By Victoria Aveyard

What do you get when you mix the Hunger Games and X-Men? Katniss with super powers!

We start off with a bit of Hunger Games, Mare lives in a poor village with her family and younger sister doing her best to provide for them, there's a boy she cares about and tries hard to protect.

There were large arenas, battles, conscription at a certain age forcing youths to go out and fight in a war. A forced engagement. A rebellion. Now throw in royals, betrayals and maybe even a beheading in true Game of Thrones fashion. Next add heaping amounts of all different types of super powers involving fire, water, lightening, metal and so many more and you have a recipe for a very entertaining read!



Mare is a Red and Reds are nothing more than servants. They have no powers, they're nothing special. They are used by the Silvers for whatever purposes they require. Once Reds become a certain age, if they don't have a skill and they're unable to acquire a job, they are sent to war. Mare is a common thief and counting down the days before she is sent off to war when, by an amazing twist of fate, she finds herself with a job in the palace. Right in the midst of all the Silvers and their incredible powers. Here she discovers the impossible, she has a power all her own.

When the royal family discovers her, the Queen attempts to hide her and what she really is by painting her skin, giving her a fake background, announcing her engagement to the youngest Prince and training her to use her powers until they can use Mare for their own benefit.

If you don't care much for love triangles (I'm not even sure you can call it a love triangle) you may want to skip this one. I didn't feel like it took away from the story or that the romance aspect was over powering at all.

Despite the similarities with various other books, I very much enjoyed the adventure. I felt like Victoria was able to take all the elements of my favorite stories and mix them together to create something new and enjoyable.

The sequel entitled, Glass Sword, is set for release February 9th and a Red Queen movie may be in the works. I am very much looking forward to what is in store for this series!

Great Read!