Banished

Gr 9 Up—As this sequel to Forbidden (HarperCollins, 2014) opens, teenage princess Jayden has left her tribe and is alone in the desert, seeking her beloved prince Kadesh and trying to evade her evil fiancé, Horeb. When she eventually finds Kadesh, he has been badly injured and scarred, but more ominously, he appears to be keeping secrets from her. Kadesh, Jayden, and the Edomites travel toward Jayden's home kingdom in the southern lands, but they face constant danger from Horeb's army and from the desert itself. They eventually reach the city of Sariba, where Kadesh and his family rule, but now they face even greater threats from power-hungry Aliyah, Kadesh's former fiancée and priestess of the Goddess of Sariba. Readers will need to be familiar with the events of the previous volume in order to follow the plot here. There is a lot of action, but a number of the weaknesses of the first book are also present in this sequel. There are more historical inaccuracies and implausible plot devices, and the lead characters are not particularly compelling.