THE ORDEALS

A young woman must navigate a series of deadly tests to be fully admitted to a secretive school of magic.

Sophia DeWinter is no stranger to danger. An orphan, she was raised by a man called the Collector, whom she’s been told is her uncle and who controls her with an enchanted bracelet that tracks her movements. Her only hope for freedom is to gain entrance to Killmarth College, the school that trains wielders, people who can use magic. Sophia knows she has a small talent for illusion magic, and if she can get into Killmarth, the enchantments on the school’s grounds will destroy the Collector’s bracelet, and therefore his control over her. The time and location of the entrance exam, known as the Crucible, is secret, but Sophia manages to overhear a man in a bar talking about it. The man, Alden Locke, happens to be gorgeous, so it’s no hardship for Sophia to flirt the information out of him. Sophia is, of course, paired with Alden for the Crucible, and she manages to pass and gain a spot among the Killmarth hopefuls. But while she’s able to move to the grounds of Killmarth, and is freed of the Collector’s bracelet, she’ll have to pass another series of deadly tests, meant to whittle the hopefuls down to the best of the best, before she can secure a place for herself as a scholar of magic. The romance between Alden and Sophia is rather perfunctory and unsurprising. Greenlaw’s magic system, where wielders are separated into categories depending on their abilities, could be interesting, but without giving any spoilers, it’s always a little boring when the heroine just happens to be the most special of all the special magical people.

Fits a bit too neatly into romantasy tropes.