The Banished of Muirwood Covenant of Muirwood (Book 1) by Jeff Wheeler

She has powers but she doesn't know how much or how dangerous they are.  Even when she finds out, there's not much she can do about it...

47 North and Net Galley allowed me to read this book for review (thank you).  It is being published today, so you can get a copy now.

This is a tale of death and destruction with Maia, the banished princess, in the middle of all of it.  She has an assassin companion and her personal quest is to find her mother.  When her powers overtake her, she gets consumed by a Mystic One that won't let go of her.  Her only hope is to find a seer who can evict it from her body.  Otherwise, she'll lose herself and the other one will take over her body.  This makes the journey much more important to move quickly and those searching for her are getting more desperate to catch her.

Maia is a good person but her father is not.  He wanted sons, so he banished his wife.  Then he wanted to adopt his sons with his new consort, so he banishes Maia.  The assassin traveling with her has orders to kill her himself before she gets handed over to a kingdom that could use her talents against him.  Like I said, not a nice guy.

This novel was a bit too wordy for me.  The plot was good but it could have been expressed more succinctly.  We spent too much time with descriptions of areas and past history.  I found it a bit hard to keep it all straight, and it took a long time to get interested in the plot.  I prefer concise stories.

That said, the story (once it got moving) was exciting.  Her killer at her side is a formidable enemy against the other troops.  The man she chooses as a guide has a huge dog and they are both her friends.  She even finds a love interest before the tale is over.  But she has a long road ahead of her yet.  At the end, I really had no clue where the author is going next with this story.  It will be interesting to see which path he takes...