This is book one of The Shadow Academy series and the main character is eighteen year old Vesper, whose aim in life is to join the Royal Academy in the white tower and become hopefully a Guardian or Peacekeeper like her older sister Layla. With that role her family will get a boost and her father won’t have to keep working so hard just to help them survive. She has always been the best at what she does and believes she has already passed all her school tests with good grades. But now all of her class are getting ready for the highly secretive testing that will govern whether any of them are suitable for a place in the Royal Academy, where Guardians, Peacekeepers and Technicians are trained. Vesper has no doubts that she will pass these tests, same as she always has, but both her sister and mother give her last minute advice and seem a bit worried. Vesper and her family are slightly better off than most lower level dwellers, due to Layla’s position. They live in New Vegas, which was built over the ruins of old Las Vegas, and below them is the city floor or so called Shadow City, where all criminals are sent, to almost certain death.

The rules governing their society state that everything is done for the protection of all and everyone must commit to obey the values and laws of their society. Crime levels are extremely low, with lots of cameras to watch every movement in the streets and levels. Vesper had never seen anyone taken by the Peacekeepers or Guardians, until her sister was walking her to her testing meeting point. A young girl a few years younger than Vesper, called Marissa, was arrested for having dangerous powers. Vesper and others will soon be joining Marissa on a one way journey to the unseen and unknown city below, hidden behind a powerful shield and an almost black cloud. Vesper joins Prince Cayden, Daria, Shui, and Aidan, as they are caught almost immediately by a slaver and sold off to the highest bidder, for the powers they have. Vesper doesn’t manage to manifest hers until she faces a deadly confrontation in the arena and her powers end up killing a man! Different factions exist in the city and she ends up with a man calling himself Caesar and in charge of The Gladiators. The very man and faction she was warned against joining, by Elan, the man she met when she first arrived on the city floor.

Some of the others can produce fire, water, electricity, or move things with their mind. But Vesper’s powers seem to be the most dangerous and feared that there is. She has already killed once, when she didn’t even know what her powers were, unlike the others. If she can get them under control, she has been warned that her own powers could grow so much that she could kill herself and anyone around her, if her control is lost. Not the greatest options, but she now doesn’t want to push her powers, and not having another like her in Cesar’s faction, makes it very difficult to try and learn any sort of control over them. She can also hear voices in her head and this leads to her purchasing a small dragon that she ends up calling Ty, after the toy dragon Typhon, her six year old brother Sol loves to play with. Ty is a tiny dragon, the last dragon alive if what he says is right, who fits comfortably on her shoulder, but he has his own unknown powers and skills, which will possibly help Vesper and the others she has to work with.

The main aim of gaining people with powers for each of the factions, is the annual Shadow Games, for the control of the two water wells in old Vegas. Water is the most precious commodity and in short supply and controlled by two factions for a year, until the winners of the next games is announced. Each of the new slaves, as Vesper is now branded as and forced to be part of a faction, will be trained for this challenge and shows their worth to the faction. Fail and they could die or be put out onto the streets to try and survive the other factionless people and strange and dangerous beasts that roam the city! A deadly, yet highly important challenge is coming and Vesper and the others have little time to learn to control their powers. Vesper has never failed in anything until she took the tests at the Academy and she cannot fail at this latest step, or it could be the end of her. A nice twist at the end of the games, which wasn’t expected at all! The book draws you into this strange process of testing those for powers and the way their society deems some people dangerous and criminals because of them, and make them disappear. Injustice is rife and no doubt this will be investigated in future books of the series. I can’t wait to see what Vesper and her family get up to, as well as all those characters she interacted with, especially Elan and little dragon Ty. I received an ARC copy of this book from the author and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.