14 must-read SFF releases that will make your September magical

Legendborn – Tracey Deonn

In this fantasy debut from Tracey Deonn, a young Black girl discovers that not just that demons are real but that a secret society of “Legendborn” students exists to hunt them down. And they’re the maybe descendants of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table.

After her mother’s death, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews begins a special residential program for advanced students at the University of North Carolina. On her first night, she witnesses a demon attack – on that most other students can’t see. The ones who can are part of a mysterious secret society, one that Bree becomes convinced is connected to what happened to her mother.

As she investigates further, she becomes the sole Black initiate to the Order of the Round Table – a historically white and deeply racist organization – discovering her own magic, and much more, along the way.

The official synopsis offers more details about the story.

"After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus. A flying demon feeding on human energies. A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down. And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw. The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates. She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight."

Legendborn is available on September 15.