This is book two in the series and follows Charlie into the second full year at Shifter Falls Academy. She was a latecomer to the world of shifters, only shifting for the first time the day before her eighteenth birthday. She had never known her parents and was raised in foster care for most of her life. She never even knew that magic existed. She started at the academy part way into the first year and made a good friend with Jade, her roommate and also ended up with a boyfriend Kenneth, a kangaroo shifter, just before the summer break separated them. She spent the summer with Jade and her family.
She doesn’t have many of the same classes with Jade as she hoped and misses out on any classes with her old landlady Fiona, the woman who recognized what she was and managed to get her into the academy the previous year. Shifter academy has some weird students and not all of them are exactly the type to want to do good. There are some that you really wouldn’t want to spend much time with, never mind have to share a classroom with. Some shifters can do magic as well, but that is something Charlie has great problems trying to get to work. One of her more intense lessons is with Mr Harper, the Shifting on Command teacher, who wants all his students to be able to shift back and forth instantly and without thinking about it. Since Charlie came to shifting quite late, she isn’t proficient at it yet.
Charlie overhears a seemingly secret conversation about a long lost item that the people she hears speaking, obviously want found. A talk with her landlady, now back teaching at the academy, ends up being interrupted by the headmaster Mr Wild, who is also talking about the missing items, not realizing she is in the room. Something about the secretive and strange behaviour of Mr Harper has her thinking it might all be related. She finds him coming out of one of the secret passageways leading to the dorms, but also to other hidden passages, leaving her wondering what he is doing.
Classes are more intense than normal, now the second year is underway, Jade is acting weird and is having love issues and she only has so much time to spend with Kenneth. Wanting to give Jade some space to study, instead of chatting all night, she goes down to the lobby and then down into some of the basement classroom, that are never used anymore, to enable her to work on her shifting homework and see if she can increase her speed of shifting. Tiring herself out completely, she starts to make her way back up to the dorms, but thinks she hears something behind her. She can’t see anything and continues on. But she is soon going to be caught up in the secrets that someone is trying to hide in some of the secret passageways and rooms of the castle building of the academy. Long lost secrets will be uncovered and answers to some meaningful questions from the past may finally be revealed.
An easy to read book, as a standalone and as part of the series. I missed out on reading the first in this series, but it was easy to follow how Charlie came to be at the academy and issues from her past. We get to find out what has happened in the past about some seriously powerful relics, on loan from another magical academy, and what someone is doing to try and find them for their own purposes. A dangerous endeavour for all. Charlie is far too inquisitive for her own good and won’t stop until she finds out what is happening and also about her most pressing issue, that of who her parents were and whether she will ever get a chance to find anything out about that.
An easy read, with a touch of romance, lessons about shifters and getting to know about the magic all around them. An academy with great teaching about all issues to do with shifter magic, fantastic food and set in wonderful scenery and lovely old buildings. Real life relationships between a number of students and the teaching staff and great friendships. A great background of interesting characters and a setting that adds to the magical aspects of the story. I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.