By A.F. Steadman
Forget everything sweet about unicorns — here they're deadly, spirit-wielding war beasts, and a boy who was never supposed to have one ends up bonded to the fiercest of them all.
In Skandar's world, unicorns are not the fluffy kind. They're savage, elemental-powered creatures that bond to a single rider for life and would gladly kill anyone else. Every child dreams of the Hatchery exam on their thirteenth birthday, the chance to bond with a wild unicorn and train at the Eyrie to fight in the Chaos Cup. Skandar wants it more than anything, and he shouldn't even qualify. Then, the night before the exam, the most powerful unicorn alive is stolen by a terrifying figure called the Weaver, and Skandar finds himself bonded to a bloodthirsty, forbidden unicorn of his own and swept into a plot far bigger than one boy's dream. Now he has to learn to ride, master the four elements, and figure out who to trust before the Weaver's plan comes due.
The twist on unicorns is the whole trap, and it's a good one: a child who thinks they're too cool for unicorns picks this up for the deadly-monster hook and stays for the tournament. The bonded-unicorn set-up gives an animal-loving child a creature to fall for, and the Chaos Cup gives the plot the shape of a sports season, teams, training, elemental duels, a championship to chase, which is exactly the kind of clear, escalating stakes that keep a phone-age reader turning pages. It's the first of a series, too, so the child who's in is in for years.