Powerless, Powerful, Reckless, by Lauren Roberts

Powerless, Powerful, Reckless, by Lauren Roberts

My daughter suggested I read this fantasy series by Lauren Roberts. I think it might border on young adult but is totally enjoyable for any adult to read. It's about a land where a mysterious plague came through, killing many of the people, but it had an interesting side effect for some of the survivors and their descendants--special powers. Some can read minds. Some can become invisible. And the list goes on. However, the king decides that those without powers must be killed or banished to keep the lines of power going. 

Paedyn is a teenage girl who has been on her own for a few years, thieving and working the streets in order to survive, her parents having died earlier, her mother at her birth, and her father was killed. Paedyn has no powers, but her father trained her to be extremely observant so she could pass as a Psychic. 

The land has a lottery, kind of like The Hunger Games, where a handful of young people must fight each other in a series of trials, and possibly to the death---and the winner gets to live as nobility with their own estate and riches. Paedyn is chosen for these trials, and must not let anyone know she is ordinary and powerless. 

That's the first book. The second book, Powerful, is about her friend Adena.

The third book, Reckless, without giving too much away, is about what happens after the trials.

There are supposed to be two more books in the series coming out.

I really enjoyed this series. It gave me and my daughter some things to talk about, such as the king's relationships with his two sons, both viewing the other as favored, while neither one of them feeling they were enough for their father; themes of redemption for those who have crossed a line they never wanted to, but felt they had no choice; forgiveness; family, loyalty, creating one's own family group; and the idea of racism and racial purity and genocide.

It's definitely worth reading if you enjoy fantasy and some romance, and it's a clean romance, so no sex scenes, which I found to be nice. I don't care for reading anything sexually explicit.