BOOK REVIEW: The Shield Breaker: Book One of the Enclave Series by Scott Beckman

Title & Author: The Shield Breaker: Book One of the Enclave Series, Scott Beckman

Publication Date & Publisher: June 22, 2018, Scott Beckman

Genre: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Teens & YA

My Rating: 4.0

Amazon Purchase Link: The Shield Breaker: Book One in the Enclave Saga

Description (from Goodreads):

Fifteen years ago, magic destroyed the world.

Cait Verlyn is one of a handful of survivors who make their home under the Shield; a protective spell cast by their leader, a powerful wizard named Vitoria. Cait dreams of leaving the Shield to explore the ruins and rebuild civilization, but it’s impossible without magic and she is forbidden to learn.

Then she meets a stranger – a wizard from outside the Shield – who offers to teach her magic, but only if Cait will help the stranger overthrow Vitoria and liberate the enclave. The war of wizards that brought the world crumbling down is not over, and Cait’s home under the Shield is the new battleground.

Magic offers salvation, but as the apocalypse has proven, it always comes at a terrible cost…

The Shield Breaker is a post-apocalyptic urban fantasy novel from the author of Pantheon, White Star Phase, and The Fox and The Blade. It is the first book in the Enclave Saga, and the gripping introduction to Cait Verlyn, the series’ conflicted young protagonist.

My review:

If you’re looking for a Teen/YA novel filled with magic, compelling characters, and a story with so many questions propelling the story forward that you don’t want to put the book down, then The Shield Breaker is one you definitely want to pick up!

The main character, Cait, seems to be the only person in the entire enclave (a safe space protected by a powerful wizard since the wizard war destroyed the world) questioning whether the shield that protects them from the dangers lurking outside their city is actually keeping the monsters out… or keeping everyone else in. She feels like a prisoner, even though she was born in the Enclave. She has an overprotective father that seems to disagree with everything about Cait – the way she thinks, the things she does, her desire to learn magic – it makes you question whether he even loves his daughter. You can’t help but feel for her and understand her desire to get away just because of this one relationship (which is more complicated than it seems at first).

The story really begins when Cait and her best friend find a hole in the shield, and Cait tries to get through… but something or someone was waiting and tries to pull her to the outside world. She escapes, but the stranger leaves a magic book behind and suddenly Cait’s entire world becomes a lot bigger. She begins to question everything…who is Vitoria, really? Can she trust the strange wizard she met and her promises for something more than this life? Is magic really good? Is it really bad?

There are so many intriguing story lines in The Shield Breaker, that you continue to read it despite a few clunky sentences toward the beginning of the novel. As the book goes on, the sentence structure evens out and stops being an issue; however, there were some typos that stuck out to me.

I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys young adult fantasy with lots of twists!

Do you plan on reading or have you read The Shield Breaker? What do you think? What intrigue’s you about this book or are there similar books out there you’d recommend based on this one? Let me know!