I loved the Summoners series by this author, but unfortunately Taran Matharu completely failed me with this new series. Sure it has a lot of action, but the characters, the universe, the plot and the overall feeling of epicness is just not there. Lot of things felt totally blank to me and I hate to say it because the guy seem to me like a good guy and an author with potential, but this one wasn't for me. It felt young and clichés, I understand this is middle-grade, so the fact that it felt young to me is not totally abnormal, but the Summoner wasn't feeling like that. The overall premises and mystery was promising, but the mystery feel very overstretch and even if we learn a bit in the last 15 pages, it was not enough for me. I won't continue this series. I will give the next Matharu series a try when it eventually came out, but for the Contender... I'm out!