It took me a bit to really get into this book, but once I did, it was fast paced and hard to put down.

Alka and her sister, Sera, watched their parents get killed by a wizard. Alka has the Godsmark and is a wizard, but she wants revenge. Her father gave them an address to go to if there were problems. It led the young girls to a woman named Whispers. Whispers is a Revenant, a rebel. The Revenants want to remove wizards from power and make things more equal. The Humbles (non wizards) are oppressed and not in power. Alka just wants revenge more than anything. Whispers comes up with a plan. Alka will ambush and kill a young wizard, Alayne, and take her place at Blackwater Academy. This is a top school for wizards. It's where the senators, generals, etc come from. Alka needs to learn as many secrets as she can. But Alka also just wants to burn it all down.

Alayne makes friends with a few other wizards and one humble girl. She can't tell them who she is or why she's really there. So she has to play a role. But Alka has trouble controlling herself at times. When she finds out that the winners of the great game will end up on the senate floor, Alka decides that she needs to win and bring it all down around her. But the games are not easy and she finds herself face to face with the person she hates the most. Alka starts to fall for two people while she's there. She finds that she cares about some of the wizards. But she also makes enemies and there are constant reminders on why she's there.

I really liked the magic system of using glyphs. I felt for Alka throughout the book. There are chapters from the past that slowly fill in the details. I just wish there was a bit more. It looks like this is a standalone, but I found myself attached enough that I want more.

I gave this book 4 1/2 stars rounded up to 5 on Goodreads. Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for my review copy.

Warnings for revenge, gore/blood, death. There is also mentions of sex and teenage drinking. The book focuses a lot on oppression, too.

Rounded up from 2.5 because I can see where the target audience might enjoy this (as long as it's a one-off). This is similar to many of the "wizard school with contests" books, although the ways in which Alka and her team play the Great Game may not be quite according to Hoyle. The characters are fairly stock, and the constant switching between her life Before and her life At Blackwater doesn't quite help. Plus, any book that has an unlikeable main character isn't going to help (her main redeeming quality seems to be her relationship with her sister).

eARC provided by publisher via Netgalley.

This book was received as an ARC from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

As I have said in most of my YA reviews, I am a huge fan of YA Fantasy especially the House of Night series by P.C. and Kristin Cast and this book read almost exactly like House of Night. Alka goes undercover in one of the most prestigious schools in the school of magic and all she has to do to survive is be deceitful in ever possible manner. Alka discovers something about herself that can be very dangerous to others. This book was filled with so much action, adventure, drama and fantasy that it was the perfect YA book. I know our teen book club will be excited and anticipating the release and I can't wait to hear their thoughts.

We will consider adding this title to our YA collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

This book was fascinating, exciting and at times heartbreaking. Alka fought the whole time for what she thought was right and it kept the book interesting. The characters were amazing and the rivalry intense. I can't wait for the next one.

Zero stars.
Could not finish, or barely start, this book.
Way too many similarities to HP, even though I've never read that series. I've seen the movies.
I disliked the main character sooooooooooo much.
Too bad. I love the title and the cover.

This book had a lot of promise for me, but there were elements of the book that didn't hold up well. Throughout the book it flips to now and then and for some reason, this didn't help my reading process with the book, and I didn't care for that style. Plus, the writing seemed to be more choppy with it. I thought I would really like Alka, but she was hard for me to connect to throughout the story. Sometimes, I felt for her and other times it was baffling the decisions she was making. The story was trying to be something similar to Harry Potter with a twist of other stories here and there, the problem is that when there's such a resemblance to an incredible story, it makes you think of the other story and compare. Tried not to compare to other books, but it didn't hold up well for me. Overall, it was a book with beautiful cover art but only an ok story attached, just not for me.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!