The Shadow Grail #1: Legacies - Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edghill

The Shadow Grail #1: Legacies
Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill
Tor Books
Copyright Date: July 6, 2010
978-0765317612

The amazon.com product description:

Who—or what—is stalking the students at Oakhurst Academy?

In the wake of the accident that killed her family, Spirit White is spirited away to Oakhurst Academy, a combination school and orphanage in the middle of Montana. There she learns she is a legacy—not only to the school, which her parents also attended, but to magic.

All the students at Oakhurst have magical powers, and although Spirit’s hasn’t manifested itself yet, the administrators insist she has one. Spirit isn’t sure she cares. Devastated by the loss of her family, she finds comfort with a group of friends: Burke Hallows, Lachlann Spears, Muirin Shae, and Adelaide Lake.

But something strange is going on at Oakhurst. Students start disappearing under mysterious circumstances, and the school seems to be trying to cover it up. Spirit and her friends must find out what’s happening—before one of them becomes the next victim…

Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill have teamed up before to write some very good books in the same world as the SERRAted Edge series, so I knew this was likely to be a good story. It was, although a rather short one, I found. I bought the book yesterday afternoon and finished it last night.

It's an interesting story, but the more I think about it, the more uncomfortable the school at Oakhurst makes me in terms of the amount of control the school has over its students. And, it seems to me that the students probably aren't going to be that well prepared for life in the regular world. Still, it's a good story, and a promising start to a new series. I'm not sure where the series title, The Shadow Grail, comes from yet, but perhaps we'll find out in the next book when it comes out. According to the excerpt in the back of this one, it seems to pick up right where Legacies leaves off.

Legacies is definitely a teen oriented book, and would probably appeal to fans of the P.C. Cast House of Night series and similar books. Older readers will probably still like it too - I did, even though I don't generally like books set in high school - even fantasy high schools.

I'm definitely looking forward to the next book in this series, whatever it is going to be called, and whenever it's due out.