Zodiac Academy: The Awakening — Zodiac Academy Book 1

Zodiac Academy: The Awakening introduces twin sisters Tory and Darcy Vega — two ordinary girls living in poverty in Chicago who discover that they are Fae royalty, heirs to the throne of Solaria, a world of magic ruled by the stars.

Whisked away to Zodiac Academy, a prestigious school where Fae students develop their astrological powers, the Vega twins immediately encounter the four Heirs — the most powerful students at the academy and the children of the realm’s ruling families. The Heirs have every reason to want the Vega twins to fail: if the twins claim their throne, the Heirs’ families lose power. What follows is an enemies-to-lovers dark academy story on a grand scale.

The series is co-written by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti, two British self-publishing authors who have become one of the most commercially successful duos in the romantasy genre. The Zodiac Academy series has sold millions of copies, driven largely by BookTok and Kindle Unlimited readership.

The astrological magic system — where Fae powers are determined by their star sign, with each sign offering different elemental or ability-based powers — is one of the series’ most original elements. It creates a consistent internal logic that the authors develop extensively across the full series.

The Awakening is primarily setup: it establishes the world, the central conflict, and the relationships that will drive the next seven books. Readers who find the Heirs’ antagonism frustrating early on are advised to persist — the character development that follows is the payoff the first book is building toward.