Unbound
Nineteen-year-old Nessa Thorne expects death when she volunteers for Empire's selection. Instead, she's thrust into Confluence Academy, where students harness elemental magic and bond powerful beasts—from wolves to ancient dragons—forging themselves into the Empire's most lethal weapons.
Students are branded by affinity: water, air, earth, or fire. But Nessa’s mark is different. A silver spiral—the mark of an unbound. It’s a power so dangerous her kind were hunted to extinction centuries ago—or so the Empire claims.
To survive, she must hide what she is in a castle that reeks of blood, where students kill each other for advantage and failing to tether an elemental means death.
Nessa’s greatest threat may be the only other volunteer—Raith Hollow, a powerful fire affinity whose scorching gaze follows her every move and whose secrets could topple kingdoms.
Alliances are forged in blood, enemies circle like vultures, and forbidden desires close in. Death once seemed like release from her tragic past. Now it's not an option. She'll embrace her terrible potential or watch everything she's fought for burn.
At Confluence Academy, students leave as weapons... or they don't leave at all.
What to expect: A delicious slow burn romance as dangerous as the magic? Check. A final line readers are saying will haunt you for weeks? Double check. An ending that will leave you desperate for book 2? Absolutely.
Readers also enjoyed
Penelope Bloom
Penelope Bloom doesn’t just write romantic comedy; she flips it on its head with sharp wit, fearless characters, and situations that teeter between wildly outrageous and strikingly relatable. Her books don’t tiptoe into the absurd; they leap, heels first, into laugh-out-loud chaos built on irresistible chemistry and unexpected tenderness.
Best known for cheeky, bestselling titles like His Banana, Her Cherry, and His Treat, Bloom has carved out a space in the rom-com world where humor and heat collide. Readers flock to her stories for more than just steamy scenes and punchy one-liners. At the core of each book is a heartbeat that reminds readers love doesn’t always arrive with a bow; sometimes, it shows up with a bad attitude, a banana in hand, and a perfectly timed pun.
Confluence Academy
There are places meant to forge warriors, and then there’s the Academy, a place built to break them first.
In a crumbling empire where elemental magic isn’t a gift but a currency of control, Nessa Thorne walks into the selection expecting pain, maybe even death. What she finds instead is something far more dangerous: power that should not exist, a bond with a dragon that defies the academy’s rigid laws, and a mark that ties her to a long-buried legacy. At Confluence Academy, survival depends not only on magical talent, but on reading every glance, every lie, every betrayal before it lands like a knife.
Confluence Academy consists of two books and series is set to expand with the upcoming release of one more book. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
