THE CADET OF TILDOR, by Alex Liddell

The story: Cadet Renee de Winter knows she’s going to be kicked out of the Academy if she can’t improve her fighting skills. But the events swirling around her make that difficult: treason, attempted coup, and the arrival of the one man whose approval she values more than anyone else’s. Is she willing to abandon longtime friends, and even family, in order to make the cut and succeed in a man’s world of espionage and war?

Mrs. Friend’s opinion: Plenty of bad language and violence in this one, but considering that it takes place at a warrior academy where it’s survival of the fittest, it would be more surprising not to have that kind of talk! There’s lots of action and mystery in this story, and if you’re a fan of Cinda Williams Chima’s “Seven Realms” series, you should totally check this one out. I liked it a lot!