Book Review: “The Banished of Muirwood” by Jeff Wheeler
This story—about a courageous princess on a daunting quest—is an excellent example of the power of fantasy to bring spiritual concepts into concrete form.
The Premise
Maia, an eighteen-year old princess, has been banished from her kingdom by her megalomaniacal father. The bulk of the book is her on the run through wilderness and small towns, trying to get to a remote abbey while being chased by a variety of forces:
She’s being chased by servants of her father (who wants to use her as a pawn in his political battles with her mother).
She’s being chased by the army of a young king (who wants to force her into a political marriage with him).
And she’s being chased by a cabal of evil sorcerers (who need her in order to trigger the return of their prophesied dark leader).
(Authors really like to stack the odds against their protagonists, don’t they?)
Sprinkled throughout the book are flashbacks covering her childhood and the events leading up to her quest, mainly revolving around the deteriorating relationship between her mother and father and its political fallout.
Once I got a couple chapters in, I highly enjoyed this book.
Steep Learning Curve
The book has somewhat of a steep learning curve, with various religious factions, historical context, and magical lore that you have to learn gradually from context instead of getting a clear explanation up front.
It’s the first book of a standalone series, but it takes place a hundred years after an earlier series set in the same world. I think if I had read the earlier series first, I wouldn’t have been as disoriented by the worldbuilding.
Some Things I Liked About the Book
Maia has an unconquerable spirit and incredible faith. She fights indomitably throughout the whole book to make the right decisions and overcome each obstacle put in her path. I loved rooting for her.
Maia has an intriguing assemblage of allies: a professional killer hired by her father to be her bodyguard, a good-natured mountaineer and his faithful hound, and a dashing gentleman with an uncanny knack to track down her location. All three have unclear motives, and all three are highly suspicious of each other, but all three make sacrifice after sacrifice to protect Maia. The mountaineer, especially, was my favorite character throughout the book.
The book kept me on my toes with twist after twist that I did not see coming.
There are some deeply moving moments involving the loving relationship between Maia, her mother, and her grandmother.
The book had a ton of spiritual resonance for me. Like me, Jeff Wheeler is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and much of his worldbuilding is derived from Latter-day Saint spiritual concepts: a guiding power called the Medium, battling forces of good and evil spirits, sacred abbeys that bring power and light to the land, ancient covenants that must be renewed, sacred tomes of guiding truth, and marriage ceremonies that transcend death. This book delivered powerful messages regarding agency, trust, family, faith, and sacrifice.
Is it Clean?
Like the rest of Jeff Wheeler’s books, The Banished of Muirwood is free of swearing, sexual content, or other inappropriate material. It has some violence and action, but the violence is not graphically described.
The book does deal with some pretty mature topics, including infidelity, divorce, child abuse, and demonic possession. I was satisfied with the way the book dealt with these topics, but I still would not recommend it for younger readers.
How I Heard About the Book
I first heard of Jeff Wheeler when he appeared on the Called to Create podcast by LDSPMA. He has since become one of my role models of a successful author writing clean, spiritually resonant fantasy. This was the second Jeff Wheeler book that I read. (The first was Storm Glass, which I also liked.)
(From Google Books): Jeff Wheeler is the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of more than forty epic novels, including the Dresden Codex series, the Muirwood series, the First Argentines series, and the Kingfountain series. Jeff lives in the Rocky Mountains and is a husband, father of five, and devout member of his church.