Shadowspell Academy: The Culling Trials: Book 1

By: K.F. Breene, Shannon Mayer

Narrated by: Khristine Hvam

Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's Summary

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

Good but...

This is not a book. It is a part of one and should not be so expensive to purchase. A decent book, in my opinion, is at least 10 hours long. I am an avid listener/reader and while I was intrigued 🤔 by the storyline it ended in the middle at what would still be in the rising action of a plot., no climax, no resolution. We have to purchase the remaing 2 short stories to get the actual book 👎. This was a ripoff for the buyer. Too bad I will never hear the end of the story. Also it has many dropped words from sentences and dialogue.

Why isn’t this “series” bundled?

This “book” is good, but doesn’t really have the full length plot of a novel. At barely 5 hours long, it feels like this is one book split in 3rds instead of 3 different books. I don’t feel like I read a book, it feels like a short story. It was good, but not worth the credit

Great beginning

Ah hell, another series I’m going to be addicted to! Another freaking awesome & wickedly addictive story by two of my favorite Indie authors! I love Wilde! She’s a strong willed and charismatic heroine who has some very impressive skills & her rag tag crew are quite interesting in their own right. This is a nice start to a new series but I’ll be honest, I wished it was longer and I could definitely do without the cliffhanger! The narrator did a fantastic job!

Bad accent.

I’ve listened to other books in audible by this author but this is the first with this narrator reading. The fake southern accent just turned me off. If she had read the book in her normal speech I would have liked it better.

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.

Great beginning

Loving the characters already. Hopefully it won't be too "high-school like" with enemies and bickering

Magic is real

Wild already lost one brother and refuses to lose another when the same people come looking Billy. With a threat made to her family, Wild decides to take his place. Not only is magic real, but she discovers the trials to get accepted into Shadowspell Academy can kill you. With an unlikely group of new friends, Wild sets out to make it through the Culling trials, while trying to keep her secret and her family safe.

Very good

A not so nice Harry Potter. The story ended way too soon. It should have been combined with the next book. The narration was very good.

Grew on me

About halfway through I got used to the wording and long explanation of everything. Got into Wylde and now I've already bought the next one.

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.

Sound bad

The sound changes with each chapter and appears to jump quite a lot when reading the story so a little difficult to follow with the different changes in pitch and sudden appearance of a jump

The sounds is really bad,

Every other chapter is very low, hard to hear. Not very good quality. It makes it difficult to follow the story.

Shadowspell Academy: The Culling Trials

This book holds load of tention, not to mention bravery and courage. Wild seems to beable to servive it all.