Welcome the Silver Blackthorn Trilogy The Reckoning by Kerry Wilkinson is the first in the Silver Blackthorn Trilogy and what an explosive opening we have. This is fantasy at its best, introducing our Trilogy heroine Silver Blackthorn a 16 year old girl that decides that is she wants to live she will have to fight the King and all his men. The Reckoning to me is a mixture of The Game of Thrones with a splash of the Hunger Games thrown in but with that silky panache of a back story so the reader knows how we end up in this fantasy world. There has been a long war in which England and Wales have been divided in to four realms and Scotland is no longer mentioned in polite company and they are under the leadership of King Victor who has moved the capital and the instruments of government to Windsor Castle. Each realm does not really know what the other is doing and set against each other in competition. Food is rationed and free thinking is not encouraged. Think watches and thinkpads control everything and supply the requirements of information needed by the masses. Since the war up north where Silver is from the great lake has now gone and is full of redundant electrical equipment which she has enjoyed as a child opening up and playing with. All 16 year olds who become or turn 16 by 1st July have to take a test known as the Reckoning which will determine your station in life and what you will be doing for the rest of your life. Out of all those taking the Reckoning 15 boys and 15 girls will be chosen as Offerings and be sent to Windsor Castle to serve the King as he sees fit. This is a great honour for the families and the realms they are from. Once sent the Offerings they are never heard from again and nobody knows what happens to them. Silver Blackthorn is one of the Offerings for the King and little does she know what is going to happen to her. She is left shocked at the end of the journey when they are locked in to their dormitory until sent for by the King for a banquet. At this banquet one of their number is killed by the King just for kicks and one of the girls is sent to the King for his personal use. They are all allocated jobs Silver gets her position in the technology lab from which she is able to manipulate the technology. She discovers a secret passage behind the girl’s dormitory and a boy offering, Imrin, also finds one and they make an alliance and start planning how they can escape. They know that the Offerings are set against each other in a battle for survival in the Castle but to escape they all need to work together to escape. It is against this background that Silver Blackthorn needs to lead the other Offerings if they are going to survive and they need to do something they are not used to talking and trusting each other. The Reckoning is a brilliant beginning for The Silver Blackthorn trilogy a northern girl taking the bull by the horns and taking on all comers. We have a new heroine who is intelligent fast and fearsome who just wants to be with her family and friends. The state and the Minister Prime and King Victor will do anything within their powers to do this. The Reckoning grabs you by the short and curlies and you do not want to put this pulsating book down and when you get to the end you want the second in the trilogy already. As you are left with a hunger you want Renegade the next book in the trilogy and reading The Reckoning you want that tomorrow, can I wait till it is published?