Red Queen

Red Queen is a young adult dystopian fantasy romance novel by the American writer Victoria Aveyard. It was published in February 2015 and was her first novel and the first in a series. Three sequels followed: Glass Sword, King's Cage and War Storm.

The setting is a country divided by blood. Silvers have supernatural abilities that give them wealth and something close to divinity, while Reds are poor, work as servants and are usually conscripted into a war after their eighteenth birthday if they have no job or apprenticeship. Mare has been stealing to help her family survive, and her friend's conscription is what forces her to act.

Her discovery that she has a power while carrying Red blood is the impossibility the state cannot tolerate, so the king hides it by presenting her as a lost Silver princess and betrothing her to one of his sons. That arrangement puts her inside the elite while she is secretly helping the Scarlet Guard, the leaders of a Red rebellion, and the plot turns on the danger of the double role rather than on the discovery of her ability.