Firespell by Chloe Neill Series: The Dark Elite #1
Published by Signet on 5 January 2010
Pages: 246
Format: Kindle
Source: Kindle Purchase
When Lily Parker's guardians decided to send her away to a fancy boarding school in Chicago, Lily was shocked. So was St. Sophia's.
As the new girl at the elite St. Sophia's boarding school, Lily is surrounded by an ultra-rich bratpack. She's pretty sure her spoiled, petty, fashion-obsessed classmates are the most monstrous things she'll have to face, and surviving them and their cruel practical jokes is proving even tougher than the homework...
But on top of being the punchline to every joke, Lily's hearing strange noises and seeing bizarre things in the shadows of the creepy building. All building have their creaks and groans - but Lily could swear that she's being watched.
The only thing keeping her sane, so far, is her roommate Scout. But something strange is going on there too - Scout keeps disappearing late at night, reappearing bruised and tired, and she won't tell Lily where's she's been... until, that is, a prank leaves Lily trapped in the catacombs beneath the school. Lost in the dark Lily hear's footsteps heading towards her - it's Scout and she's running from a real monster.
Scout is part of a group of rebel teens with unique magical talents, sworn to protect the city against demons, vampires, and Reapers: magic users who've been corrupted by their power. Much as Lily would love to help, it's too dangerous without powers of her own - especially if she'd have to go up against the firespell herself...
Firespell was intriguing enough to keep me reading, and the ending also made me want to find out what happens next.
Firespell was a bit like other YA fantasy series, where the young protagonist is sent away from home, enters a new school and finds out that there is more to the world around her than she first thought. Lily is a likeable character, she’s not drama queen, and she deals with her parents going to Germany for a sabbatical without her, and being sent from New York to Chicago quite well. The dynamics of the students in her new school is similar to that of most other stories taking place in high-school, there are the snobs, the brats, the nerds and the ‘weird’ kids… Lily seemed to be able to fit in most anywhere, even if Scout was the first to try to befriend her.
The story itself is fairly straight forward, Lily realizes that there is something going on very soon after arriving at St. Sophia, mostly because she sees Scout leave late at night, and only coming back at 3am. Of course, Scout wasn’t at liberty to share anything with Lily about what she was doing, so she was being very vague in her answers, while still being as honest as she could be. The friendship between Lily and Scout was one of the strong points of Firespell, because it was strong and loyal, just like I enjoy.
Of course, there were also some mysterious and very good-looking boys from a nearby private school for boys, and Scout knew them well. That was just another mystery Lily wanted to figure out. As the story moved forward, both Lily and the readers find out more about what’s going on underneath St. Sophia and the city of Chicago. I loved the aspect of the underground tunnels that were more like labyrinths, and possible for keeping someone – or something – out.
Firespell is intriguing enough to make me want to continue reading The Dark Elite, and of course, Neill’s writing is great. Written in first and third person point of view, mostly from Lily’s perspective and with dialogues to keep the pace nice and easy, the story unfolded naturally without any hitches.
I didn’t want to be a St. Sophia’s girl. I wanted to be me, Lily Parker, of the dark hair and eyeliner and fabulous fashion sense.
The board members had told me that St. Sophia’s had been a convent in its former life, but it could have just as easily been the setting for a gothic horror movie.
At the tables sat teenagers. Lots and lots of teenagers, all in stuff that made up the St. Sophia’s uniform: navy plaid skirt and some kind of top in the same navy; sweater; hooded sweatshirt, sweater-vest. They looked like an all-girl army of plaid.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
About Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms
Linda is an English as foreign language teacher and has a Master's degree in English Language and Literature. She's an avid reader, blogger, compulsive one-clicker and a genre omnivore. Ever since she learnt how to read she has been seen with a book or two in her hands everywhere she goes.
This sounds like a good book, thanks great review. Aussie Bookworm
It was good, and Neill is a very good writer 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!
I liked this one and the second but I think a bit like you and well not sure it’s interesting to read as we don’t have an end… that was the sad part.
There’s no end to this series? I checked Goodreads, and there are three books… I hope that if I continue, there will be some kind of resolution 🙂
Twitter: kbaby81
I swear, I’m always the last to get to these books. I’ve not read her Chicagoland Vamps series either, but I think this one is on my list too. Ugh, maybe it’s because I didn’t start reading paranormal until around 2005-2006. You know, when Twilight hit the shelves. LOL! I have a lot of catching up to do in this genre, but I’ve read some classic paranormal years ago.
I’ve read her first Chicagoland Vamps series – maybe five of them? I have put that series on hold though, because there was something that happened that just upset me too much.
I didn’t start reading paranormal until I read Twilight either, but only when my daughter wanted to read it – I figured I should read it first 🙂 I was hooked, and the rest – as they say – is history 😉
I like the strong friendship element between Lily and Scout but after reading your review, I can see where the 3 star rating came from even though you love Neill’s writing. It sounds like an average YA story. I’m glad it captured you enough that you’ll continue the series though. 🙂
**BIG HUGS**
Yeah, it is an average YA story… I might have enjoyed this more if it was among the first Paranormal YA books I read, but now, it was just average as I have so many to compare it to 🙂 *BIG HUGS*
This sounds interesting and I’m always on the lookout for new paranormal reads! I’m glad you enjoyed this one despite it being a tad run-of-the-mill. Can’t wait to see what you make of the sequel my friend 🙂
Ha! This isn’t exactly new, even if it was new to me, Micheline. And it’s definitely a good story 🙂 Thanks for stopping by.
Oh I enjoyed this one and book two but then never made it to book three for some reason. Thanks for the reminder!
That’s always intriguing to me – enjoying the beginning of a series, and not actually reading until the very end.
Happens a lot with me usually because I have to wait for the last book(s) to come out and get caught up in other series while waiting and the tbr pile just gets too long or like now with the blog I don’t get them for review or am too behind to pick them up :/
Hmm … I don’t recall knowing about this. I read the first book in her Chicagoland series and that other one set in NOLA, but not this. Well, glad you enjoyed it. I think I’ll stick with the other series for now.
I think this one is from before her Chicagoland series. When I first started that, I added every Neill book I could get my hands on to my TBR 🙂
Twitter: Mlsimmons
I didn’t know that Chloe Neill had a YA series. I don’t do well with YA series that are set in a school setting. Everyone that I’ve read, I’ve ended really not liking. I’ll be interested to hear how the series plays out as you move through it. I hadn’t heard of it before. Shows how much I’ve been paying attention. I hope you continue to enjoy. 🙂