Firespell by Chloe Neill

Lily Parker is about to start at the exclusive St Sophia's in Chicago - a private academy for girls that just screams old money and snooty girls.  It seems as though Lily is going to be out of her league very quickly, but her fast friendship with Scout (one of her new room mates) means that she is not as lonely as she seems - even though the local queen bee and her followers seem to want to make her life miserable.  Scout has a secret she is keeping though - she is part of a group that is trying to protect the streets of Chicago from the bad guys, bad guys who have power and are not afraid to use it to get what they want.  Lily has been thrown in the deep end and she has to learn the rules of the new world around her before she makes a fatal mistake.

This is the first book in the Dark elite series and introduces readers to Lily Parker, Scout and the rest of the people who populate a world where magic is a very real thing, as are the dangers that come because of it.  When I read this I had the feeling that I had read parts of this before, possibly because there seems to have been a mini explosion of books about teenagers with magic who are living in a boarding school situation.  That said, this is an interesting read that moves along at a decent pace, but there are some cliches that raise their heads so the speak - you have the mean queen bee, the braindead follower, the handsome boy who's just out of reach, the bad guys who may not be what they appear, and the superior bad guy who just oozes bad guy stuff. 

It will be interesting to see if the rest of the series continues with the same speed and strength.  This is not the best book of this type out there, but it is very readable and hasn't been dumbed down for a teenage audience (which sadly some authors do).  This book is a nice balance between a fun read, and a read with real mythology and 'world building' behind it - a world that you can really believe exists within ours, just waiting to be discovered.

If you like this book then try:

• Hexbound by Chloe Neill
• Glass houses by Rachel Caine
• Hex hall by Rachel Hawkins
• Glimmerglass by Jenna Black
• Skin hunger by Kathleen Duey
• Impossible by Nancy Werlin
• Legacies by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill

Reviewed by Brilla