Firespell - Book #1 The Dark Elite Series by Chloe Neill - 3 STARS

Firespell by Chloe Neill

 

Three Underwhelming Stars

Blurb - 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 is book #1 in The Dark Elite Series; I’m a massive fan of Chloe Neil’s Chicagoland Vampires series so I was excited to get started on this series.

Ok so the good bits...

·         Scout, she’s full of sass and attitude I loved her.

·         I like Lilly she is like a mini Nancy Drew lol

·         It’s set in a school but it’s full of intrigue and drama.

And the not so good bits...

·         It’s a bit of a slowburner not a lot really happened.

·         There are massive plot holes.

I did like this book but I didn’t love it.

Lilly is a cute teenager at a boarding school that gets thrown into the world of magical beings.

I liked Scout and the rest of the Adept but I have major issues with the whole you get powers from age 15-25 then you either have to give up your powers or become evil WTF!!!

The Dark Elite were a bit odd they kidnap people and then use ‘the force’ to suck the energy out of them, but we don’t really hear anything about them until ¾ of the way through this book.

When Scout is kidnapped the Adept go to rescue her and end up having a fight with the Dark Elite, is it just me or are Scout and the gang a bit underpowered. The twins do fire and ice which is cool but the rest of the gang’s powers are a bit underwhelming in comparison with the dark sides Firespell and earthquake abilities.

Now I appreciate that this is a book about teenagers but everything about it felt a bit immature.

I liked the head teacher I get the impression that she’s going to have a bigger role in the next couple of books she definitely knows more than she is letting on.

I am intrigued by what’s going on with Lilly’s parents; I think they are working on figuring out how to suppress the evil side effects the magic has so that the adept can keep their powers.

The adept are supposedly fighting the good fight, but in all of the action they are basically just running away. They are a group of 9 kids who have powers, they don’t appear to have any adult supervision and in total the resistance is a massive 28 people strong.

What a coincidence Lilly gets powers, I mean yes I was expecting it but it was just so obvious.

Overall I am a bit underwhelmed by this book; the Chicagoland Vampire Series is one of my favourite supernatural series so my expectations for this book were very high. Unfortunately this book did not live up to my hopes never mind I will just stick to Chloe Neills more recent novels long live Merit!!!