Review: Lock and Key (Nocturne Academy Series Book 1) by Evangaline Anderson

Lock and Key by Evangeline Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

YA Paranormal Romance

I’d probably give this book 3.5 ⭐️ if I could.

This is the first book of a trilogy, but though there is a story arc continuing through the series, there is no real cliffhanger at the end of the book.

I got this book free and downloaded it because I enjoyed the Kindred books this author wrote. This book is NOTHING like those books, except for the ‘fated love’ element. It is a clean YA romance, which is pretty much the exact opposite of the Kindred books.

Megan has gone to live with her aunt, after the death of her mother and her father decided he no longer wanted to raise her. Her aunt managed to get her enrolled in Nocturne Academy the school she and her sister attended. The school appears on no maps and is inhabited, almost entirely, by Others. Others are members of the magical races; vampires, witches, fae and drakes (dragon shifters). Megan was unaware of magic before she arrived at the school and she is thrown in at the deep end.

When Megan meets Griffin, when she’s enrolled, they are instantly drawn to each other. He is a nocturne, or vampire, and the magical races are not allowed to mix romantically.

This is very definitely a YA book aimed at young adults. The language isn’t complex, nor is the plot. It involves a girl unaware of her magical heritage, a forbidden love, plucky friends, an evil witch and a secret prophecy. It’s all been done before. It’s quite entertaining and I wanted to finish the book to see where it went, so it’s fairly compelling, but it didn’t break my expectations in any way.

Megan doesn’t really have any of her own agency, everything that happens to her and that she does seems to be driven by magic. It made her a little dull for me. The only thing that seemed to be decided for herself was to stick up for her friends. Those actions helped me like her a bit more. However, every activity, other than protecting her friends, was preceded by a feeling she ‘had to’ to in order for her to do it.

I won’t be reading the next book. It’s not for me. I think, however, that it might be suitable for the actual YA it’s aimed at. It’s rare to find a book about YAs that is suitable for them as there are an awful lot that are about YAs that are aimed at a much more mature reader, which is what I thought this was. I didn’t realise the protagonist was 16 but if I had I wouldn’t have read this book. However, I would recommend it to a younger teenager.

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