Therefore, I was very eager to get my hands on her new title. The book takes place in the fictional land of Kenettra, although for all intents and purposes it's not unlike early Renaissance Italy. A "blood fever" swept through the land killing many citizens, and leaving the survivors with strange markings and physical changes. One of these "malfettos" is Adelina, whose hair has turned silver and is missing one eye due to the disease. Her cruel father knows he cannot marry her off, so instead he more or less sells her to a wealthy merchant as his mistress. Adelina takes fate into her own hands and runs off into the night with her father in pursuit. When her father catches up with her and tries to physically force her to return home, Adelina snaps. In her anger, she summons dark apparitions, terrifying her father and leading to his death.
Soon Adelina is facing execution; malfettos with supernatural abilities - also known as Young Elites - are to be put to death. However, she is rescued at the last minute by Enzo, another Elite. He takes her to his palace where other Elites train in secret.
This book should appeal to teens who are fan of X-Men, or who enjoy the "Teenagers who develop superpowers" theme that we see in many YA novels these days. Unfortunately, there is little here that was new to get me excited about the series. How many times have we seen books where teens gather to train and perfect their abilities? The Hunger Games, Divergent, Shadow and Bone... even Harry Potter and Dumbledore's Army from Order of the Phoenix.
None of the so-called Young Elites were fleshed out enough for me to care about them, nor was the antagonist, Teren, "bad" enough for me to want to root against him. The whole thing was just...meh. I will pass on the other books to come in the series.
