Sonea lives in the slums with her Aunt and Uncle and is no longer allowed to associate herself with her friends and their gang. However, during the annual Purge, she meets them again and gets mixed up in their stone-throwing hatred towards the Guild Magicians. When the deep, concealed magic she has within her is loosened, Sonea must hide herself because the Magicians are after her: no-one from the slums have ever showed magical potential and they are scared, but not as scared as Sonea. 
 I had read the Traitor Spy Trilogy previous and, whilst I didn't love it, I wasn't put-off completely from this author. I enjoyed grown-up Sonea in those books but found her to be completely different in this book: obviously that would be the case since she is a child here, but she's almost a completely different person. Perhaps in the next two you see how she will turn in to the only character from the other trilogy I liked, but I don't feel compelled to do so. 
 I had no sympathy for any of the characters, except perhaps Lord Rothen, and even then I couldn't remember his name to write this review. But even so, he was just a nice man and I like nice men. 
 It was also so incredibly slow. Half the book was just Sonea running about and hiding: you don't need 300 pages to show someone running from hideout to hideout. The first part (the book was parted in to two) could have honestly been condensed in to one chapter, if that, giving the excitement that almost peeped its head out at the end could have been put in to the first book. 
 I will not be reading the rest of the series, or any more from this author. There is nothing I want to go back to. 
 Blog | Instagram | Twitter | Pinterest | Shop | Etsy