Firespell-Chloe Neill

Firespell
Chloe Neill
Signet, Jan 2010, $$6.99
ISBN: 9780451228864

She is unhappy that her parents are going to Germany to conduct research while she is being dumped at the elite Chicago boarding school St. Sophie's Academy. She has no choice in the matter, but becomes friendly with one of her new roommates Scout, who has a tendency to disappear in the middle of the night and return exhausted. Scout refuses to tell Lily Parker what she does during her nocturnal ramblings.

Worried about Scout, Lily follows her friend on one the evening ventures. Lily finds herself trapping a monster in one of the catacombs underneath the prestigious school. The newcomer learns that Scout is a magic user who must give up using her magic when she gets to her mid-twenties. She fights the Reapers: spell casters who use magic as they age which turns them evil because they have to take the life essence from a person to survive. The Reapers believes it is okay to apply magic past twenty something even if that means Adepts must die to fuel them. Lily learns first hand that Adepts protect normals from monsters and the Reapers. Although she might lose her life she cannot sit on the sidelines or hide in the sand especially as through a series of odd circumstances, Lily is caught in the crosshairs of the war although she has no magical powers; or does she?

Lily’s life radically changes from attending a middle class public high school living with her parents to an elite boarding school while her family is in Europe. That change soon proves minor as the teen heroine adapts as needed. Her best skill is adjusting to what happens t her although even she is unprepared for the circumstances she faces when she has the back of her BFF. She keeps the exciting teen urban fantasy focused as a heroine ready to fight monsters.

Harriet Klausner