A pleasant surprise. I picked this up from a Target of all places when I was looking for lighter fare than the book on homeless that I was currently reading, and was unable to reach a book store.

The back of the book wasn't tremendously compelling, but the online reviews were good so I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm glad I did!

I can understand why the back of the book sounded dull. It is difficult to write an explanation of the book without sounding like trite fantasy. An average high school boy discovers that he is actually a magical warrior and part of a greater hidden society of magicians who use warriors to fight tournaments for them. Blah blah blah...

But it's actually a nicely done world, and it has that quality I really enjoy in a good book - where even if you figure out what is going to happen next, you're not sure where that will lead from there.