Imagine a world where you are not discriminated against because of your gender or your color. Where your sexuality doesn’t matter. Where you can be yourself. Perfect right? Well not for seventeen year old Mare Barrow. She may not be treated badly because of her skin, but she’s trash because of her blood. Mare is a red-blood, a species of “low-human,” a human with nothing special about her but her strength and determination. The Silver elite, humans with silver blood and dangerous powers rule Mare and her fellow red-bloods. She lives in poverty and works for the Silvers like a slave, but with little pay and shelter. The silver-bloods force the red-bloods to follow rules and regulations that are inhumane, and then force them to watch their sons and brothers be taken away to fight a war that they will surely die in.

Things have been the same all her life, she lives with her father, her sister, and her mother. Her three brothers have long since been sent off to fight for the silver-bloods in a bloody and hopeless war. In an interesting turn of events, Mare gets the chance to work as a servant in the king’s castle, and she is shipped away from her family to live there indefinitely.

While at the palace, Mare witnesses a battle for the crown prince’s hand. Ladies from each of the powerful clans of silver-blood compete for the prince’s heart. There’s a girl who can control metal, one that blows things up with her mind, and a girl who can force vines through people’s bodies. Mare watches all of this, safe behind an electric shield. Until in a tragic turn of events, she falls into the shield. A shield that should have fried her on the spot, but it didn’t. Mare harnesses the power of the shield and uses it to heal her bruises. A red-blood with silver-blood powers. Something that the silver-bloods have never seen before.

In order to prevent an uprising, Mare is pushed into the royal family. So she pretends to be a silver-blood, a long lost daughter of a dead war hero. She begins training with them, living with them and falling in love with them all while the queen watches her every move and hears her every thought. Mare isn’t safe anywhere. What will she do? Will she escape? Or will she turn her back on her fellow red-bloods for a life of luxury?

With the help of a traitor prince and a secret anti-silver organization, Mare works to find the secrets of the royal family. As well as hone her own electric powers. I recommend this for anyone who is looking to read about a completely new world filled with secrets, lies and evil queens. The heroine is a powerful girl who isn’t afraid to fight back and prove that she is as powerful as the silver-bloods fear she is. Will Mare Barrow become the Red Queen?