OPENING THE BALL by Nathaniel Simpson_The Academy #1

Review of Opening the Ball by Nathaniel Simpson
5 stars

Fast-paced and thrilling, suspenseful and adventurous, this well-written story is the first in a series about the prestigious and very covert San Lorenzo Academy, a school which selects 0.01% of boys from across the nation for specialized paramilitary training. Jonathan, a former foster child, and his Academy buddies Jones and Reilly are chosen at age 17 to be part of the time-travel initiative of the corporation funding the Academy. Their first mission: return to the Battle of Gettysburg, during the American Civil War-and effect an assassination.

If that weren’t enough, the Academy-or the research division-has factions, and what one side tells the boys to accomplish, another side tells them differently. It comes down to an on-the-battlefield series of decisions, while they also fear that “doing the wrong thing” might erase them from human history-or maybe erase human history entirely.

I reviewed an e-book copy received from the Goodreads Group Making Connections.