Legacy

Gr 8 Up—From the moment Katy Jessevar, 16, arrives unwillingly at her Massachusetts boarding school, sent there by her father, everyone recognizes her and calls her by another name—Ainsworth—the school's name. Her classmates instantly dislike her, especially cute Peter. Katy learns that her ancestors founded the school and that they were one of the most powerful witch families in town, and that many of the students are descended from these original witches. Her mother was an oracle who saw visions of an evil Darkness. When Katy was six, her mother went crazy and tried to kill Peter's little brother Eric before killing herself. Eric survived but suffered brain damage. Katy discovers that she's inherited magical powers as well. She falls for Peter but he says that they can never be together, and Katy can't understand why. She also starts having a recurring nightmare in which Peter is being tortured. The witch families in town believe that the Darkness is coming after they begin to see harbingers in the form of dead birds and sinkholes. Can Katy prevent the Darkness from destroying them all? The unsettling and unique plot details and well-drawn secondary characters make this novel stand out from others in the genre. The relationships among the characters grow and change as the story progresses, and the conflict among the witch families is believable, as is Katy's strained relationship with her father and his manipulative girlfriend.—Sharon Rawlins, New Jersey State Library, Trenton