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Shadow Grail #1
Legacies
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…
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…
308 pages, Paperback
First published June 29, 2010
74 people are currently reading
2842 people want to read
About the author
Mercedes Lackey
441 books9,533 followersMercedes entered this world on June 24, 1950, in Chicago, had a normal childhood and graduated from Purdue University in 1972. During the late 70's she worked as an artist's model and then went into the computer programming field, ending up with American Airlines in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In addition to her fantasy writing, she has written lyrics for and recorded nearly fifty songs for Firebird Arts & Music, a small recording company specializing in science fiction folk music.
"I'm a storyteller; that's what I see as 'my job'. My stories come out of my characters; how those characters would react to the given situation. Maybe that's why I get letters from readers as young as thirteen and as old as sixty-odd. One of the reasons I write song lyrics is because I see songs as a kind of 'story pill' -- they reduce a story to the barest essentials or encapsulate a particular crucial moment in time. I frequently will write a lyric when I am attempting to get to the heart of a crucial scene; I find that when I have done so, the scene has become absolutely clear in my mind, and I can write exactly what I wanted to say. Another reason is because of the kind of novels I am writing: that is, fantasy, set in an other-world semi-medieval atmosphere. Music is very important to medieval peoples; bards are the chief newsbringers. When I write the 'folk music' of these peoples, I am enriching my whole world, whether I actually use the song in the text or not.
"I began writing out of boredom; I continue out of addiction. I can't 'not' write, and as a result I have no social life! I began writing fantasy because I love it, but I try to construct my fantasy worlds with all the care of a 'high-tech' science fiction writer. I apply the principle of TANSTAAFL ['There ain't no such thing as free lunch', credited to Robert Heinlein) to magic, for instance; in my worlds, magic is paid for, and the cost to the magician is frequently a high one. I try to keep my world as solid and real as possible; people deal with stubborn pumps, bugs in the porridge, and love-lives that refuse to become untangled, right along with invading armies and evil magicians. And I try to make all of my characters, even the 'evil magicians,' something more than flat stereotypes. Even evil magicians get up in the night and look for cookies, sometimes.
"I suppose that in everything I write I try to expound the creed I gave my character Diana Tregarde in Burning Water:
"There's no such thing as 'one, true way'; the only answers worth having are the ones you find for yourself; leave the world better than you found it. Love, freedom, and the chance to do some good -- they're the things worth living and dying for, and if you aren't willing to die for the things worth living for, you might as well turn in your membership in the human race."
Also writes as Misty Lackey
Author's website
"I'm a storyteller; that's what I see as 'my job'. My stories come out of my characters; how those characters would react to the given situation. Maybe that's why I get letters from readers as young as thirteen and as old as sixty-odd. One of the reasons I write song lyrics is because I see songs as a kind of 'story pill' -- they reduce a story to the barest essentials or encapsulate a particular crucial moment in time. I frequently will write a lyric when I am attempting to get to the heart of a crucial scene; I find that when I have done so, the scene has become absolutely clear in my mind, and I can write exactly what I wanted to say. Another reason is because of the kind of novels I am writing: that is, fantasy, set in an other-world semi-medieval atmosphere. Music is very important to medieval peoples; bards are the chief newsbringers. When I write the 'folk music' of these peoples, I am enriching my whole world, whether I actually use the song in the text or not.
"I began writing out of boredom; I continue out of addiction. I can't 'not' write, and as a result I have no social life! I began writing fantasy because I love it, but I try to construct my fantasy worlds with all the care of a 'high-tech' science fiction writer. I apply the principle of TANSTAAFL ['There ain't no such thing as free lunch', credited to Robert Heinlein) to magic, for instance; in my worlds, magic is paid for, and the cost to the magician is frequently a high one. I try to keep my world as solid and real as possible; people deal with stubborn pumps, bugs in the porridge, and love-lives that refuse to become untangled, right along with invading armies and evil magicians. And I try to make all of my characters, even the 'evil magicians,' something more than flat stereotypes. Even evil magicians get up in the night and look for cookies, sometimes.
"I suppose that in everything I write I try to expound the creed I gave my character Diana Tregarde in Burning Water:
"There's no such thing as 'one, true way'; the only answers worth having are the ones you find for yourself; leave the world better than you found it. Love, freedom, and the chance to do some good -- they're the things worth living and dying for, and if you aren't willing to die for the things worth living for, you might as well turn in your membership in the human race."
Also writes as Misty Lackey
Author's website
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 281 reviews
July 24, 2011
Page 186 was good. That was when the teenagers discovered a hidden basement whose secret rooms hid objects belonging to the many teenagers who'd disappeared from their private school, as well as files marked "Tithed." Chilling.
And page 282 was pretty good too, an action scene during the fight when the teenagers set a trap for their enemies and attacked.
In a book over 300 pages long, that's a pretty poor score.
I always wonder, when I slog through a book like this, why it is that fabulous writers start churning out drivel. Do they forget the tricks they used to know? Do they stop caring? Do they grow lazy, when sales stay steady in spite of declining quality?
You'd think that a book about an orphaned magician sent to a secret magic school full of scheming teachers, interior betrayal, outside attackers, and difficult homework would be full of danger, suspense, and some good old teenage angst. In fact, that plot describes a whole series of books I seem to remember enjoying quite a lot...
But this book is flat. You've never encountered such an unsentimental bunch of orphans in all of fiction. Dead parents? So? Characters get introduced, then whisked off by the bad guys only a page or two later, before we have time to get attached to them. (And since the first abduction doesn't take place until about page 100, you spend the first section of the book unattached to any particular plot, either.) Although the main characters encounter difficult teachers, long homework assignments, and the disappearance of classmates, their reactions and emotions happen mostly off the page, so it's hard to sympathize with their troubles. Teachers show up long enough to spy on the IM messages, yell at students in martial arts, or assign 10 page papers before they vanish again, and the headmaster, who turns a new student into a mouse and attacks her in a first scene that could have led to lots of tension-filled encounters, doesn't show up again until the end of the book when he congratulates the victors of a battle he had no idea the school was fighting. Let's just say he's no Dumbledore.
Apparently the publishers found enough teens who liked to this book to get some good book jacket quotes. I wish those teenagers could instead have been shown Lackey's earlier work. Her Diana Tregarde series, supernatural mysteries written nearly two decades before the current market glut, hummed with feeling and tension on every page. If Diana wasn't fighting monsters or trying to sift clues to crack down on the evildoers, she was struggling to meet an upcoming deadline for an overdue romance novel, as her editor sent up garlic-reeking lunches when he heard she had a vampire in her apartment. In those books, Lackey wrung story out of both supernatural problems and personal problems, and kept the stories alive on every page. If you want some great urban fantasy, read those. Then, like me, you'll be wondering whatever happened to Mercedes Lackey.
And page 282 was pretty good too, an action scene during the fight when the teenagers set a trap for their enemies and attacked.
In a book over 300 pages long, that's a pretty poor score.
I always wonder, when I slog through a book like this, why it is that fabulous writers start churning out drivel. Do they forget the tricks they used to know? Do they stop caring? Do they grow lazy, when sales stay steady in spite of declining quality?
You'd think that a book about an orphaned magician sent to a secret magic school full of scheming teachers, interior betrayal, outside attackers, and difficult homework would be full of danger, suspense, and some good old teenage angst. In fact, that plot describes a whole series of books I seem to remember enjoying quite a lot...
But this book is flat. You've never encountered such an unsentimental bunch of orphans in all of fiction. Dead parents? So? Characters get introduced, then whisked off by the bad guys only a page or two later, before we have time to get attached to them. (And since the first abduction doesn't take place until about page 100, you spend the first section of the book unattached to any particular plot, either.) Although the main characters encounter difficult teachers, long homework assignments, and the disappearance of classmates, their reactions and emotions happen mostly off the page, so it's hard to sympathize with their troubles. Teachers show up long enough to spy on the IM messages, yell at students in martial arts, or assign 10 page papers before they vanish again, and the headmaster, who turns a new student into a mouse and attacks her in a first scene that could have led to lots of tension-filled encounters, doesn't show up again until the end of the book when he congratulates the victors of a battle he had no idea the school was fighting. Let's just say he's no Dumbledore.
Apparently the publishers found enough teens who liked to this book to get some good book jacket quotes. I wish those teenagers could instead have been shown Lackey's earlier work. Her Diana Tregarde series, supernatural mysteries written nearly two decades before the current market glut, hummed with feeling and tension on every page. If Diana wasn't fighting monsters or trying to sift clues to crack down on the evildoers, she was struggling to meet an upcoming deadline for an overdue romance novel, as her editor sent up garlic-reeking lunches when he heard she had a vampire in her apartment. In those books, Lackey wrung story out of both supernatural problems and personal problems, and kept the stories alive on every page. If you want some great urban fantasy, read those. Then, like me, you'll be wondering whatever happened to Mercedes Lackey.
July 27, 2016
Spirit White loses her entire hippie family in a car crash and is sent to live at Oakhurst Academy, where she learns she's a Legacy, a magician. Everyone at Oakhurst has one or more magic gifts that fall into one or more of the four schools of magic, based on the four elements - fire, water, earth and air. Poor Spirit can't seem to figure out what her power is, though--
--Yeah, her name is Spirit. Spirit. Get it? GOSH, I WONDER WHAT HER POWER IS GOING TO TURN OUT TO BE!
Substitute plot and original characters for ye olde Arthurian stand-by template, desperately try to inject a bit of youthfulness by using outdated pop-culture references and hilariously misplaced netspeak, and top it all off with the main character pausing every fourth page or so to remind us what a boring, awful place her new school is, and you've pretty much got this book summed up. Enjoyable read? Not so much. Even the main character and her "friends" begin every info-dump discussion (of which there are plenty - wouldn't want to break the flow of the story with actual adventures or anything) by talking about how crazy and unlikely and convoluted everything is.
Look, if you're the type of person who enjoys books where character-development is ignored in favour of pages upon pages of (dull) descriptions of completely irrelevant scenery, architecture, and ipods, then this is the book for you. If you enjoy books where the main character spends more time musing over the colours of her school uniform than pondering the mysterious and sinister deaths of her entire family, then stop reading this review and get a copy of this book instead. If you're just dying to read a story where the villain turns out to be the most over-used cliché in western fantasy litterature, then HUNT down a copy of this book pronto!
--Yeah, her name is Spirit. Spirit. Get it? GOSH, I WONDER WHAT HER POWER IS GOING TO TURN OUT TO BE!
Substitute plot and original characters for ye olde Arthurian stand-by template, desperately try to inject a bit of youthfulness by using outdated pop-culture references and hilariously misplaced netspeak, and top it all off with the main character pausing every fourth page or so to remind us what a boring, awful place her new school is, and you've pretty much got this book summed up. Enjoyable read? Not so much. Even the main character and her "friends" begin every info-dump discussion (of which there are plenty - wouldn't want to break the flow of the story with actual adventures or anything) by talking about how crazy and unlikely and convoluted everything is.
Look, if you're the type of person who enjoys books where character-development is ignored in favour of pages upon pages of (dull) descriptions of completely irrelevant scenery, architecture, and ipods, then this is the book for you. If you enjoy books where the main character spends more time musing over the colours of her school uniform than pondering the mysterious and sinister deaths of her entire family, then stop reading this review and get a copy of this book instead. If you're just dying to read a story where the villain turns out to be the most over-used cliché in western fantasy litterature, then HUNT down a copy of this book pronto!
November 2, 2011
Boarding schools. Myths and legend. Orphans. Wish fulfillment. Questionable authority figure behavior. Add in a little mystery, a dollop of angst and the faintest hint of teenage romance, and you’ve got Legacies, the first in a series by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill. The Shadow Grail books feature magical teen orphans who are sent to a Montana boarding school called Oakhurst – and the school is hiding secrets and peril. Wondering if Legacies ticks ALL of the cliché boxes? It does, without irony.
Spirit White survives a horrific accident that kills the rest of her family, and after extensive therapy is bundled off to a school in the middle of nowhere – one that provides for her every need and also tells her that she has latent magical abilities. While Spirit makes friends and gets to know her surroundings, everyone she knows is under threat. Will she survive?
First of all, to the rhetorical ‘question’ I ask (and the official summary asks) above – OF COURSE she survives. There’s a book two! Secondly, ohmydeargoodness, there were so many things that rubbed my skin the wrong way with this book. Stand back and let me get started with the evisceration. I mean… analysis.
There were two instances that stood out to me as clearly abusive adult behavior for no apparent reason (no plot or character development occur as a result): first in the hospital, when Spirit is berated by an orderly who is named but has no other back story. He’s clearly a placeholder, which could be okay, but he yells at our main character. Who is healing and mourning. In, you know, a hospital. The situation is just so weird and out of place that the warning bells went off immediately. And the second, with the headmaster… we have a clear instance of TSTL (Too Stupid To Live) syndrome, my dears. If you can’t see that that’s unhealthy, you have no survival skillz, and you might deserve my contempt. Moving on!
Wish fulfillment – this is one element of Legacies that brought me out of the story over and over again. I understand, the place is luxurious and they’re given everything. However, the time spent describing consumer items would be better spent on the actual setting (and would alleviate a lot of confusion in the story world).
Another thing that constantly grabbed attention away from the action was the mishandling of cultural references and teen communication. Technology use didn’t fit the age group, the IM speak was horrific, and there was an Anna Nicole Simpson reference. That’s almost too old for me, and I’m 27 (not the target market). Mess.
Put all of the mismatched elements together, and a story won’t hold well (for me), no matter how good the plot. And you know what? The plot in Legacies was the only thing that kept me reading. Total bright spot, even if you can tell from a mile away that this is a set-up book. If you’re into the whole orphan-with-magic-in-a-boarding-school thing, may I point you in the direction of Jennifer Estep’s Touch of Frost? Same clichés, but with more humor and sass. Or if you do try this series – remember that I warned you!
Recommended for: die-hard fans of magic in school settings, Mercedes Lackey enthusiasts wondering what she’s serving up to the younger set, and those with an incurable sense of optimism. Good luck!
Spirit White survives a horrific accident that kills the rest of her family, and after extensive therapy is bundled off to a school in the middle of nowhere – one that provides for her every need and also tells her that she has latent magical abilities. While Spirit makes friends and gets to know her surroundings, everyone she knows is under threat. Will she survive?
First of all, to the rhetorical ‘question’ I ask (and the official summary asks) above – OF COURSE she survives. There’s a book two! Secondly, ohmydeargoodness, there were so many things that rubbed my skin the wrong way with this book. Stand back and let me get started with the evisceration. I mean… analysis.
There were two instances that stood out to me as clearly abusive adult behavior for no apparent reason (no plot or character development occur as a result): first in the hospital, when Spirit is berated by an orderly who is named but has no other back story. He’s clearly a placeholder, which could be okay, but he yells at our main character. Who is healing and mourning. In, you know, a hospital. The situation is just so weird and out of place that the warning bells went off immediately. And the second, with the headmaster… we have a clear instance of TSTL (Too Stupid To Live) syndrome, my dears. If you can’t see that that’s unhealthy, you have no survival skillz, and you might deserve my contempt. Moving on!
Wish fulfillment – this is one element of Legacies that brought me out of the story over and over again. I understand, the place is luxurious and they’re given everything. However, the time spent describing consumer items would be better spent on the actual setting (and would alleviate a lot of confusion in the story world).
Another thing that constantly grabbed attention away from the action was the mishandling of cultural references and teen communication. Technology use didn’t fit the age group, the IM speak was horrific, and there was an Anna Nicole Simpson reference. That’s almost too old for me, and I’m 27 (not the target market). Mess.
Put all of the mismatched elements together, and a story won’t hold well (for me), no matter how good the plot. And you know what? The plot in Legacies was the only thing that kept me reading. Total bright spot, even if you can tell from a mile away that this is a set-up book. If you’re into the whole orphan-with-magic-in-a-boarding-school thing, may I point you in the direction of Jennifer Estep’s Touch of Frost? Same clichés, but with more humor and sass. Or if you do try this series – remember that I warned you!
Recommended for: die-hard fans of magic in school settings, Mercedes Lackey enthusiasts wondering what she’s serving up to the younger set, and those with an incurable sense of optimism. Good luck!
August 15, 2010
I really wish Goodreads would give us the option of 1/2 stars because I would have liked to rate this a 2.5. I found enough of it better than just "ok", but I can't really say I liked the book. What I did like was the "idea" of what the book was about. Unfortunately most of it seemed to follow a very basic formula. You have the geek (Lachlan), the goth/rebel (Muirin), the brain (Adelaide,)the jock (Burke) and the lost girl who can't find her magic (Spirit)all thrown together to fight the unknown scary thing making kids disappear. Even though I'm pretty sure the authors covered all the horrible ways the parents and siblings died for the main characters, it all started to blur together to the point I didn't care and could never really connect to any of the characters. We were given brief history and glimpses of those who "disappeared" but not enough to actually have any investment when they were written out of the story. I realize in a series it's not necessary to answer all the questions brought up...but except for answering the question of what the Big Bad actually was, we didn't get ANY answers. 98% of the book was the build up and then it was all over in a few pages. Why after terrorizing Spirit during magic testing did Doctor Ambrosius then just leave her alone for months? Why does Dr. A seem to be having "senior moments" where he doesn't seem to know who they are? Didn't the kids think it odd that in a school/orphanage for kids with magic that it was only orphans whose parents had died in some horrible way that were there? No living parents wanted their kids to learn to control magic? I think it's obvious the school is killing the parents in order to get the kids....but that's just me. I'm not sure if I'll be picking up book 2 or not yet, I can't decide if my curiosity to find out if the authors can flesh it out better in the next one will cancel out my general indifference to this one. Just makes me glad I picked this one up at the library and didn't waste money on it.
July 6, 2010
Every once and a while the fine folks at Tor will send me a title which doesn’t quite jive with my demographic. This time around I decided to give one of those titles a chance. Legacies is the start of a new YA series by collaborates Rosemary Edghill and Mercedes Lackey, who previously worked together on the Bedlam’s Bard Series over at Baen. The series opens with heroine Spirit recovering in the hospital after a car accident which left her as the only surviving member of her family. It isn’t too long before she finds out that her parents, themselves orphans, were once wards of the mysterious Oakhurst Academy and, now that she too is an orphan, Spirit has been charged to their care. Of course, Oakhurst isn’t your everyday orphanage, the students there all have magical powers and, in addition to their everyday schooling, must learn to control their powers in order to survive in the world. As if being an orphan and being confronted with the reality of magic isn’t enough Spirit, and the friends she makes at Oakhurst, but face a unknown threat that has been praying on the students of Oakhurst.
Unfortunately for Spirit, Legacies suffers from a surplus of neat ideas that never really bear too much fruit. While the mystery elements of the novel work well enough the world that the characters inhabit never manages to feel real. The characters themselves consistently manage to feel a bit flat with the rebellious teen (Muirin), the prim and proper young lady (Adeladie), the honorable jock (Burke), and the affable and near unflappable teen (Lachlan) never manage to really do anything to define themselves as individuals. Part of the problem is that the narration stays locked from Spirit’s point of view and we never get inside the thoughts of the supporting cast. Indeed some of the more interesting moments come when we leave Spirit’s perspective behind and are introduced to the novel’s threat. The authors also do their supporting cast a bit of a disservice by introducing a bit-character with a backstory and personality more interesting then the rest of the teens; namely a teen who has been “gifted” with clairvoyance since a very young age and irreparably changed by the process. A character who the main cast use and discard in their righteous quest to solve the threat to the student body.
In a school full of magic users the only person without an obvious magic gift is Spirit. It seems a bit of an odd decision and one that hints at a lot of interesting ideas, particularly in how Spirit’s “lack of magic” is revealed, but one that is never explored in depth. It does, late in the novel, allow for some cogent observations on Spirit’s part on how the training the students are receiving set them in often vicious competition with one another. What Spirits lack of a gift means for the reader is that despite being set in a school of magic users we witness very little actual magic. For me this deprives the novel one of the “magic school” genre’s greatest treasures: the sense of wonder and excitement as we, along with the main character, learn more about magic. Like I said, I found it an odd choice and one I’m uncertain I agree with.
As the cover boldly proclaims this as book one of the Shadow Grail there is a bunch of groundwork laid for exploring a greater threat then the abductions that make up the majority of Legacies‘ plot. The problem here is that all this groundwork, through hints and unanswered questions, all seemed more interesting to me than any other part of the novel. Upon arriving at the school the headmaster mentions nebulous threats and dangers that exist in the real world but the nature of those threats is never revealed or even hinted at beyond the ill-defined danger. Bizarre changes in disposition and personality in the aforementioned headmaster are readily observable but left wholly ignored. There are even hints regarding the accident that killed Spirit’s parents, something mentioned several times throughout the novel but never explored. Curiously there is even something of a tangent on parkour early in the novel but in a novel that rapidly moves to a rural environment its inclusion seems a bit strange.
In the end I felt that Legacies was more notable for what it failed to do rather than what it managed to accomplish. There are enough hints at something interesting and wondrous that the derivative plot and occasionally stiff “teen” dialogue feel more disappointing then I suspect they rightly deserve. On the other hand their is a blessed lack of vampires and the romance elements are subdued and never overshadow the plot. For all its failings the hint of the greater threat beyond what is seen here, the possibility of a greater overarching story, have me interested in what will happen next in the series. I won’t be rushing out and grabbing a sequel mind you but Legacies was a breezy read and I’d give the series another shot with the hope that there is more world building and character development then the very little seen here.
Unfortunately for Spirit, Legacies suffers from a surplus of neat ideas that never really bear too much fruit. While the mystery elements of the novel work well enough the world that the characters inhabit never manages to feel real. The characters themselves consistently manage to feel a bit flat with the rebellious teen (Muirin), the prim and proper young lady (Adeladie), the honorable jock (Burke), and the affable and near unflappable teen (Lachlan) never manage to really do anything to define themselves as individuals. Part of the problem is that the narration stays locked from Spirit’s point of view and we never get inside the thoughts of the supporting cast. Indeed some of the more interesting moments come when we leave Spirit’s perspective behind and are introduced to the novel’s threat. The authors also do their supporting cast a bit of a disservice by introducing a bit-character with a backstory and personality more interesting then the rest of the teens; namely a teen who has been “gifted” with clairvoyance since a very young age and irreparably changed by the process. A character who the main cast use and discard in their righteous quest to solve the threat to the student body.
In a school full of magic users the only person without an obvious magic gift is Spirit. It seems a bit of an odd decision and one that hints at a lot of interesting ideas, particularly in how Spirit’s “lack of magic” is revealed, but one that is never explored in depth. It does, late in the novel, allow for some cogent observations on Spirit’s part on how the training the students are receiving set them in often vicious competition with one another. What Spirits lack of a gift means for the reader is that despite being set in a school of magic users we witness very little actual magic. For me this deprives the novel one of the “magic school” genre’s greatest treasures: the sense of wonder and excitement as we, along with the main character, learn more about magic. Like I said, I found it an odd choice and one I’m uncertain I agree with.
As the cover boldly proclaims this as book one of the Shadow Grail there is a bunch of groundwork laid for exploring a greater threat then the abductions that make up the majority of Legacies‘ plot. The problem here is that all this groundwork, through hints and unanswered questions, all seemed more interesting to me than any other part of the novel. Upon arriving at the school the headmaster mentions nebulous threats and dangers that exist in the real world but the nature of those threats is never revealed or even hinted at beyond the ill-defined danger. Bizarre changes in disposition and personality in the aforementioned headmaster are readily observable but left wholly ignored. There are even hints regarding the accident that killed Spirit’s parents, something mentioned several times throughout the novel but never explored. Curiously there is even something of a tangent on parkour early in the novel but in a novel that rapidly moves to a rural environment its inclusion seems a bit strange.
In the end I felt that Legacies was more notable for what it failed to do rather than what it managed to accomplish. There are enough hints at something interesting and wondrous that the derivative plot and occasionally stiff “teen” dialogue feel more disappointing then I suspect they rightly deserve. On the other hand their is a blessed lack of vampires and the romance elements are subdued and never overshadow the plot. For all its failings the hint of the greater threat beyond what is seen here, the possibility of a greater overarching story, have me interested in what will happen next in the series. I won’t be rushing out and grabbing a sequel mind you but Legacies was a breezy read and I’d give the series another shot with the hope that there is more world building and character development then the very little seen here.
October 30, 2011
This pulled too much from Harry Potter - orphaned and sent to live at a magical school...and from there it was just boring. Spirit is mopy, understandably since her family died, but that's all really. And the plot is thin, so so thin. Anyone who has ever heard of the Wild Hunt will be annoyed at how long it takes to come up with the answer and it was too convenient that the hunt happens to be composed of ghost riders, fae SUVs, and a demon hunter, just so that each of the three pairs has some part in its destruction. And other than that there was not too much to keep a reader engaged. The characters were barely developed and stayed 2-dimensional. Burke was more interesting than most, but cast in a very simple light. Never got why Muirrin had all the weird cat nicknames and don't care. Also, every other line someone was smiling, grinning, smiling, tensely smiling...as a writer this happens, but the editor should have taken more out - make the dialogue do its own work. And there was something on page 89 I think that could have been taken very dirty and I don't think it was meant to.
December 14, 2012
Legacies is set at Oakhurst, a Hogwarts-like school for magicians. (I might have been able to forget that Oakhurst was like Hogwarts, if the authors didn't keep reminding me.) Every student at the school is an orphan, and all (or most) are children of Oakhurst graduates. Nobody questions the high mortality rate of Oakhurst grads. Every year, roughly eight students go missing, sometimes with a paper-thin cover story. (Such as getting sent to a Muggle hospital to have a broken limb repaired, instead of letting the on-campus healing mages do it, as is standard practice.) Nobody questions this. The students are pushed to be competitive at everything, and teachers go out of their way to discourage friendship groups. Nobody questions this, either. And although one of the above is resolved by the end of the story, the bizarre acceptance of all of this is never explained, nor (you guessed it!) really questioned.
The main plot does indeed follow the mystery of the vanishing students, with many, many dull digressions into how the school works. Although Oakhurst is blatantly copied from Hogwarts, it doesn't have the same sense of magic and wonder about it. This may be a result of the main character's still-dormant magical abilities. She doesn't get to participate in the really fun magical stuff, because she can't do anything yet, or even guess at what she'll be able to do. There are moments in the story that are great: the trip to the subbasement, and the final confrontation. But it's painfully obvious from early on that the is responsible, to the point where not figuring out the mystery becomes almost an idiot plot. Here's how you can tell if a plot is a little thin: if almost half of a 300 page book has nothing to do with what is meant to be the main plot, and the half that does mostly revolves around the main characters wondering vaguely what they ought to do about it. They end up discovering some really interesting stuff, but that's glossed over too quickly.
The characters themselves are... inoffensive. That's all. There isn't a real standout in the bunch. None of them annoyed me, but none of them were interesting enough that I could care about them beyond this book. Spirit's perspective was fine, but ultimately less than compelling. So no more Shadow Grail series for me. (While I'm on it, there's absolutely nothing about a grail, shadow or otherwise, anywhere in the book. I assume that will be important in later books, but it's a confusing title to slap on the whole series when it's completely irrelevent to everything that happens here.)
There was one moment early in the book that was simply astounding to me. Let me explain by summing up the trauma congo line Spirit has gone through before chapter one even begins. She's in a car accident, which kills both of her parents and her younger sister. She has no other relatives. The same accident left her with unspecified severe injuries. (She has emergency surgery, broken bones, and has to take physical therapy to be able to walk again. Obviously very severe.) While in surgery, her house mysteriously burned to the ground, destroying everything inside. She's about to be sent to an orphanage she's never heard of, in another state. And the hospital orderly thinks she's being "emo" because she's depressed? I mean, her hospital bills are paid for, so she has no reason to complain! I know that health care workers with bad bedside manner do exist, but wow.
The main plot does indeed follow the mystery of the vanishing students, with many, many dull digressions into how the school works. Although Oakhurst is blatantly copied from Hogwarts, it doesn't have the same sense of magic and wonder about it. This may be a result of the main character's still-dormant magical abilities. She doesn't get to participate in the really fun magical stuff, because she can't do anything yet, or even guess at what she'll be able to do. There are moments in the story that are great: the trip to the subbasement, and the final confrontation. But it's painfully obvious from early on that the is responsible, to the point where not figuring out the mystery becomes almost an idiot plot. Here's how you can tell if a plot is a little thin: if almost half of a 300 page book has nothing to do with what is meant to be the main plot, and the half that does mostly revolves around the main characters wondering vaguely what they ought to do about it. They end up discovering some really interesting stuff, but that's glossed over too quickly.
The characters themselves are... inoffensive. That's all. There isn't a real standout in the bunch. None of them annoyed me, but none of them were interesting enough that I could care about them beyond this book. Spirit's perspective was fine, but ultimately less than compelling. So no more Shadow Grail series for me. (While I'm on it, there's absolutely nothing about a grail, shadow or otherwise, anywhere in the book. I assume that will be important in later books, but it's a confusing title to slap on the whole series when it's completely irrelevent to everything that happens here.)
There was one moment early in the book that was simply astounding to me. Let me explain by summing up the trauma congo line Spirit has gone through before chapter one even begins. She's in a car accident, which kills both of her parents and her younger sister. She has no other relatives. The same accident left her with unspecified severe injuries. (She has emergency surgery, broken bones, and has to take physical therapy to be able to walk again. Obviously very severe.) While in surgery, her house mysteriously burned to the ground, destroying everything inside. She's about to be sent to an orphanage she's never heard of, in another state. And the hospital orderly thinks she's being "emo" because she's depressed? I mean, her hospital bills are paid for, so she has no reason to complain! I know that health care workers with bad bedside manner do exist, but wow.
April 11, 2010
I wanted to enjoy this book much more than I did. I really love Mercedes Lackey's work, so naturally I was thrilled to get my hands on this ARC. However, I found it to be cliche, predictable, and disappointing.
Three things-
1. Oakhurst is scenery porn. There's no way around it. Every time someone started describing how sumptuous this place was, I gagged.
2. Spirit? What a terrible, terrible name. You'd think she would have some kind of bearable nickname to lighten the burden. I got really, really sick of reading this name.
3. Does no one in books ever read books? I so called the Big Bad; it's obvious to anyone who's encountered it in other fantasy novels.
Three things-
1. Oakhurst is scenery porn. There's no way around it. Every time someone started describing how sumptuous this place was, I gagged.
2. Spirit? What a terrible, terrible name. You'd think she would have some kind of bearable nickname to lighten the burden. I got really, really sick of reading this name.
3. Does no one in books ever read books? I so called the Big Bad; it's obvious to anyone who's encountered it in other fantasy novels.
July 25, 2014
Rosemary Edghill is the co-author. I actually think she's the better author and has collaborated many times with Lackey.
Lot of questions left to answer in the further episodes of this DARK Hogwarts. It seems to a tie-in with the Urban Elves world already created by Lackey starting with Bedlam's Bard but I could be wrong. Very kid friendly reading which is a big fantasy market now.
Lot of questions left to answer in the further episodes of this DARK Hogwarts. It seems to a tie-in with the Urban Elves world already created by Lackey starting with Bedlam's Bard but I could be wrong. Very kid friendly reading which is a big fantasy market now.
November 2, 2010
In the past I have had some trouble reading anything that was written by Mercedes Lackey; I felt that I struggle finding a connection with this authors writings. Although, I was excited and anxious to get my hands on this book and take it for a spin. Having finished I can now say that this was not the absolute best book that I have ever read. With an enjoyable storyline I did find myself able to make progression in the book, and this being a determining factor into a books rating was beneficial to this book. Legacies carries a very unique story based on the idea for Magicians and a Magic School. It is definitely not something that we have seen much of in this new rave of supernatural books. While, I can find positives to note about this book there are still several negatives that I grasped while reading. There was not a point that I felt absorbed in the story or unable to put the book down; which leads to distractions and struggles with staying focused on the story. I believe that much of this could be related to this books characters; I could not nothing truly significant about any of the characters in this story. Even concluding the story I am numb in emotion about how I personally feel about any of them, and they seem to be something that would be easy to forget after having finished the story. Although, it is not just the characters looking at the story as a whole my consistent emotion toward this book is numb. This would be way I have rated in the middle. I do not have anything totally terrible to review, but I also can not review that it was wonderful either. There already promises more to come in this series, and I can foresee myself reading the second book, but purely due to curiosity more than interest. The curiosity would be to see if the second book had gotten any better than the first book, and to see if maybe this series will begin slow and go out with a BANG. [return]
April 24, 2024
This book reminds me of the first Percy Jackson, maybe just a couple of years older. And that isn't an insult. I thoroughly enjoyed The Lightning Thief. And I really enjoyed Legacies. You can glance through the other reviews and read lots of faults others found with the book. All of them true. But none of that stopped me from turning the pages with delight. Maybe I was just in a really good mood when I read it. Because when I stop and think about it, there isn't anything particularly new or interesting or special about Legacies. It should be a two star with the other books that I read but wouldn't recommend unless you had nothing better to do. However, I'm giving it three stars because this is my review and I can.
Yes the cliches are almost unbearable - orphan sent to magical school with unknown powers, blah, blah, blah. But one thing that I ADORED about this book is the lack of a romance. I don't spend all my time dreaming about hooking up and it is nice to read a book now and then where that isn't part of the plot. Sure, plenty of groundwork was laid for future teen drama (this is the first book in a series) but this book concentrates on friendships and monsters and such. And yes, I will be picking up the next book in the series to see how little Spirit and her friends are doing.
Yes the cliches are almost unbearable - orphan sent to magical school with unknown powers, blah, blah, blah. But one thing that I ADORED about this book is the lack of a romance. I don't spend all my time dreaming about hooking up and it is nice to read a book now and then where that isn't part of the plot. Sure, plenty of groundwork was laid for future teen drama (this is the first book in a series) but this book concentrates on friendships and monsters and such. And yes, I will be picking up the next book in the series to see how little Spirit and her friends are doing.
January 13, 2011
This series tries too hard to be Harry Potter and then, when it realizes it can't quite live up to the hype, veers away sharply and without much explanation. It tries too hard to mix in 'modern' life with magic and doesn't succeed. Instead, the characters come off bland and relatively uninteresting, interesting plot points are tossed aside when they could have been explored at greater length, and the whole book can be written off as a teeny-bopper Harry Potter. None of the characters had any depth, the plot meandered and then ended abruptly without any foresight into the characters or the situation, and the mixture of magic and modern life is absurd.
Relatively mindless fantasy garbage. Stick to writing the Elemental Mage series, Mercedes Lackey.
Relatively mindless fantasy garbage. Stick to writing the Elemental Mage series, Mercedes Lackey.
May 22, 2012
To start off it wasn’t very well written. Ex. She tried to move her arms, but she couldn’t, then tried to open her eyes, but she couldn’t do that, either. Her head really hurt. More every second. And now it hurt to breathe, too.
It really sounded as if a child was explaining things.
Then there was the shortening down of phrases that shouldn’t have been done:
Why they had to live back of beyond of everything was just one more instance of the ‘rents being holdover hippies.
It didn’t matter if you had high speed ‘net…
admin instead of administration.
He said even beer was too risky, because what if the proctors or the teachers caught someone ‘faced?
I’m not sure why those words were shortened down like that. It took me a second to put it together. I’m still not sure what ‘faced is.
Things were in quotations that just didn’t need to be.
Examples:
There was the “great hall.”
There was a “refectory.”
Each arriving student was “issued” their own laptop.
It made it seem like there really wasn’t a great hall or a refectory and the students weren’t really issued a laptop. I know she was reading the brochure and I guess the author felt the need to quote it, but we knew they weren’t Spirit’s words because she didn’t know anything about the place and was going off what the brochure said.
“organic” casseroles, which made me think they weren’t really organic casseroles. I thought the author was using quotes like a person uses air quotes to convey that it’s not true.
Things were hyphened that just didn’t need to be. Such as woman-plans, lawyer-dude, dorm-wings, freak-kids, real-turkey dinner and
”Once the demon-or-demons is inside the spell-trap . . .It-or-they will chase me . . . The spell-trap will hold it-or-them . . . You have to wait by the spell-trap for the demon-or-demons to enter it, and as soon as it-or-they’re caught . . .
Omg, he sounds like a freakin robot!
“Any minute now he was going to tell them they were Jedi Knights, or lost members of an alien race, or . . . something.”
This was the very beginning and she was already mentioning supernatural forces. I know it was sarcastic, but she shouldn’t have been guessing anything too close to the mark. A normal person wouldn’t have even guessed something like that, and it clued us in to the fact that they were going to be something supernatural.
There were so many similarities to Harry Potter that couldn’t be ignored. The school for magicians. The school having their own crest. The tricolored uniforms…skirts for girls, trousers for guys. The rules about not being out late. The guys’ quarters being in the same building but being separated on different sides. The Great Hall. Older students being allowed to run the school and order the younger ones around. Except in here they were called proctors and in Harry Potter they’re called prefects . . .big difference Lackey and Edghill, we wouldn’t ever make the connection!
Then to really copy Harry Potter some more the students compete with each other at sporting events instead of with other schools.
Oakhurst even has their own school song.
Their beds have privacy screens around them . . . kinda like the curtains on the beds at Hogwarts.
There was even a greenhouse at the school. Gee, Lackey and Edghill, why don’t you just have the kids slap on some earmuffs and pluck their mandrakes out of the pots while you’re at it?
When Muirin came bursting into the refectory with news that Seth was gone, one of the teachers tells the students to remain calm and proceed to class, and that Dr. Ambrosius would order them to their rooms to remain there if it was necessary; one of the prefects…whoops, I mean proctors takes directions well and responds to the order. All of this happens in a fashion much like that of the scene in Harry Potter when Professor Quirrell comes in with the news that a troll has been sighted in the dungeons and Dumbledore tells the students to be calm and follow the prefects to their dormitories.
The book was full of paragraph after paragraph of Spirit’s thoughts and descriptions of things. The conversations were so few and far between I lapped them up like a dog. It was a really monotonous and tedious to read through the long paragraphs.
The disappearances and bad people were all very vague. Spirit supposedly saw the creature in the road, but all she saw were black eyes. When the students disappeared they heard an engine noise, and “it didn’t sound quite right.” It was all very weird and vague.
The students come up with the idea that someone on the inside, one of the teachers, must be letting in the creatures onto the school grounds . . . much like one of the teachers in Harry Potter letting Sirius onto the grounds and helping the bad guy.
They suspected teachers, staff and students as to be the possible culprit, and I couldn’t help thinking of Harry, Ron and Hermione suspecting teachers and students to be the heir of Slitheren and trying to stop the next attacks before the monster struck again.
The authors just ripped off too many aspects of Harry Potter’s plot.
Having found no evidence, the group doesn’t know what they’re up against, so they call it the Whatever. This is creativity at its greatest.
Knowing what they now did, it seemed more likely that the “secret society” that might-or-might-not exist among the Oakhurst students was more likely to be allied with Doctor Ambrosius’s enemies and the Whatever than it was to be on the side of the Good Guys.
That someone here at Oakhurst is giving permission for the Whatever to pass the defensive wards.
And anyone at all who saw one of them in the wrong place at the wrong time—or saw something they shouldn’t, like their research notes on the Whatever could betray them innocently by accident, just by mentioning it to the wrong person.
OMG, wth is up with this paranoia that they’re going through that is just unfounded? There’s one comment about normal people not being able to get in on the school grounds because of the wards (and where have I heard about wards being put up around a school before? Hm, it wouldn’t be Harry Potter, because these authors certainly wouldn’t copy Harry Potter) and the group just pounces on this conspiracy theory that they run off willy nilly with.
Then there was the whole secret society thing that they thought existed, a secret society of wizards who fought for the cause. If those words strike a cord in your memory it’s because that was in Harry Potter too.
A lot of the book was just underdeveloped and vague. Instead of giving us the conversation in the present time Spirit would go back and reiterate something that had already happened without us knowing it. For example:
”Just because they’re keeping it a secret?” Addie had demanded indignantly, and Loch had replied: “Yeah. Think about it. We’ve got a Chess Club, a Tennis Club, a swim team, a Kendo Club, and every other kind of club and team I can think of here at Oakhurst. If there were an Honors Society for wizards-a legitimate one-don’t you think they’d tell us about that, too? If only so we could fight over who got in?”
The group had just been together right before this, but instead of adding the conversation on with that part we have to hear about it through Spirit’s thoughts.
Angie was an Air Mage, and not above using her Gift to raise a wind that would scatter your schoolwork all over your room—or out a window—or make a door slam on your hand. Dylan Williams would grab your pencil or your calculator out of your hands in class.
And I was like what? When did that happen? The author goes into absolutely no description of these people (I don’t know what these people look like or anything, and then she up and comes out with these paragraph and I’m like where did that come from?
One second the teachers were being nice, what with the martial arts teacher seeming happy about her joining his class, and then the next thing I know Spirit’s saying he called her a loser and is forcing the students to compete with each other. But I don’t actually witness it, Spirit just talks about it in an offhand manner. Most everything that takes place in this book happens without our knowledge and Spirit just brushes it over it in past tense as she’s thinking back on it. It makes the reader feel a step behind when the character just introduces things we didn’t know happened and weren’t there for.
Things were capitalized that didn’t need to be, like “Rich and Famous lifestyle,” “Bad Guys.”
Whoever was doing this wasn’t going to write down all the details of their Secret Plot and then leave them lying around loose.
There goes that unnecessary and aggravating capitalizing of words THAT DON’T NEED TO BE CAPITALIZED!
Recruit another student who could find out what they needed by magic? Suppose they picked the wrong one? Suppose it was somebody who was already a member of the secret society?
Whoa, whoa. Hold up a minute. They go from suspecting the existence of a secret society all-out believing there’s one without a scrap of evidence. She looked at fellow students and wondered if they were out to kill her.
I didn’t know what a kata was or what kendo was or what that gi outfits looks like and it was apparent that the author didn’t know either. Because all I got out of the martial arts class were things like Spirit heard the clonk of the Bokuto—the wooden kendo practice sword—against the Shinai. Bokuto were solid wood and were only supposed to be used to practice kata—not to hit anything—but Mr. Wallis didn’t seem to care.
A brief description and then we’re moving on.
sparring hand-to-hand against Nadia, and a sword-kata with Kylee—without screwing anything up.
Wow, I really got a clear mental image of what was going on. I can visualize it so clearly in my head.
The practice sessions with Burke might as well not even have happened for all that the author didn’t even tell us what happened. Ex. Spirit groaned theatrically, shaking her head, and stepped toward him on the practice mat again.
Without Burke and Loch, she didn’t think she could have borne Oakhurst at all.
Martial arts class was the only class we heard about, and it was so inadequately described it was more of an apparition or entity rather than a class she supposedly attended every day.
I found myself getting confused and rereading things because I couldn’t make sense of what was happening.
They’re talking about the Scryer, Edgar Abbott. ”His visions were as real to him as what was actually around him and nobody understood that he wasn’t crazy. The ‘drugs’ he’s on is just Ativan, and he doesn’t take it all the time.”
There was something niggling at the back of Spirit’s mind. Finally she teased it loose. “But—if he’s here—he’s a Legacy, right? Wouldn’t his parents have…” She stopped as something abruptly occurred to her. She remembered the day she’d found out about Oakhurst, traveling on the private jet with Loch, seeing “Welcome to Oakhurst” video. And she remembered what Ms.Corby had said: “Certainly you must be curious about the reasons your parents had for arranging for Oakhurst to become your guardians…the reason is simple…you are a Legacy..what this means is that your parents, one or both of them, was also raised at Oakhurst.”
I’m here because I’m a Legacy, Spirit thought.
She’d been too stunned on the plane to think of this, and afterward there’d been too many new things to take in. So either Mom or Dad—or both—were here. But that would mean they were magicians…
“He could be a Legacy without his parents having gone here,” Burke said. He smiled at her, as if he guessed her thoughts. “There’s that Other Oakhurst out there somewhere, the one where all the kids are normal.”
Why would that suddenly remind you of the fact that your parents had been to Oakhurst. And two Oakhurst schools? Where in the hell did that come from?
And then there was the whole Afternoon Tea thing that was just way too close to the parties Slughorne hosted where he invited the best students to dine with him.
And this thing: There was just a single page there at the end, something it would be easy to take out and dispose of if for some reason you were going to hand it over to someone.
What? What is all I can say to that; I just don’t understand.
Burke said it doesn’t matter what Gift you have—even if it’s something little like sensing weather patterns, you’re generally stronger and healthier and everything than non-magicians. And . . . nobody here wears contact lenses, and I . . . I haven’t even seen a single zit.
Where the heck did that come from? It’s like the author just stuck in her random thoughts whenever she was thinking them and didn’t try to find a place for them.
Kids have been disappearing for 40 years, which sets the stage for a drawn out mystery at the school that took place in a time frame short enough for one of the staff to have witnessed it. Guess what that reminds me of. You got it folks, Harry Potter! The Chamber of Secrets . . . and the kids have to find the monster before any more kids are petrified. In this case, the kids have to find out what the Whatever is in time to prevent any more deaths from happening.
She’d studied Scrying, the way she’d studied all the Mage Gifts of all the Elemental Schools, but it still seemed so unlikely. See something somewhere else than where you were, okay—a television camera could do that. But view that past and the future? That was pure science fiction.
What? What the heck is a tv camera, and could you not have come up with something better than that? Did she mean a tv?
And there were three Jedi Knights comments that just didn’t fit in at all. She was about as likely to get any of it as she was to find out that she was the last Jedi Knight. What the heck is up with the Star Wars references? They had no place in here whatsoever. I could halfway understand if they were using light sabers or if this was a book about other planets or something, but this is a book about magicians and the Jedi Knights comments were exhausted.
I was hoping for some love, but Burke apparently liked Muirin and would have more if she wasn’t so mean. I actually sensed more chemistry between Burke and Loch than anything.
Burke: ”You might like that, Loch. You need to do something besides swimming and chess. And shooting’s fun.”
“I don’t like guns,” Loch said, his smile fading as he looked away. “I don’t think they’re fun at all.”
“I didn’t—” Burke began, looking hurt.
Wow, way to make him sound like a complete girl.
Look,” Burke said, “there’s no point in fighting. Addie had a good reason for picking Eddie. Why don’t we listen to it?”
Loch smiled brilliantly at Burke. “Yeah…”
They don’t even sound like guys.
Spirit would have moments with Burke, like they’d be practicing together, walking alone together or dancing, but we got absolutely NOTHING. There were the barest of suggestions to some tension, but nothing came of it. There was really no indication that they liked each other, and one of them, usually Spirit, brought up the bad stuff they had to deal with to completely ruin the moment. They couldn’t go one conversation without bringing up that drama.
They did some half-ass research at first, and then the research just kind of got put on the backburner, even though they should have been looking into people to find out who was letting the Whatever in. They had two references to the horns, yet they did absolutely nothing with it at first. Then Muirin just stumbles upon it on her own very easily, and I’m wondering why they hadn’t done that before.
Right before the kids were killed they heard the sound of engines and there had been the mention of horns, so obviously I knew a car had been involved and that they were horned creatures. But did I see SUVs, Jeeps and pickup trucks being ridden by the Wild Hunt like the steeds and goats they used of old? No. Suffice it to say I was trifle unsatisfied at that.
I understand that this is the modern world and incorporating modern qualities into something old wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, but in here it was just stupid. Skeletal figures rode around in beat up old vehicles. How disappointing. It was just on such a low, juvenile level to me.
Students get points and demerits when they get in trouble. I was actually surprised they didn’t get points deducted from their houses.
When Dr. Ambrosius has them all tell him about what happened, he’s pleased at their services to school exactly like Dumbledore was with Harry, Ron and Hermione.
“Miss Corby, I have to say that these young persons have acted in the finest tradition of Oakhurst….And certainly there will be no demerits for any of you. Quite the contrary. Commendations all around, I should say. Yes indeed. Commendations. Splendid work. Excellent work…I’m sure I don’t need to tell you not to gossip about this. It would only upset your classmates. We wish them to think of Oakhurst as a place of safety. Of refuge. If you five have been forced to discover far too soon how fragile a refuge that is…I can only hope that strengthens your resolve to defend it on behalf of your friends. The day is coming, young warriors, when you will be called to a greater battlefield.”
Is this Dumbledore recruiting wizards to fight in the army or what? It was just so like Dumbledore being glad of the service they did to the school and awarding points to their house. The whole “place of refuge,” “keep it from the students” thing just rang from the Chamber of Secrets where people are being petrified and the school might not be safe for students anymore.
This speech was overall overdone, over the top, and weak. This was pathetic and I’m just incredulous that the authors went so far in ripping off Harry Potter so much.
I can’t go one freakin paragraph without seeing something inappropriately capitalized or hyphened. Why are things-hyphened that don’t-need-to-be? And why are Things capitalized and given special Importance when they shouldn’t be?
The authors or the editor went off the charts with the editing. They went capitalize crazy and hyphen crazy and it was driving me up the dang wall.
This is one of the most dry (there was no love, no humor, no nothing of substance,) repetitive, boring, and annoying books I’ve ever read. The writing was very poor, and the conflict of the story happened way too fast. Spirit barely got settled into the school before she had a group of friends. Then these instant friends just all of a sudden discover this scheming/intrigue plot that they go on and on about and then just ends as suddenly as it began. None of the characters had any real substance and they were majorly underdeveloped, just as the plot was.
It really sounded as if a child was explaining things.
Then there was the shortening down of phrases that shouldn’t have been done:
Why they had to live back of beyond of everything was just one more instance of the ‘rents being holdover hippies.
It didn’t matter if you had high speed ‘net…
admin instead of administration.
He said even beer was too risky, because what if the proctors or the teachers caught someone ‘faced?
I’m not sure why those words were shortened down like that. It took me a second to put it together. I’m still not sure what ‘faced is.
Things were in quotations that just didn’t need to be.
Examples:
There was the “great hall.”
There was a “refectory.”
Each arriving student was “issued” their own laptop.
It made it seem like there really wasn’t a great hall or a refectory and the students weren’t really issued a laptop. I know she was reading the brochure and I guess the author felt the need to quote it, but we knew they weren’t Spirit’s words because she didn’t know anything about the place and was going off what the brochure said.
“organic” casseroles, which made me think they weren’t really organic casseroles. I thought the author was using quotes like a person uses air quotes to convey that it’s not true.
Things were hyphened that just didn’t need to be. Such as woman-plans, lawyer-dude, dorm-wings, freak-kids, real-turkey dinner and
”Once the demon-or-demons is inside the spell-trap . . .It-or-they will chase me . . . The spell-trap will hold it-or-them . . . You have to wait by the spell-trap for the demon-or-demons to enter it, and as soon as it-or-they’re caught . . .
Omg, he sounds like a freakin robot!
“Any minute now he was going to tell them they were Jedi Knights, or lost members of an alien race, or . . . something.”
This was the very beginning and she was already mentioning supernatural forces. I know it was sarcastic, but she shouldn’t have been guessing anything too close to the mark. A normal person wouldn’t have even guessed something like that, and it clued us in to the fact that they were going to be something supernatural.
There were so many similarities to Harry Potter that couldn’t be ignored. The school for magicians. The school having their own crest. The tricolored uniforms…skirts for girls, trousers for guys. The rules about not being out late. The guys’ quarters being in the same building but being separated on different sides. The Great Hall. Older students being allowed to run the school and order the younger ones around. Except in here they were called proctors and in Harry Potter they’re called prefects . . .big difference Lackey and Edghill, we wouldn’t ever make the connection!
Then to really copy Harry Potter some more the students compete with each other at sporting events instead of with other schools.
Oakhurst even has their own school song.
Their beds have privacy screens around them . . . kinda like the curtains on the beds at Hogwarts.
There was even a greenhouse at the school. Gee, Lackey and Edghill, why don’t you just have the kids slap on some earmuffs and pluck their mandrakes out of the pots while you’re at it?
When Muirin came bursting into the refectory with news that Seth was gone, one of the teachers tells the students to remain calm and proceed to class, and that Dr. Ambrosius would order them to their rooms to remain there if it was necessary; one of the prefects…whoops, I mean proctors takes directions well and responds to the order. All of this happens in a fashion much like that of the scene in Harry Potter when Professor Quirrell comes in with the news that a troll has been sighted in the dungeons and Dumbledore tells the students to be calm and follow the prefects to their dormitories.
The book was full of paragraph after paragraph of Spirit’s thoughts and descriptions of things. The conversations were so few and far between I lapped them up like a dog. It was a really monotonous and tedious to read through the long paragraphs.
The disappearances and bad people were all very vague. Spirit supposedly saw the creature in the road, but all she saw were black eyes. When the students disappeared they heard an engine noise, and “it didn’t sound quite right.” It was all very weird and vague.
The students come up with the idea that someone on the inside, one of the teachers, must be letting in the creatures onto the school grounds . . . much like one of the teachers in Harry Potter letting Sirius onto the grounds and helping the bad guy.
They suspected teachers, staff and students as to be the possible culprit, and I couldn’t help thinking of Harry, Ron and Hermione suspecting teachers and students to be the heir of Slitheren and trying to stop the next attacks before the monster struck again.
The authors just ripped off too many aspects of Harry Potter’s plot.
Having found no evidence, the group doesn’t know what they’re up against, so they call it the Whatever. This is creativity at its greatest.
Knowing what they now did, it seemed more likely that the “secret society” that might-or-might-not exist among the Oakhurst students was more likely to be allied with Doctor Ambrosius’s enemies and the Whatever than it was to be on the side of the Good Guys.
That someone here at Oakhurst is giving permission for the Whatever to pass the defensive wards.
And anyone at all who saw one of them in the wrong place at the wrong time—or saw something they shouldn’t, like their research notes on the Whatever could betray them innocently by accident, just by mentioning it to the wrong person.
OMG, wth is up with this paranoia that they’re going through that is just unfounded? There’s one comment about normal people not being able to get in on the school grounds because of the wards (and where have I heard about wards being put up around a school before? Hm, it wouldn’t be Harry Potter, because these authors certainly wouldn’t copy Harry Potter) and the group just pounces on this conspiracy theory that they run off willy nilly with.
Then there was the whole secret society thing that they thought existed, a secret society of wizards who fought for the cause. If those words strike a cord in your memory it’s because that was in Harry Potter too.
A lot of the book was just underdeveloped and vague. Instead of giving us the conversation in the present time Spirit would go back and reiterate something that had already happened without us knowing it. For example:
”Just because they’re keeping it a secret?” Addie had demanded indignantly, and Loch had replied: “Yeah. Think about it. We’ve got a Chess Club, a Tennis Club, a swim team, a Kendo Club, and every other kind of club and team I can think of here at Oakhurst. If there were an Honors Society for wizards-a legitimate one-don’t you think they’d tell us about that, too? If only so we could fight over who got in?”
The group had just been together right before this, but instead of adding the conversation on with that part we have to hear about it through Spirit’s thoughts.
Angie was an Air Mage, and not above using her Gift to raise a wind that would scatter your schoolwork all over your room—or out a window—or make a door slam on your hand. Dylan Williams would grab your pencil or your calculator out of your hands in class.
And I was like what? When did that happen? The author goes into absolutely no description of these people (I don’t know what these people look like or anything, and then she up and comes out with these paragraph and I’m like where did that come from?
One second the teachers were being nice, what with the martial arts teacher seeming happy about her joining his class, and then the next thing I know Spirit’s saying he called her a loser and is forcing the students to compete with each other. But I don’t actually witness it, Spirit just talks about it in an offhand manner. Most everything that takes place in this book happens without our knowledge and Spirit just brushes it over it in past tense as she’s thinking back on it. It makes the reader feel a step behind when the character just introduces things we didn’t know happened and weren’t there for.
Things were capitalized that didn’t need to be, like “Rich and Famous lifestyle,” “Bad Guys.”
Whoever was doing this wasn’t going to write down all the details of their Secret Plot and then leave them lying around loose.
There goes that unnecessary and aggravating capitalizing of words THAT DON’T NEED TO BE CAPITALIZED!
Recruit another student who could find out what they needed by magic? Suppose they picked the wrong one? Suppose it was somebody who was already a member of the secret society?
Whoa, whoa. Hold up a minute. They go from suspecting the existence of a secret society all-out believing there’s one without a scrap of evidence. She looked at fellow students and wondered if they were out to kill her.
I didn’t know what a kata was or what kendo was or what that gi outfits looks like and it was apparent that the author didn’t know either. Because all I got out of the martial arts class were things like Spirit heard the clonk of the Bokuto—the wooden kendo practice sword—against the Shinai. Bokuto were solid wood and were only supposed to be used to practice kata—not to hit anything—but Mr. Wallis didn’t seem to care.
A brief description and then we’re moving on.
sparring hand-to-hand against Nadia, and a sword-kata with Kylee—without screwing anything up.
Wow, I really got a clear mental image of what was going on. I can visualize it so clearly in my head.
The practice sessions with Burke might as well not even have happened for all that the author didn’t even tell us what happened. Ex. Spirit groaned theatrically, shaking her head, and stepped toward him on the practice mat again.
Without Burke and Loch, she didn’t think she could have borne Oakhurst at all.
Martial arts class was the only class we heard about, and it was so inadequately described it was more of an apparition or entity rather than a class she supposedly attended every day.
I found myself getting confused and rereading things because I couldn’t make sense of what was happening.
They’re talking about the Scryer, Edgar Abbott. ”His visions were as real to him as what was actually around him and nobody understood that he wasn’t crazy. The ‘drugs’ he’s on is just Ativan, and he doesn’t take it all the time.”
There was something niggling at the back of Spirit’s mind. Finally she teased it loose. “But—if he’s here—he’s a Legacy, right? Wouldn’t his parents have…” She stopped as something abruptly occurred to her. She remembered the day she’d found out about Oakhurst, traveling on the private jet with Loch, seeing “Welcome to Oakhurst” video. And she remembered what Ms.Corby had said: “Certainly you must be curious about the reasons your parents had for arranging for Oakhurst to become your guardians…the reason is simple…you are a Legacy..what this means is that your parents, one or both of them, was also raised at Oakhurst.”
I’m here because I’m a Legacy, Spirit thought.
She’d been too stunned on the plane to think of this, and afterward there’d been too many new things to take in. So either Mom or Dad—or both—were here. But that would mean they were magicians…
“He could be a Legacy without his parents having gone here,” Burke said. He smiled at her, as if he guessed her thoughts. “There’s that Other Oakhurst out there somewhere, the one where all the kids are normal.”
Why would that suddenly remind you of the fact that your parents had been to Oakhurst. And two Oakhurst schools? Where in the hell did that come from?
And then there was the whole Afternoon Tea thing that was just way too close to the parties Slughorne hosted where he invited the best students to dine with him.
And this thing: There was just a single page there at the end, something it would be easy to take out and dispose of if for some reason you were going to hand it over to someone.
What? What is all I can say to that; I just don’t understand.
Burke said it doesn’t matter what Gift you have—even if it’s something little like sensing weather patterns, you’re generally stronger and healthier and everything than non-magicians. And . . . nobody here wears contact lenses, and I . . . I haven’t even seen a single zit.
Where the heck did that come from? It’s like the author just stuck in her random thoughts whenever she was thinking them and didn’t try to find a place for them.
Kids have been disappearing for 40 years, which sets the stage for a drawn out mystery at the school that took place in a time frame short enough for one of the staff to have witnessed it. Guess what that reminds me of. You got it folks, Harry Potter! The Chamber of Secrets . . . and the kids have to find the monster before any more kids are petrified. In this case, the kids have to find out what the Whatever is in time to prevent any more deaths from happening.
She’d studied Scrying, the way she’d studied all the Mage Gifts of all the Elemental Schools, but it still seemed so unlikely. See something somewhere else than where you were, okay—a television camera could do that. But view that past and the future? That was pure science fiction.
What? What the heck is a tv camera, and could you not have come up with something better than that? Did she mean a tv?
And there were three Jedi Knights comments that just didn’t fit in at all. She was about as likely to get any of it as she was to find out that she was the last Jedi Knight. What the heck is up with the Star Wars references? They had no place in here whatsoever. I could halfway understand if they were using light sabers or if this was a book about other planets or something, but this is a book about magicians and the Jedi Knights comments were exhausted.
I was hoping for some love, but Burke apparently liked Muirin and would have more if she wasn’t so mean. I actually sensed more chemistry between Burke and Loch than anything.
Burke: ”You might like that, Loch. You need to do something besides swimming and chess. And shooting’s fun.”
“I don’t like guns,” Loch said, his smile fading as he looked away. “I don’t think they’re fun at all.”
“I didn’t—” Burke began, looking hurt.
Wow, way to make him sound like a complete girl.
Look,” Burke said, “there’s no point in fighting. Addie had a good reason for picking Eddie. Why don’t we listen to it?”
Loch smiled brilliantly at Burke. “Yeah…”
They don’t even sound like guys.
Spirit would have moments with Burke, like they’d be practicing together, walking alone together or dancing, but we got absolutely NOTHING. There were the barest of suggestions to some tension, but nothing came of it. There was really no indication that they liked each other, and one of them, usually Spirit, brought up the bad stuff they had to deal with to completely ruin the moment. They couldn’t go one conversation without bringing up that drama.
They did some half-ass research at first, and then the research just kind of got put on the backburner, even though they should have been looking into people to find out who was letting the Whatever in. They had two references to the horns, yet they did absolutely nothing with it at first. Then Muirin just stumbles upon it on her own very easily, and I’m wondering why they hadn’t done that before.
Right before the kids were killed they heard the sound of engines and there had been the mention of horns, so obviously I knew a car had been involved and that they were horned creatures. But did I see SUVs, Jeeps and pickup trucks being ridden by the Wild Hunt like the steeds and goats they used of old? No. Suffice it to say I was trifle unsatisfied at that.
I understand that this is the modern world and incorporating modern qualities into something old wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, but in here it was just stupid. Skeletal figures rode around in beat up old vehicles. How disappointing. It was just on such a low, juvenile level to me.
Students get points and demerits when they get in trouble. I was actually surprised they didn’t get points deducted from their houses.
When Dr. Ambrosius has them all tell him about what happened, he’s pleased at their services to school exactly like Dumbledore was with Harry, Ron and Hermione.
“Miss Corby, I have to say that these young persons have acted in the finest tradition of Oakhurst….And certainly there will be no demerits for any of you. Quite the contrary. Commendations all around, I should say. Yes indeed. Commendations. Splendid work. Excellent work…I’m sure I don’t need to tell you not to gossip about this. It would only upset your classmates. We wish them to think of Oakhurst as a place of safety. Of refuge. If you five have been forced to discover far too soon how fragile a refuge that is…I can only hope that strengthens your resolve to defend it on behalf of your friends. The day is coming, young warriors, when you will be called to a greater battlefield.”
Is this Dumbledore recruiting wizards to fight in the army or what? It was just so like Dumbledore being glad of the service they did to the school and awarding points to their house. The whole “place of refuge,” “keep it from the students” thing just rang from the Chamber of Secrets where people are being petrified and the school might not be safe for students anymore.
This speech was overall overdone, over the top, and weak. This was pathetic and I’m just incredulous that the authors went so far in ripping off Harry Potter so much.
I can’t go one freakin paragraph without seeing something inappropriately capitalized or hyphened. Why are things-hyphened that don’t-need-to-be? And why are Things capitalized and given special Importance when they shouldn’t be?
The authors or the editor went off the charts with the editing. They went capitalize crazy and hyphen crazy and it was driving me up the dang wall.
This is one of the most dry (there was no love, no humor, no nothing of substance,) repetitive, boring, and annoying books I’ve ever read. The writing was very poor, and the conflict of the story happened way too fast. Spirit barely got settled into the school before she had a group of friends. Then these instant friends just all of a sudden discover this scheming/intrigue plot that they go on and on about and then just ends as suddenly as it began. None of the characters had any real substance and they were majorly underdeveloped, just as the plot was.
April 25, 2014
In reality of this book is rated 2.5 stars. I like it, but not enough for 3 stars.
If I had to give any opinion about this book, I'd say that it read like a first draft. There was too much attention paid to the scenery and not enough paid to character development. The plot really didn't get started until page 90. The list goes on.
I’ve been a huge Mercedes Lackey fan for years, and when I saw that she had started a new series, I jumped at it. I glanced at the back cover, saw that it was a young adult novel that had magic in it, and got really excited.
And then I actually started reading the book.
Let's start with the name. Spirit White. I get that her parents were hippies, but for somebody who spends so much of the book complaining about her name and commiserating with other kids who have strange names, you'd think that she would have either come up with a nickname she liked better or simply told everybody to call her Vicky, since her middle name is Victory. Strange names can be okay if they're handled properly, but this one wasn't. Also, the whole White thing was a very heavy-handed attempt to make the reader associate Spirit with the good guys. There was even a line of dialogue that went something along the lines of, "There is darkness coming, Miss White." Ugh.
And then there is the school, Oakhurst. It's a boarding school out in the middle of nowhere specifically for magical orphans. I can't even type that without laughing. Because what tugs more heartstrings than an orphan? An entire school of orphans! To be fair, I can understand why you wouldn't want orphaned people with magic just out in the world, because that could be bad. But where do with the other magical people get trained? Because as far as I understood it, only orphans go to this school.
Side note, I just realized that I'm not actually sure what kind of people these are. It says a lot of times that they have magical powers, but they don't actually classify themselves as magicians or witches or wizards or anything like that, at least as far as I remember. And I just finished reading the book today. That seems like a very strange oversight.
But back to Oakhurst. It's big, it's fancy, it's expensive, and there was more scenery about the school then there was description about any of the characters in this book. I can tell you what the school colors are, and what extracurricular activities are offered, but I can't actually tell you what any of the people look like. I know that Spirit is blonde and Addie has dark hair and Muirin has short hair and Burke is a big guy, but other than that, I don't know what the characters look like. Except that I'm pretty sure that everyone in this book is white.
When it comes to the plot, it actually wasn't bad. There is a school for magically inclined orphans that is located out in the middle of nowhere. Spirit is an orphan, so she goes to the boarding school, where she will remain until she turns 21. But something strange is happening at the school. People are disappearing, and none of the authority figures seem to care why. Or maybe (gasp!) they know why and they're keeping it secret from all the students. So Spirit and her plucky little gang decide to find out what's going on behind these disappearances.
It's not the newest plot in the world, but there's nothing especially wrong with it. At least in theory. But the way this book was executed isn't satisfactory. Or perhaps it's just that there are too many cliches in this book.
Spirit is the only person in her family who survived a horrific car crash. She was in the hospital for months undergoing physical therapy. The nurse in the beginning tells her that she wouldn't be walking if the school hadn't paid for the therapy, but she never mentions being weak or having any kind of physical trouble in the book until the very end, during the big fight scene.
The teachers at Oakhurst are not only negligent, they are downright cruel. The students don't trust them at all. There is no authority figure, not even the older students, who Spirit and her friends can turn to. I think that was intended to make the characters rely only on themselves, but honestly it made the story kind of dull. There was a lot of talk about needing to go and do more research, and a lot of moments where they are meeting in the library. Not exactly fascinating stuff. And every time they met in the library it seemed like we got more detail about what the library actually looked like. Which was completely unnecessary.
Honestly, if they had spent half the time and effort that they spent on writing the scenery, and put it towards actual character development, it would have improved things tenfold.
My final and biggest complaint about this book is the way the teenage angle was handled. This book tries too hard to be young and hip, and it fails. Pop-culture references are thrown in willy-nilly and they stick out like a sore thumb. It's so bad that it completely interrupted my reading. And this happened over and over and over again. Even the teenage angst didn't feel right. It wasn't consistent. I don't think I've ever said this before, but these authors were too old for the characters they were trying to write. Either that or they didn't do enough research. This book is an excellent example of how I think that older adults view teenagers.
I don't think I will read any of the follow-up books, because I honestly don't expect them to get any better. None of the characters in this book caught my attention. I didn't empathize with any of them because there wasn't enough substance to their characters for me to empathize with. There was a point at the beginning of the novel where Spirit talks about how she and Loch like the same things – TV, books, music – but they didn't tell the reader what kinds of things they liked. There is talk about music and iPods in the book without actually referencing any music. Maybe this was done on purpose with Spirit so that teen girls could put themselves in her shoes like what commonly happens in romance novels, but there wasn't really any romance for that to make sense. There was a little light flirtation, but that was all.
The lack of intense romance is actually one of my favorite things about this book. I have a major complaint about books that focus a lot on teenage romance and how it's the end-all be-all. This book doesn't have that. This book is more about a bunch of friends who are trying to find out where their other friends disappeared to.
I thought it was actually going to list everything that is wrong in this book, but it's just too depressing to do that. I really wanted to love this book. And I didn't.
If I had to give any opinion about this book, I'd say that it read like a first draft. There was too much attention paid to the scenery and not enough paid to character development. The plot really didn't get started until page 90. The list goes on.
I’ve been a huge Mercedes Lackey fan for years, and when I saw that she had started a new series, I jumped at it. I glanced at the back cover, saw that it was a young adult novel that had magic in it, and got really excited.
And then I actually started reading the book.
Let's start with the name. Spirit White. I get that her parents were hippies, but for somebody who spends so much of the book complaining about her name and commiserating with other kids who have strange names, you'd think that she would have either come up with a nickname she liked better or simply told everybody to call her Vicky, since her middle name is Victory. Strange names can be okay if they're handled properly, but this one wasn't. Also, the whole White thing was a very heavy-handed attempt to make the reader associate Spirit with the good guys. There was even a line of dialogue that went something along the lines of, "There is darkness coming, Miss White." Ugh.
And then there is the school, Oakhurst. It's a boarding school out in the middle of nowhere specifically for magical orphans. I can't even type that without laughing. Because what tugs more heartstrings than an orphan? An entire school of orphans! To be fair, I can understand why you wouldn't want orphaned people with magic just out in the world, because that could be bad. But where do with the other magical people get trained? Because as far as I understood it, only orphans go to this school.
Side note, I just realized that I'm not actually sure what kind of people these are. It says a lot of times that they have magical powers, but they don't actually classify themselves as magicians or witches or wizards or anything like that, at least as far as I remember. And I just finished reading the book today. That seems like a very strange oversight.
But back to Oakhurst. It's big, it's fancy, it's expensive, and there was more scenery about the school then there was description about any of the characters in this book. I can tell you what the school colors are, and what extracurricular activities are offered, but I can't actually tell you what any of the people look like. I know that Spirit is blonde and Addie has dark hair and Muirin has short hair and Burke is a big guy, but other than that, I don't know what the characters look like. Except that I'm pretty sure that everyone in this book is white.
When it comes to the plot, it actually wasn't bad. There is a school for magically inclined orphans that is located out in the middle of nowhere. Spirit is an orphan, so she goes to the boarding school, where she will remain until she turns 21. But something strange is happening at the school. People are disappearing, and none of the authority figures seem to care why. Or maybe (gasp!) they know why and they're keeping it secret from all the students. So Spirit and her plucky little gang decide to find out what's going on behind these disappearances.
It's not the newest plot in the world, but there's nothing especially wrong with it. At least in theory. But the way this book was executed isn't satisfactory. Or perhaps it's just that there are too many cliches in this book.
Spirit is the only person in her family who survived a horrific car crash. She was in the hospital for months undergoing physical therapy. The nurse in the beginning tells her that she wouldn't be walking if the school hadn't paid for the therapy, but she never mentions being weak or having any kind of physical trouble in the book until the very end, during the big fight scene.
The teachers at Oakhurst are not only negligent, they are downright cruel. The students don't trust them at all. There is no authority figure, not even the older students, who Spirit and her friends can turn to. I think that was intended to make the characters rely only on themselves, but honestly it made the story kind of dull. There was a lot of talk about needing to go and do more research, and a lot of moments where they are meeting in the library. Not exactly fascinating stuff. And every time they met in the library it seemed like we got more detail about what the library actually looked like. Which was completely unnecessary.
Honestly, if they had spent half the time and effort that they spent on writing the scenery, and put it towards actual character development, it would have improved things tenfold.
My final and biggest complaint about this book is the way the teenage angle was handled. This book tries too hard to be young and hip, and it fails. Pop-culture references are thrown in willy-nilly and they stick out like a sore thumb. It's so bad that it completely interrupted my reading. And this happened over and over and over again. Even the teenage angst didn't feel right. It wasn't consistent. I don't think I've ever said this before, but these authors were too old for the characters they were trying to write. Either that or they didn't do enough research. This book is an excellent example of how I think that older adults view teenagers.
I don't think I will read any of the follow-up books, because I honestly don't expect them to get any better. None of the characters in this book caught my attention. I didn't empathize with any of them because there wasn't enough substance to their characters for me to empathize with. There was a point at the beginning of the novel where Spirit talks about how she and Loch like the same things – TV, books, music – but they didn't tell the reader what kinds of things they liked. There is talk about music and iPods in the book without actually referencing any music. Maybe this was done on purpose with Spirit so that teen girls could put themselves in her shoes like what commonly happens in romance novels, but there wasn't really any romance for that to make sense. There was a little light flirtation, but that was all.
The lack of intense romance is actually one of my favorite things about this book. I have a major complaint about books that focus a lot on teenage romance and how it's the end-all be-all. This book doesn't have that. This book is more about a bunch of friends who are trying to find out where their other friends disappeared to.
I thought it was actually going to list everything that is wrong in this book, but it's just too depressing to do that. I really wanted to love this book. And I didn't.
March 3, 2011
Review originally posted at: http://supernaturalsnark.blogspot.com...
MY THOUGHTS
Legacies is a story not entirely original in nature, focusing on a boarding school for students with magical abilities, but despite its familiar premise, Ms. Lackey and Ms. Edghill infuse their world with a lingering darkness we've not encountered before. Instead of being a nurturing environment designed to foster trust and understanding of the use of magic, Oakhurst Academy has a rather sinister edge where students are discouraged from forming tight friendships and are forced into rigorous training programs with instructors who don't spout words of encouragement, but rather speak harsher truths presumably designed to hasten improvement. As a result of this unnerving situation, we feel Spirit and the other student's sense of profound isolation much more vividly, the remote locale of the school echoed in the cold teaching methods and lack of student-instructor positive interaction, and we are left with an intentional sense of unease as the physical and emotional coolness mists from the pages and sinks deep into our bones, chilling us to the core as magic and mystery unfold.
Though the suspense surrounding the disappearing students is well-executed with clues deftly woven throughout, this is the type of story that's engaging while we're reading–keeping us questioning how each revelation fits with the one before–but when we finish we come to realize we don't have nearly as much information as we thought we did. We scan the final page with the hope a book dealing with magic might have the answers we seek secretly hidden and is just waiting to reveal them to us until we've wished for them hard enough. While we do discover the who/what is behind the disappearances and a fraction of the why, so many of the fundamental issues remain shrouded in darkness, denying us the warmth understanding provides and leaving us shivering on the outside wondering when of if we'll be brought into the fold.
Because this is the first book in a series, some unanswered questions are to be expected and ultimately necessary so the series can continue, but in addition to several facets of the disappearance mystery remaining completely unknown, we also learn very little about the purpose for the school itself. We are told initially it's to help train students in their magical abilities so they can defend themselves against those who would use magic to harm them, but we are given no details about either the aforementioned villains or the impending war we're told is coming. Why is this war happening now? Have the two factions always been at war? Furthermore, the title of this series is the "Shadow Grail" novels, yet in this first installment no mention is made of a Shadow Grail outside of its appearance on the school's coat of arms, leaving us with still another question as to why this object is important enough as to name the series, but not important enough to introduce in this first book.
Overall, Legacies is an interesting read, one where a dark plot is beautifully revealed and where a romance is not the primary focus, but rather is refreshingly replaced by the bonds of friendship between five gifted individuals. Because the story is engrossing while we're in the middle of it, the long line of unanswered questions only becoming bothersome upon conclusion, it is a series worth continuing in the hope so much information is withheld purposefully. We walk away from this tale longing to shed our jackets, hats, and gloves, leaving them behind in the cold environment of the unknown as we are finally welcomed inside Oakhurst Academy to become privy to her secrets and the secrets of the people she houses.
Rating: 3/5
MY THOUGHTS
Legacies is a story not entirely original in nature, focusing on a boarding school for students with magical abilities, but despite its familiar premise, Ms. Lackey and Ms. Edghill infuse their world with a lingering darkness we've not encountered before. Instead of being a nurturing environment designed to foster trust and understanding of the use of magic, Oakhurst Academy has a rather sinister edge where students are discouraged from forming tight friendships and are forced into rigorous training programs with instructors who don't spout words of encouragement, but rather speak harsher truths presumably designed to hasten improvement. As a result of this unnerving situation, we feel Spirit and the other student's sense of profound isolation much more vividly, the remote locale of the school echoed in the cold teaching methods and lack of student-instructor positive interaction, and we are left with an intentional sense of unease as the physical and emotional coolness mists from the pages and sinks deep into our bones, chilling us to the core as magic and mystery unfold.
Though the suspense surrounding the disappearing students is well-executed with clues deftly woven throughout, this is the type of story that's engaging while we're reading–keeping us questioning how each revelation fits with the one before–but when we finish we come to realize we don't have nearly as much information as we thought we did. We scan the final page with the hope a book dealing with magic might have the answers we seek secretly hidden and is just waiting to reveal them to us until we've wished for them hard enough. While we do discover the who/what is behind the disappearances and a fraction of the why, so many of the fundamental issues remain shrouded in darkness, denying us the warmth understanding provides and leaving us shivering on the outside wondering when of if we'll be brought into the fold.
Because this is the first book in a series, some unanswered questions are to be expected and ultimately necessary so the series can continue, but in addition to several facets of the disappearance mystery remaining completely unknown, we also learn very little about the purpose for the school itself. We are told initially it's to help train students in their magical abilities so they can defend themselves against those who would use magic to harm them, but we are given no details about either the aforementioned villains or the impending war we're told is coming. Why is this war happening now? Have the two factions always been at war? Furthermore, the title of this series is the "Shadow Grail" novels, yet in this first installment no mention is made of a Shadow Grail outside of its appearance on the school's coat of arms, leaving us with still another question as to why this object is important enough as to name the series, but not important enough to introduce in this first book.
Overall, Legacies is an interesting read, one where a dark plot is beautifully revealed and where a romance is not the primary focus, but rather is refreshingly replaced by the bonds of friendship between five gifted individuals. Because the story is engrossing while we're in the middle of it, the long line of unanswered questions only becoming bothersome upon conclusion, it is a series worth continuing in the hope so much information is withheld purposefully. We walk away from this tale longing to shed our jackets, hats, and gloves, leaving them behind in the cold environment of the unknown as we are finally welcomed inside Oakhurst Academy to become privy to her secrets and the secrets of the people she houses.
Rating: 3/5
May 12, 2014
*Genre* Young Adult
*Rating* 3.0
*My Thoughts*
After a devastating car accident takes away 15 year old Spirit White's family and a fire destroys her home while she's in the hospital recovering, the mysterious Oakhurst Academy steps in and welcomes her into their fold. Apparently one of her parents once went to school there, therefore she is a so called legacy, and is also a powerful magician, which isn't necessarily news Spirit wants to hear right now.
From what I've been reading recently, Oakhurst Academy has been compared to Harry Potter's Hogwarts due in large part to magic playing a central role in the series and the characters involved. It actually doesn't matter how you dress it up, OA is a 21st century school, with all the amenities for the students to take advantage of, while Hogwarts will always be the standard bearer for years to come.
I have to say this about Legacies, it is nice that Spirit starts out as just another regular scrub like you and me without any special powers, or abilities, or the need to shift, or drink blood, or becoming the next destroyer of the world. I have been angsting over the fact that there aren't enough normal kids in Young Adult Paranormal for awhile now.
The fact that Spirit starts out this series as a normal teen with lots, and lots of issues that need to be resolved, including the fact that she doesn't necessarily trust anyone at Oakhurst to have her best interests at heart, or the fact that she is apparently the only one in the ENTIRE school who doesn't have any magical powers, is honestly not such a bad thing for me to read about. I also appreciated the fact that Lackey and co-writer Rosemary Edghill didn't throw an insta-lust moment, or 3 way love triangle in to muddle things up even further.
I liked the addition of Spirit's new group of friends in Burke Hallows, Lachlann "Loch" Spears, Muirin Shae, and Adelaide Lake. It is this group of friends who realize that there is something really wrong with the school, and that apparently none of the teachers, or staff care enough to do anything about it. It is Spirit and friends who dive deep into the mystery, and come up with a way to stop the EVIL from taking more students from the school.
Legacies isn't necessarily an action packed story, nor is Spirit a brilliantly written heroine. The story takes its time getting going, and leaves lots of questions to be answered. Since this is the first novel of the 4 book series called Shadow Grail, I will be interested in seeing where the writing duo heads next. Who at the school is really involved? Will Spirit actually come into some real ass-kicking powers, or will she have to rely on others to get by? Will there be any romantic connections, especially between Spirit and Burke? Were the things that killed Spirit and other students families taken care of, or are they still lurking in the background?
Published July 6th 2010 by Tor Books (first published June 29th 2010)
*Rating* 3.0
*My Thoughts*
After a devastating car accident takes away 15 year old Spirit White's family and a fire destroys her home while she's in the hospital recovering, the mysterious Oakhurst Academy steps in and welcomes her into their fold. Apparently one of her parents once went to school there, therefore she is a so called legacy, and is also a powerful magician, which isn't necessarily news Spirit wants to hear right now.
From what I've been reading recently, Oakhurst Academy has been compared to Harry Potter's Hogwarts due in large part to magic playing a central role in the series and the characters involved. It actually doesn't matter how you dress it up, OA is a 21st century school, with all the amenities for the students to take advantage of, while Hogwarts will always be the standard bearer for years to come.
I have to say this about Legacies, it is nice that Spirit starts out as just another regular scrub like you and me without any special powers, or abilities, or the need to shift, or drink blood, or becoming the next destroyer of the world. I have been angsting over the fact that there aren't enough normal kids in Young Adult Paranormal for awhile now.
The fact that Spirit starts out this series as a normal teen with lots, and lots of issues that need to be resolved, including the fact that she doesn't necessarily trust anyone at Oakhurst to have her best interests at heart, or the fact that she is apparently the only one in the ENTIRE school who doesn't have any magical powers, is honestly not such a bad thing for me to read about. I also appreciated the fact that Lackey and co-writer Rosemary Edghill didn't throw an insta-lust moment, or 3 way love triangle in to muddle things up even further.
I liked the addition of Spirit's new group of friends in Burke Hallows, Lachlann "Loch" Spears, Muirin Shae, and Adelaide Lake. It is this group of friends who realize that there is something really wrong with the school, and that apparently none of the teachers, or staff care enough to do anything about it. It is Spirit and friends who dive deep into the mystery, and come up with a way to stop the EVIL from taking more students from the school.
Legacies isn't necessarily an action packed story, nor is Spirit a brilliantly written heroine. The story takes its time getting going, and leaves lots of questions to be answered. Since this is the first novel of the 4 book series called Shadow Grail, I will be interested in seeing where the writing duo heads next. Who at the school is really involved? Will Spirit actually come into some real ass-kicking powers, or will she have to rely on others to get by? Will there be any romantic connections, especially between Spirit and Burke? Were the things that killed Spirit and other students families taken care of, or are they still lurking in the background?
Published July 6th 2010 by Tor Books (first published June 29th 2010)
July 20, 2010
In the past I have had some trouble reading anything that was written by Mercedes Lackey; I felt that I struggle finding a connection with this authors writings. Although, I was excited and anxious to get my hands on this book and take it for a spin. Having finished I can now say that this was not the absolute best book that I have ever read. With an enjoyable storyline I did find myself able to make progression in the book, and this being a determining factor into a books rating was beneficial to this book. Legacies carries a very unique story based on the idea for Magicians and a Magic School. It is definitely not something that we have seen much of in this new rave of supernatural books. While, I can find positives to note about this book there are still several negatives that I grasped while reading. There was not a point that I felt absorbed in the story or unable to put the book down; which leads to distractions and struggles with staying focused on the story. I believe that much of this could be related to this books characters; I could not nothing truly significant about any of the characters in this story. Even concluding the story I am numb in emotion about how I personally feel about any of them, and they seem to be something that would be easy to forget after having finished the story. Although, it is not just the characters looking at the story as a whole my consistent emotion toward this book is numb. This would be way I have rated in the middle. I do not have anything totally terrible to review, but I also can not review that it was wonderful either. There already promises more to come in this series, and I can foresee myself reading the second book, but purely due to curiosity more than interest. The curiosity would be to see if the second book had gotten any better than the first book, and to see if maybe this series will begin slow and go out with a BANG.
November 12, 2011
This book did not hold my interest well at all. The story seemed underdeveloped, I didn't find myself caring about any of the characters at all and the editing was really bad. Words were constantly being repeated either in the same sentence or the sentence right after it. They used the word "emo" too much and for the wrong reason sometimes. I thought the ending would redeem the book a little but it ended up just being disappointing.
The only reason I would consider continuing to read this series is because I'm curious to find out just what Spirit's gift is. But I don't think it's focused on enough for me to actually justify reading more.
The only reason I would consider continuing to read this series is because I'm curious to find out just what Spirit's gift is. But I don't think it's focused on enough for me to actually justify reading more.
June 18, 2012
its been years since ive read this, and i dont really remember how i felt about it.
i do remember some things,though.
i thought it was stupid when the headmaster, or w/e he was turned them into rats and then he became an owl or some type of bird.
i remember the main character not even getting her power during this book.which was aggravating.
The Hunt riding around on a jeep was so stupid.
idk if id continue on with this series.
i dont even remember if there was love in here.i kinda think there wasnt.
i do remember some things,though.
i thought it was stupid when the headmaster, or w/e he was turned them into rats and then he became an owl or some type of bird.
i remember the main character not even getting her power during this book.which was aggravating.
The Hunt riding around on a jeep was so stupid.
idk if id continue on with this series.
i dont even remember if there was love in here.i kinda think there wasnt.
July 19, 2010
This book started out with a similar premise to a couple other YA urban fantasies. Despite that and my hatred of snow, it had real emotion and a great backdrop in Montana. The story that follows the development of friendship and "family" is good along with the fear of being different that everyone goes through. In addition, there was a good mystery that I look forward to seeing how the story develops and the students grow in the next book.
January 7, 2020
If you read the description and think this sounds like Harry Potter for teens, you’re not far off the mark. It’s hard to avoid comparisons to that series when part of your premise is, “Person goes to a school for magic-users.” Doubly so when your main character is an orphan. So that colours the interpretation of the book right from the get-go; it’s just impossible to avoid.
That being said, there are plenty of departures from that concept that make accusations of it being derivative pretty much pointless. I can think of a handful of books that share similar starting points. That doesn’t make them all Harry Potter clones.
(Speaking of being derivative, though, I do feel compelled to mention that characters using guns loaded with rock salt seemed lifted wholesale from Supernatural. A clever idea, and I’m sure it’s been done elsewhere as well, but given that I personally saw it done first on that show, it seemed like a bit of a stale idea.)
The story follows Spirit White, and if that name causes you to roll your eyes, just know that it does the same thing for Spirit herself. After her parents and younger sister died in a tragic car crash, she found herself to be a Legacy, someone with a place at Oakhurst Academy. At least one of her parents attended school there, and due to a not-at-all-creepy policy, the school keeps track of all their former students and makes arrangements for their children should anything similarly tragic happen. Oakhurst, as you could tell from previous comments, is a school specifically for children who can do magic, so yes, you have a boarding school full of magic orphans. But students keep disappearing from Oakhurst. Not often, just a few a year. Most of the students accept this as a fact of life. Some troubled kids run away, so find their fortunes elsewhere. Nobody thinks twice about it. They have enough to do. But a suspicious Spirit and her friends think there’s more to it, and so set out to find out what’s happening to the missing Oakhurst students.
The biggest problem with this book is that it feels like half a novel. Spirit and friends do get to the bottom of why the students disappeared, but that felt more like a single episode of a TV show rather than a complete story arc. There were hints dropped of a much larger plot, one that seemed far more interesting than what everyone else was dwelling on. Why the headmaster of the school has a split personality, going from yelling tyrant to kindly doddering old man depending on the scene. Why, after what seems like a fairly routine disappearance, everyone starts acting like a war is beginning A war may be beginning, but those disappearances were either related to the Wild Hunt plotline, or else that whole plotline (and thus over half the novel) was a diversion and just pure coincidence. Why Spirit’s magic doesn’t manifest.
Why nobody seems to have put together that for a parent to have gone to Oakhurst in the first place, all of their family must have died too, leaving this giant bloody trail across generations.
So while the story and the twists on lore were interesting, it felt unsatisfactory and incomplete. And that was quite a let-down. Likely it was done as sequel-bait, leaving some dangling plot-threads to be picked up later, and I’m sure this book will appeal to people looking for some supernatural adventure involving kids with tragic pasts in an elite boarding school. As fluff fiction goes, it really wasn’t that bad. But I did expect more from it, especially with the tantalizing hints that were being dropped.
Another thing I do want to point out is that this book suffered from some weird assumptions and editing mistakes. Assumption-wise, I’m referring largely to a throw-away scene in which a character talks about creating holy water, and how it’s easy to make because really it just involves water being blessed by a believer. And Spirit’s thoughts essentially go, “Huh, I didn’t know he was a Christian.” At no point was a specific religion brought into it, and blessed water exists as part of different practices in multiple non-Christian religions. So it was a weird assumption, and I’m not sure if it speaks more to character bias or author bias. Could go either way.
As for editing mistakes… Oakhurst was refered to as Oakdale at one point. Spirit’s little sister, Phoenix, was called by the nickname Fee once, at the very end of the book, and after Spirit has thought about her dozens of times through the novel. This is the sort of stuff I expect to be caught in the editing stage of a book, and here, it just slipped by. And before anyone asks, no, it wasn’t an ARC or an uncorrected proof that I read. It was a finished release copy. These errors made it to the final version. Small, and also easy to ignore because they don’t affect the story, but they speak of poor quality control.
So overall? A decent YA adventure. It had its problems, but it was still pretty fun to read, and I’ll probably continue with the rest of the series just to see how the larger story plays out. But after this introduction, I don’t expect great things from it. I expect some fun, some quick reads, and a story that entertains but it largely forgettable, a take-it-or-leave-it series that is neither meant to nor does it leave an impact. Good for passing the time, good for those looking for some comfort fiction, but not for those looking for a book to really wow them.
That being said, there are plenty of departures from that concept that make accusations of it being derivative pretty much pointless. I can think of a handful of books that share similar starting points. That doesn’t make them all Harry Potter clones.
(Speaking of being derivative, though, I do feel compelled to mention that characters using guns loaded with rock salt seemed lifted wholesale from Supernatural. A clever idea, and I’m sure it’s been done elsewhere as well, but given that I personally saw it done first on that show, it seemed like a bit of a stale idea.)
The story follows Spirit White, and if that name causes you to roll your eyes, just know that it does the same thing for Spirit herself. After her parents and younger sister died in a tragic car crash, she found herself to be a Legacy, someone with a place at Oakhurst Academy. At least one of her parents attended school there, and due to a not-at-all-creepy policy, the school keeps track of all their former students and makes arrangements for their children should anything similarly tragic happen. Oakhurst, as you could tell from previous comments, is a school specifically for children who can do magic, so yes, you have a boarding school full of magic orphans. But students keep disappearing from Oakhurst. Not often, just a few a year. Most of the students accept this as a fact of life. Some troubled kids run away, so find their fortunes elsewhere. Nobody thinks twice about it. They have enough to do. But a suspicious Spirit and her friends think there’s more to it, and so set out to find out what’s happening to the missing Oakhurst students.
The biggest problem with this book is that it feels like half a novel. Spirit and friends do get to the bottom of why the students disappeared, but that felt more like a single episode of a TV show rather than a complete story arc. There were hints dropped of a much larger plot, one that seemed far more interesting than what everyone else was dwelling on. Why the headmaster of the school has a split personality, going from yelling tyrant to kindly doddering old man depending on the scene. Why, after what seems like a fairly routine disappearance, everyone starts acting like a war is beginning A war may be beginning, but those disappearances were either related to the Wild Hunt plotline, or else that whole plotline (and thus over half the novel) was a diversion and just pure coincidence. Why Spirit’s magic doesn’t manifest.
Why nobody seems to have put together that for a parent to have gone to Oakhurst in the first place, all of their family must have died too, leaving this giant bloody trail across generations.
So while the story and the twists on lore were interesting, it felt unsatisfactory and incomplete. And that was quite a let-down. Likely it was done as sequel-bait, leaving some dangling plot-threads to be picked up later, and I’m sure this book will appeal to people looking for some supernatural adventure involving kids with tragic pasts in an elite boarding school. As fluff fiction goes, it really wasn’t that bad. But I did expect more from it, especially with the tantalizing hints that were being dropped.
Another thing I do want to point out is that this book suffered from some weird assumptions and editing mistakes. Assumption-wise, I’m referring largely to a throw-away scene in which a character talks about creating holy water, and how it’s easy to make because really it just involves water being blessed by a believer. And Spirit’s thoughts essentially go, “Huh, I didn’t know he was a Christian.” At no point was a specific religion brought into it, and blessed water exists as part of different practices in multiple non-Christian religions. So it was a weird assumption, and I’m not sure if it speaks more to character bias or author bias. Could go either way.
As for editing mistakes… Oakhurst was refered to as Oakdale at one point. Spirit’s little sister, Phoenix, was called by the nickname Fee once, at the very end of the book, and after Spirit has thought about her dozens of times through the novel. This is the sort of stuff I expect to be caught in the editing stage of a book, and here, it just slipped by. And before anyone asks, no, it wasn’t an ARC or an uncorrected proof that I read. It was a finished release copy. These errors made it to the final version. Small, and also easy to ignore because they don’t affect the story, but they speak of poor quality control.
So overall? A decent YA adventure. It had its problems, but it was still pretty fun to read, and I’ll probably continue with the rest of the series just to see how the larger story plays out. But after this introduction, I don’t expect great things from it. I expect some fun, some quick reads, and a story that entertains but it largely forgettable, a take-it-or-leave-it series that is neither meant to nor does it leave an impact. Good for passing the time, good for those looking for some comfort fiction, but not for those looking for a book to really wow them.
August 25, 2010
It took me a bit to get into this book. And it frustrated how long it took the characters to figure out the protagonist. However, the longer I read, the more I got into the book. By the time I finished, I found I was looking forward to reading the sequel. There is just so much more left to the story.
November 19, 2019
3.5 stars.
I checked this out from the library not realizing I'd put it on my tbr shelf at some point. I appreciated a lot about this book, not the least was the emphasis on friendship. I've been burned a lot when it comes to reading YA but this was a pleasant surprise.
ETA I looked at some reviews and was a bit surprised by what I saw emphasized, so I'll expand a little bit. I liked that we could see a budding chosen family developing on the page, because that's one of my fave things in fiction and IRL. It reminds me of some adult urban fantasy in that respect. However, the rest of the story reads more modern fantasy than urban fantasy so I can see where the stylistic differences between the genres might be jarring.
I liked that we weren't hit over the head with a romance first thing. I can see potential on the page but not the magical instalove that's infected all YA (instalove is NOT my fave, but even if I didn't dislike it I think I'd have gotten tired of how much there is these days).
I liked that the main character's difference in the story wasn't treated as lacking by her friends, but as a possible asset. I know I'm projecting about my own ADHD... Yeah, projected a bit of my experiences there.
I liked that it wasn't perfect. There's no cliffhanger but there are questions left to be answered.
I was less of a fan of how...Eurocentric it was. The students, the magic, the... everything. But based in the authors it wasn't THAT unexpected to me. I enjoy both of them, they just use European (primarily Western European and mostly British Isles) folklore as the basis for most of their stuff I've read. I've gotten spoiled over recent years with more diverse books written with folklore from all over the world as its foundation. But that doesn't negate my enjoyment of this book.
I think people throw around the phrase "plot hole" to describe things that aren't actually plot *holes* but authorial choices. It's totally legit to not like something. It's also valid to think something is poorly written. It's not unreasonable to want every question answered by the end of the book. Rolling one's eyes at "convenient" plot twists and/or character skills? Fair. But those things aren't plot holes. Just a pet peeve of mine that I've been known to rant extensively about.
Lastly, this story is written in an older style of YA imo. It's a style I have liked in the past and in this instance, but if you're more used to more current YA fashions it may not be your thing. I think I'd give this book to my friends' kids, so it's a recommend from me.
I checked this out from the library not realizing I'd put it on my tbr shelf at some point. I appreciated a lot about this book, not the least was the emphasis on friendship. I've been burned a lot when it comes to reading YA but this was a pleasant surprise.
ETA I looked at some reviews and was a bit surprised by what I saw emphasized, so I'll expand a little bit. I liked that we could see a budding chosen family developing on the page, because that's one of my fave things in fiction and IRL. It reminds me of some adult urban fantasy in that respect. However, the rest of the story reads more modern fantasy than urban fantasy so I can see where the stylistic differences between the genres might be jarring.
I liked that we weren't hit over the head with a romance first thing. I can see potential on the page but not the magical instalove that's infected all YA (instalove is NOT my fave, but even if I didn't dislike it I think I'd have gotten tired of how much there is these days).
I liked that the main character's difference in the story wasn't treated as lacking by her friends, but as a possible asset. I know I'm projecting about my own ADHD... Yeah, projected a bit of my experiences there.
I liked that it wasn't perfect. There's no cliffhanger but there are questions left to be answered.
I was less of a fan of how...Eurocentric it was. The students, the magic, the... everything. But based in the authors it wasn't THAT unexpected to me. I enjoy both of them, they just use European (primarily Western European and mostly British Isles) folklore as the basis for most of their stuff I've read. I've gotten spoiled over recent years with more diverse books written with folklore from all over the world as its foundation. But that doesn't negate my enjoyment of this book.
I think people throw around the phrase "plot hole" to describe things that aren't actually plot *holes* but authorial choices. It's totally legit to not like something. It's also valid to think something is poorly written. It's not unreasonable to want every question answered by the end of the book. Rolling one's eyes at "convenient" plot twists and/or character skills? Fair. But those things aren't plot holes. Just a pet peeve of mine that I've been known to rant extensively about.
Lastly, this story is written in an older style of YA imo. It's a style I have liked in the past and in this instance, but if you're more used to more current YA fashions it may not be your thing. I think I'd give this book to my friends' kids, so it's a recommend from me.
March 8, 2024
The book had an amazing plot, but the author had some missing points in my opinion.
1. Spirt did not manifest an ability or power. Now this scene could have really improved the book. For example if she had some power that had to do with her bleeding. This power could be new and cause her to keep it a secret. Then when there was a big problem or fight she could accidentally use it.
2. Spirt’s relationships were not very well explained. I did not understand her love relationship and I really did think she would end up with Loch. Her friends could have had more intricate introductions to better understand them. Her family was also poorly explained I did not understand her sister, mother, or father.
3. The book seemed to be switching between the characters that it was following. This made me confused and it made the book very difficult to follow. I thought that Spirt was going to be the main character, but these changes made me question that.
Other: There are other points but they are minor and have more to do with the writing style.
Keep in mind that this book had an amazing plot that was well thought through. Thought there are some negative points this book I truly enjoyed it and would recommend it to readers about 10 to 13 or younger since it talks about how Spirt copes with her family dying. When I started reading this book I thought it was going to be a dystopian story but it was actually pretty understanding. All in all I think this book was quite enjoyable and hope others will enjoy it!
Mercedes Lackey
Legacies
1. Spirt did not manifest an ability or power. Now this scene could have really improved the book. For example if she had some power that had to do with her bleeding. This power could be new and cause her to keep it a secret. Then when there was a big problem or fight she could accidentally use it.
2. Spirt’s relationships were not very well explained. I did not understand her love relationship and I really did think she would end up with Loch. Her friends could have had more intricate introductions to better understand them. Her family was also poorly explained I did not understand her sister, mother, or father.
3. The book seemed to be switching between the characters that it was following. This made me confused and it made the book very difficult to follow. I thought that Spirt was going to be the main character, but these changes made me question that.
Other: There are other points but they are minor and have more to do with the writing style.
Keep in mind that this book had an amazing plot that was well thought through. Thought there are some negative points this book I truly enjoyed it and would recommend it to readers about 10 to 13 or younger since it talks about how Spirt copes with her family dying. When I started reading this book I thought it was going to be a dystopian story but it was actually pretty understanding. All in all I think this book was quite enjoyable and hope others will enjoy it!
Mercedes Lackey
Legacies
March 1, 2020
Spirit White doesn't want to think about the accident that killed her family. She doesn't want to think about what she saw that night. It was impossible. Even after lawyers show up and say her parents have named the Oakhurst Trust as her guardian and she will be living at the Oakhurst Academy in Montana she doesn't want to think about.
Even when Doctor Ambrosius proves to her that magic is real. After he tells her that Oakhurst is a school for people with magic and they must be trained because a war is coming, she still won't think about it.
While she makes actual friends at Oakhurst, she hates it there - the structure, the lack of privacy, the forced competition. She doesn't understand why no one is paying attention to the fact that students are disappearing. Finally she gets her friends to see there is an issue and they all start working to solve the mystery.
Our 5 heroes, lead by Spirit, are well-drawn, despite the fact that they each step into a high school stereotype like jock, goth, over-achiever, rich boy and hippie fringe girl. Each of them starts there but then goes beyond. They are determined to find the answer and protect each other and their classmates.
Even when you learn about the magic, it is a modern world these kids live in. The mythology in this first book creeps in slowly, which makes it all the more appropriate to the story. Like the kids, the readers slowly learn that this threat is much older than anyone can imagine.
This is a great foundation for the series. I am looking forward to more.
Even when Doctor Ambrosius proves to her that magic is real. After he tells her that Oakhurst is a school for people with magic and they must be trained because a war is coming, she still won't think about it.
While she makes actual friends at Oakhurst, she hates it there - the structure, the lack of privacy, the forced competition. She doesn't understand why no one is paying attention to the fact that students are disappearing. Finally she gets her friends to see there is an issue and they all start working to solve the mystery.
Our 5 heroes, lead by Spirit, are well-drawn, despite the fact that they each step into a high school stereotype like jock, goth, over-achiever, rich boy and hippie fringe girl. Each of them starts there but then goes beyond. They are determined to find the answer and protect each other and their classmates.
Even when you learn about the magic, it is a modern world these kids live in. The mythology in this first book creeps in slowly, which makes it all the more appropriate to the story. Like the kids, the readers slowly learn that this threat is much older than anyone can imagine.
This is a great foundation for the series. I am looking forward to more.
February 16, 2021
A depressing version of Hogwarts in which none of the characters have much personality and are in fact all quite 2D. Spirit is whiny and cant find her magic, Burke is a combat mage and by far the nicest character, Muirrin is obnoxious all the time for no real reason, Allie has no personality but is an incredibly wealthy and nice millionairess, and Loch is pretty bland - but can hide his true feeling very well. All the kids are orphans living at the highly restrictive but lush Oakhurst Academy. All the teachers are creeps and borderline (if not actually) abusive, including the headmaster who appears to be violently bipolar, and the weapons teacher who is a pure sadist. Kids start disappearing, and our crew decides to investigate but not much really comes of it, and Muirrin suddenly announces that they have been taken by the Wild Hunt - which I could have told you the first time the first missing kid mentioned 'horns'. Do none of these kids read fantasy or mythology???? Have they never read the Elemental Masters series?
there was too much foreshadowing in this book, and while an interesting concept, not enough character development. I only liked Burke, the others I could take or leave, which is a shame as Spirit is obviously meant to be the protagonist.
Despite the moans, I will still read the rest of the series because they only take about an hour and a half, and I am determined to read all of Lackeys books:-)
there was too much foreshadowing in this book, and while an interesting concept, not enough character development. I only liked Burke, the others I could take or leave, which is a shame as Spirit is obviously meant to be the protagonist.
Despite the moans, I will still read the rest of the series because they only take about an hour and a half, and I am determined to read all of Lackeys books:-)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 21, 2021
How typical....
While it's a hallowed tradition in YA fiction that the intrepid hero(es) appear to know more than the adults around them, in the end it typically turns out that the adults DID have a clue but didn't interfere for one reason or another.
This is not the case here. The adults are all one dimensional with no depth, and honestly after finishing the book I couldn't tell you much about any of them, except that apparently they've all been lobotomized in a way that only left cruelty in its wake.
The other characters aren't much better. At times the main character almost seems to notice how oblivious the others are, but it's quickly passed over with no explanation.
All in all, a very disappointing read for something with Mercedes Lackey's name on it, and Edghill isn't normally this bad either. If I bother to read the next book at all, it will solely be in the hope that there actually is an explanation for the lack of character depth. A confusion spell cast on the whole school perhaps...
While it's a hallowed tradition in YA fiction that the intrepid hero(es) appear to know more than the adults around them, in the end it typically turns out that the adults DID have a clue but didn't interfere for one reason or another.
This is not the case here. The adults are all one dimensional with no depth, and honestly after finishing the book I couldn't tell you much about any of them, except that apparently they've all been lobotomized in a way that only left cruelty in its wake.
The other characters aren't much better. At times the main character almost seems to notice how oblivious the others are, but it's quickly passed over with no explanation.
All in all, a very disappointing read for something with Mercedes Lackey's name on it, and Edghill isn't normally this bad either. If I bother to read the next book at all, it will solely be in the hope that there actually is an explanation for the lack of character depth. A confusion spell cast on the whole school perhaps...
February 13, 2019
I always enjoy this author, the reading is easy but not boring. She's adds just the right amount of description and you find yourself flowing through the book at a good speed.
The only thing I'm not overlyenjoying is, you know the main character (spirit white) is going to be something great and although I will admit I've only read this book in the series but it appears she's never going to learn to harness any real magic, to have a magical book where the main character doesn't actually do any magic is interesting but not ideal. Others may feel differently but for me I don't mind latent ability but I do desire ability. I may find when I read the next 3 books that she does indeed learn what magical class she's from but I'm not going to hold my breath. All in all the book is very well written, enjoyable to read and ideal to fill the spots while you wait for that next book in the series of your choice.
The only thing I'm not overlyenjoying is, you know the main character (spirit white) is going to be something great and although I will admit I've only read this book in the series but it appears she's never going to learn to harness any real magic, to have a magical book where the main character doesn't actually do any magic is interesting but not ideal. Others may feel differently but for me I don't mind latent ability but I do desire ability. I may find when I read the next 3 books that she does indeed learn what magical class she's from but I'm not going to hold my breath. All in all the book is very well written, enjoyable to read and ideal to fill the spots while you wait for that next book in the series of your choice.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 20, 2017
Legacies by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill is the first book in the Shadow Grail novels.
It took me a chapter or so to be fully engaged in this book but it carried me away after that. Keep in mind that it's about teenagers and don't expect it to get too frightening although the main characters are in mortal danger.
Characters, rather than plot, are what hook me on a book and I liked these kids. I also liked the way they fit together as a group solving a mystery.
There were times when it hung on the precipice of imitation -- and then Spirit would have some wry thought about Hogwart's or some other book or movie. She got there first before I could fill out a similar comparison. Which, actually, made the book more interesting instead of less.
I enjoyed it. I would recommend it for young teens and up.
It took me a chapter or so to be fully engaged in this book but it carried me away after that. Keep in mind that it's about teenagers and don't expect it to get too frightening although the main characters are in mortal danger.
Characters, rather than plot, are what hook me on a book and I liked these kids. I also liked the way they fit together as a group solving a mystery.
There were times when it hung on the precipice of imitation -- and then Spirit would have some wry thought about Hogwart's or some other book or movie. She got there first before I could fill out a similar comparison. Which, actually, made the book more interesting instead of less.
I enjoyed it. I would recommend it for young teens and up.
January 2, 2022
entertaining, fast-paced, brooding , menacing, mysterious
From NoveList: "both male and female protagonists (whether human or otherwise sentient creatures) are always strong-willed and good-hearted characters. These characters grow and change, but ultimately triumph, because they adhere to a moral code and are respectful of others' claim to civility and compassion even in the midst of their own trials."
Also: "A coming-of-age theme appears frequently in Lackey's books, focusing on the character's struggle to overcome a horrific situation and balance the dictates of society against the preferences of the individual."
And: "The sense of morality that pervades her work and the concept of a price to be paid for every use of magic, as well as the cost of maintaining freedom and justice, also echo the best in noir film and writing"
From NoveList: "both male and female protagonists (whether human or otherwise sentient creatures) are always strong-willed and good-hearted characters. These characters grow and change, but ultimately triumph, because they adhere to a moral code and are respectful of others' claim to civility and compassion even in the midst of their own trials."
Also: "A coming-of-age theme appears frequently in Lackey's books, focusing on the character's struggle to overcome a horrific situation and balance the dictates of society against the preferences of the individual."
And: "The sense of morality that pervades her work and the concept of a price to be paid for every use of magic, as well as the cost of maintaining freedom and justice, also echo the best in noir film and writing"
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