Arcturus is an orphan. He works as a stableboy at an inn but is very unhappy and has a plan to run away. On the chosen night, he wants to steal a horse from the stable. A rich young man is spending the night at the inn and Arcturus tries to steal the man's horse. But the horse gets loose and runs off. The saddlebags are still in the stable and Arcturus proceeds to rummage through them, hoping to find food or money or anything of use. Instead he finds a paper which he proceeds to read. The paper contains the formula for summoning a demon and the spell shouldn't work for a commoner like Arcturus. But it does work and it summons a large, cat-like creature who immediately bonds with Arcturus. But before Arcturus can continue on with his plan to run away, he is caught and locked up.
Since he has summoned a demon, the king decides he needs to be watched and Arcturus is sent away to an academy for those with the talent to summon demons. Being a commoner, he is not well received by his fellow students. And he is targeted by the young man whose saddlebags he rifled, who, it turns out, is also a student at the academy. And who, spoiler here, turns out to be related to young Arcturus.
This book is the prequel to the first book in the Summoner series, Novice. It is a stand-alone novel and fills in the background of one of the characters in the series.
This was an OK read. It is definitely geared towards preteens, teens and young adults. The plot of young, special children at a boarding school has been done to death, in my opinion. It really didn't interest me much and I found the intolerance of the privileged classes and the resultant drama more annoying than interesting.
I bought both this book and the first book, Novice at the same time. But after reading this one, I now have no interest reading Novice. I am not the right audience for this series.
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