Legacy

Teenager Allie is a new pupil at the prestigious Cimmeria Academy, a school for high-achieving sons and daughters of the wealthy, with a difference. The school’s emphasis is on learning, in the old fashioned way from books: computers and even mobile phones are banned, no cut and pasting your essays with the help of Google here! There’s something even more unusual about this school too. One group of elite students are members of the mysterious Night School, taking extra curricular lessons in politics and espionage and its related skills of self defence. No wonder Cimmeria’s former pupils occupy so many top positions in the civil service and even in the government.

Allie, whose regular school life has been troubled to say the least, finds a security and a camaraderie at Cimmeria that was missing from her home life. She even finds love with fellow Night School member, Carter.

Most of this is told in the first book of the ‘Nightworld’ series and by Legacy, things are starting to go badly wrong at the school. Not everyone approves of Cimmeria’s power and influence, and even some of its own are turning against their alma mater. This is where the disadvantages of teaching treachery emerge: it’s very hard to work out who your friends really are.

C J Daugherty ratchets up the tension expertly in a clever and involving thriller; she plants suspicion and weaves webs of deceit in a way that readers of Le Carré would recognise. The teenage characters are never less than believable, and the dialogue is particularly sharp. Will Allie side with the school or its enemies? Is Carter really the boy for her? Readers will want to find out.