to Lia being all "oh no you don't try to hook up with my man b*tch, I will cut you" in the earlier series). Super great. She then starts to relive all of her terrible memories including one time where she was being forced to come down to dinner in a sh*t soaked dress because her bowels were all messed up. Dude...what the hell?! She then goes on this huge adventure while a demon is possessing her and forces her to marry the King of Dahomey and then try to kill the great seer of the land.
Yea. Insane.
Absolutely loved the previous series of these books but man it just felt like Wheeler kept kicking this chick while she was down for fun and still expecting her not to carry some serious emotional baggage. If my dad did this kind of crap to me, no way would I run into his arms and give him a big hug as he calls me "bastard". I mean this girl has to have a major spine to survive this whole ordeal but she's a total pushover with her dad who hasn't treated her well for over 10 years. Just seemed like she was purposely written as a saint instead of a human being which was frustrating. I get the book would have been hella darker if he had written her in a more human way, but atleast it would have been a bit more believable for the series.
Also dont even get me started on the King of Dahomey. She's all in love with him etc etc and yet he willingly marries a hetaera just so he can try to conquer all of the kingdoms and become emperor. What?!?! Talk about bad taste in men. Yeesh.
Final thoughts: Maia, grow a spine.