Shadowspell Academy: The Culling Trials: Book 1

By: K.F. Breene, Shannon Mayer

Narrated by: Khristine Hvam

You don’t choose the academy. The academy chooses you.

I had no idea how those words would change my life. Or how they’d changed my life already...until the day the most dangerous man I’ve ever met waltzed onto my farm and left us a death sentence. In an invitation.

My younger brother has been chosen for the prestigious, secret magical school hidden within the folds of our mundane world. A place so dangerous, they don’t guarantee you’ll make it out alive.

If he doesn't go, our entire family will be killed. It’s the same invitation my older brother received three years ago - the same place where he mysteriously died.

The academy has already killed one sibling. I’ll be damned if they take another. I do the only thing an older sister can: chop off my hair, strap on two bras to flatten the girls, and take my brother’s place.

Magic and monsters are real. Assassins are coming for me, and the dead are prone to rise. What’s a girl faking it as a boy supposed to do? That’s right - beat the academy at its own game. Or die trying.

Praise for the book:

"This book is Harry Potter meets the Hunger Games in a bold twist on a classic magical young adult adventure." (Jaymin Eve, best-selling author of Supernatural Academy series)

©2019 K.F. Breene and Shannon Mayer (P)2019 K.F. Breene and Shannon Mayer

I’m hooked...

K.F. Breene and Shannon Meyer have created a whole new world that is both original and addictive. By the time I was half way through this book/audiobook, I had to stop listening long enough to buy Books 2 and 3. Khristine Hyam’s performance not only brought it to life but makes you feel as though you are there actually watching it all unfold. I highly recommend this to science fiction and fantasy fans. Now excuse me, I have to start Book 2.

Wilde is wild!

I knew this series would be good because the authors are both fabulous story tellers but I’m not usually into YA. Again, with these two authors behind it I had to dive in and I’m so glad I did.

I love Wilde. When a summons is left for her little brother, one threatening her entire family of he doesn’t show up for The Culling Trials there is no way in hades she’s letting him go. Her older brother left for the trials and never returned.

So now with her hair chopped off, her body wrapped to look like her brother she sets off. She’s a girl on a mission, one that will save her family, possibly put her own life in peril and hopefully end with her in the top of a magical academy. The problem is, she has no idea that magic is real. No idea how this new world she’s thrust into works nor does she understand what is really going on around her.

It’s almost like a bad day dream that she can’t get out of. With a band of misfits along side her she enters the first trial and prays she can get through it in one piece. She can’t fail her family nor can she fail the new friends that have sort of adopted her.

The Culling Trials are a mix of wonder and chaos. The Hunger Games meets The Maze Runner with a side of Harry Potter and The vampire Academy. So I’m other words, an epic read that has left me wanting more.

Finally - something different!!

Awesome start to a book series...perfect narrator!!
Best series I've listened too in a long time.
Interesting and likable characters and very intriguing plot. The only problem is that it ended - I couldn't wait to start the next book in the series. Loved it!!

Why aren't these bundled?

These really should be bundled. The physical copies of the "trilogy" have already been made into an omnibus and it just makes more sense that way. The story feels rather incomplete otherwise. I will be buying the other ones though, since I want to know what happens, but I do feel just slightly cheated.

Good But…

It’s a good story but it’s very predictable and very near hunger gamesish. I’ll prob listen to all the books.