The story: Cadet Renee de Winter knows she faces expulsion from the Academy if she can't improve her fighting skills. But the events swirling around her make that difficult: treason, attempted coup, and the arrival of the one man whose approval she values more than anyone else's. Is she willing to abandon longtime friends and even family in order to make the cut and succeed in a man's world of espionage and war?June Cleaver’s ratings: Language PG-13; Nudity PG; Sexual Content PG; Violence R; Substance Abuse PG-13; Magic & the Occult PG-13; GLBT Content G; Adult Themes PG (war and brutality); overall rating PG-13.Liz's comments: Plenty of bad language and violence in this one, but considering the context (a warrior academy where it's survival of the fittest) it would be more surprising not to have that kind of content. There are good messages about standing by your friends and trying to choose what's right amid a chaos of choices. Give this one to anyone who's a fan of Cinda Williams Chima's "Seven Realms" series. I liked it a lot!Annotation: Lady Renee de Winter has just been told by her father that she can either stay home and help run the family estate, or she can go back to the Academy of Tildor and essentially be cut off. As she doesn't particularly like or agree with the man, she chooses the Academy, even though she's on probation for falling behind in her athletic achievements. She has two good friends there--Alec and Sasha (her roommate). Unexpectedly, a brilliant young field commander, Korish Savoy, has been recalled from active duty and brought into the Academy as an instructor in martial arts. He doesn't want to be there, so he is incredibly demanding of the young students in his charge.In Tildor, the new young king, Lysian, is perceived as weak, and this emboldens two groups of organized criminals--the Vipers, and the Family--to engage in a more overt than usual battle for turf. Renee believes that the Family engineered the deaths of her mother and brother because of her father's refusal to pay protection money (which he now does), so she really has it out for them. Everyone knows that merchant Palan is a main leader in The Family, despite his impeccable cover as a merchant hanging around the seat of government just looking for the best terms for his business. Is seems also that he has an unusual interest in a young student named Diam (who turns out to be Savoy's younger brother, and a mage to boot--and not just a mage, but the only mage anyone has seen in decades who's bound to a magic animal, in his case, Khavi the wolf). Palan is also the uncle to another student, Tanil--who, like Renee, is the other one most likely to get cut from the cadet ranks at the semester, because of his poor performance, and because at least one person has to go.In this country, mages must declare themselves at a certain age and register to work for the crown, or be thought traitors. It turns out that her friend, Alec, has significant magic powers, but doesn't want to be controlled by the government. He uses an illegal drug, veesi, to keep the powers tamped down, and is studying to be a warrior Servant (even though not declaring his mage-hood is a criminal offense). Renee has a first run-in with Savoy when he beats (and humiliates) her in a contest of strength on their first training day. She of course decides she can't bear the man. As she and Alec are discussing how Savoy bullies her, they overhear a conversation between Tanil and a Viper runner that lets them know the other student has been betting on the Vipers' "Predator" games--gladitorial contests--and is on the point of reneging on his debt. The conversation ends and they're ready to sneak off when they hear Tanil beating on someone else for eavesdropping--turns out to be Diam, whom they now find out is Savoy's younger brother. They rescue him, and Alec volunteers to help treat his injured dog. Somehow, Diam knows that Alec is using veesi (the girls just think it's a drug habit at this point and are angry and disappointed).Korish Savoy and Connor Seaborn are longtime friends. At some point in the past, the two of them stole a pair of horses from the king's stable. The resulting chase ended in a wreck with many unforeseen consequences: Korish ended up under house arrest in the charge of Academy Master Verin; Seaborn refused to ride horses ever again, left the warrior track and became an administrator, and a guard, Fisker, got a cut on his finger that eventually got infected and had to be amputated, for which he blames and hates Savoy. The Queen's Day feast finds Renee serving as a bodyguard to her roommate Sasha (who's also the King's cousin) at a banquet, while Korish guards the king himself. During the meal, an attack is staged by the Vipers, and during the fray, Savoy takes an arrow to the shoulder and has to be put on reduced duty. Clearly, only Korish and Renee's quick thinking saved the king's life, but commander of the guard Fisker demands an investigation that's clearly meant to show the two of them were negligent. At the same time, Renee keeps working extra on her physical skills--so it seems inevitable that they end up training together. The investigation clears the two of wrongdoing, which now makes Fisker her enemy as well. Savoy's battalion, the Seventh, has just pulled into winter quarters in town, and Renee is determined to train with them even if the pace kills her. She is is willfully disregarding her homework in order to grow stronger physically, and now it's the night before a 20-page essay is due. She's settling in for the all-nighter when Diam bursts in, begging for Alec's help with his injured wolf dog. The help required is mage help--and it's at this point that Renee realizes the secrets of Alec's powers. He is a mage, and an unregistered felon. By the time they get done with the boy and the dog, the night is done, and Renee feels she has no choice but to copy and hand in her roommate Sasha's essay.She is almost instantly outed--and Savoy gives her a beating for it (although he doesn't instantly expel her, a point that she misses). Next, she loses a fight to Tanil because he cheats, and Tanil also exposes Alex's veesi use to the higher-ups, both of which things will be cause for the two of them to be cut from the Academy. It only takes the news that Diam has been abducted for her and Alex to abandon ship to track the boy--Renee because she knows her plagiarism will cause her to be the one expelled from the Academy, and Alex because he figures his secret is exposed and he'll end up expelled as well.They aren't on the trail for long before they come across Savoy and Seaborn, doing the same thing. The two men received a note directing them to the Yellow Rose tavern in Catar City, a Viper nest. Alec, having stopped chewing veesi, is having trouble controlling his blue mage-fire. She also realizes that he's jealous of how she feels about Savoy--that she "likes" Savoy better than she likes Alec. She, of course, had never thought of Alec as anything more than her best friend.It appears that someone has engineered Diam's kidnapping and consigned him to the slave area of the Viper operation in town (they also deal in gladiators for the Predator fights). Evidently children have been disappearing from Atham (the Academy HQ town and seat of the throne) into the slave trade here. Khavi has tracked Diam's scent to the estate of a nearby noble/Viper member; Renee, using her connections as the daughter of a minor noble house, scores them an invitation to tomorrow night's ball, where they hope to scope things out. Surprisingly, Savoy turns out to be able to dance (not bad for the son of mercenary soldiers!) before they sneak off and explore an underground dungeon where they do in fact find and free Diam, but where Savoy is then captured in turn.Savoy ends up as a fighter in the Predator pit, where he cautiously befriends his trainer, a huge man named Den. In the meantime, Renee and Alex try looking for Savoy in the dungeons, but to no avail. Seaborn decides to conquer his fear of riding horses to go back to the capitol and get help. This leaves the three of them stuck in Catar City, where Renee and Diam find themselves bored, but Alex finds himself a mage teacher, Zev, and begins to learn The bit of the craft that can be taught to the unregistered. One of his new friends is a boy named Jasper, who seems hungry for attention and approval--especially from Alec's friend Renee whenever she shows up.Savoy is having a completely different experience with Jasper, however, who turns out to be the scorned son of the Viper Madam and who tortures Savoy magically just because he can. Renee uses Jasper to pretend to play groupie so she can get in to see Savoy; it's decided that she'll ride to Atham for help. When she gets there, she finds that her friend Sasha had been kidnapped and beaten (but escaped), and that the king's 2-year-old cousin has also been kidnapped. Renee and Sasha wonder if Tanil could be the one behind all the kidnappings. When she confronts Palan (and also brings up her own mother's death at the hand of The Family), Palan tells her two startling things: Palan is the Savoy boys' uncle (their father disliked The Family business and ran away to be a mercentary instead); and Renee's father arranged the killing of his wife and son so he could have access to the wife's dowry lands. Renee is stunned, but still able to get some help in the form of Savoy's Seventh batallion before returning to Catar City.When it's Savoy's turn to fight in the Predator pit, Palan turns up and sabotages the fight in a way that gets Savoy his freedom, but also manages to set the place on fire. As Renee works frantically to set the child slaves free, she sees the Viper Madam escaping with the king's young cousin. When Jasper gets involved, his mother quite cold-bloodedly kills him and tries to make her escape with Savoy's help. When Guardsman Fisker finds the injured Savoy in his clutches, he prepares to kill him, but Renee fights the man and removes that problem permanently. They rescue the cousin and get out before the building crumbles to the ground.Back in Atham, Renee puts her father to the test and finds that, although the man didn't stage the accident that killed her mother, he blamed it on the Family to suit his own political ends. Renee severs all ties with him, so it's a good thing she's reinstated to the Academy, or she'd have nowhere else to go!The story ends with Diam removed from the Academy and apprenticed to a mage healer (Savoy has reached an uneasy peace with his uncle, especially now since his and Diam's parents were killed in a recent raid and the boy has no one else left); Alec disappears with some other unregistered mages to who-knows-where; Renee is left under Connor's tutelage to make sure she gets caught up with all the studies she's missed, and Savoy and the 7th leaving town for deployment. Clearly, there's more left to be told of this story! OH…..MY……GOD…… That book was truly amazing. I loved every minute of it. Alex did a wrongful job writing this book. There was never a dull moment with this book. There was so much action. Al the characters were great. My character is Savoy. He was head strong, stubborn, and funny. Renee is a bad ass cadet. She is not likely to set back a follow the rules. She took her like in her own hands. Once she stop thinking like a guy and use what she got to her advantage, nothing can stand in her way, while… beside school work. This was amazing mix of fantasy and historical fiction. I just wish it had some romance in it. There was some many love interest. Savoy and Renee, Cory and Renee, Alec and Renee I wish Alex would have just pick a pair and made something happen. Is it too much to ask for. All I want was just a little romance. Overall this book was great and I really wish it had a sequel.
Do You like book La Guerrera De Tildor (2013)?
I DNF'd this so long ago, but now I want to pick it back up and give it another try
—nhung
It was a really good book and I can't wait for the next book to come out!!
—Leah
A little too slow at the beginning but kept reading and it got better.
—carolovesjosh
