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Shadow Grail #1 Legacies Mercedes Lackey Rosemary Edghill Books

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Shadow Grail #1 Legacies Mercedes Lackey Rosemary Edghill Books

Liked it - didn't love it.
I wasn't sure if I'd like this as it is geared towards younger readers, but having read the authors' collaborations before, I thought I'd give it a shot.
I'm glad I did, as I found it an enjoyable read. This is actually more similar to Kelly Armstrong's Darkest Powers series than to Harry Potter, though in all three the youngsters must band together to solve problems the adults around them can't or won't handle. However, in this series the children are all orphans, are kept isolated at the school, and have no sources of information about magic - or anything else! - except what the school provides. So,can the school itself be trusted?
I was very caught up in reading the book and would like to read the next one when it comes out - but I did not immediately re-read it and I haven't found myself dwelling on the characters or the world created.


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Shadow Grail #1 Legacies Mercedes Lackey Rosemary Edghill Books Reviews

I got this book because I have enjoyed works by both of the authors, and was really hooked into the story (despite it being fantasy and not exactly realistic).

I rated this book as 5 stars, but want to add that I got books #2 and #3 recently and was not nearly as impressed. It could be intentional literary style, but there seemed to be too much disjointedness and dropped story lines (could be explained by the flight, stressed teenage protagonists - maybe), but I am a bit sorry I got hooked into this series.
I love Mercedes Lackey as an author and her Legacies series seems to get overlooked in the mass of Young Adult books of the same vein. I really like the plot, which mixes the expected high school drama with Arthurian mythology. Looking forward to reading the rest.
I'm a fan of these authors, and this book was fine, if not as interesting as other series (e.g., Valdemar). A girl is orphaned, then sent to a special private school for kids with magic powers. Most of these stories have no cell phones or internet, which makes them seem that much more unreal, but how can a book keep up with the rapid turnover in the currently favored social media sites? These authors solve the problem by giving this private school very strict rules, a stringent firewall, and private texting software, so these teens can text a little more like real teens.
The first in a new YA series by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill, LEGACIES tells the story of Spirit White. After an accident that kills her entire family, Spirit finds out she's a legacy of the prestigious but very mysterious academy, Oakhurst, set in the middle of nowhere. Spirit is baffled, since her parents never mentioned the place, but as she has no where else to go, she gets in the super-plush limo that escorts her from the hospital to a private jet to her very chi-chi new school and home. Once there, she meets with the head of the school who emphasizes, in quite a dramatic way, that legacy actually means "You've got magic" and this school teaches kids how to use it.

Though the thought of "Oh, lord, not another book set in a mysterious school for magical beings" did cross my mind when I found out about Oakhurst, I had little trouble getting into the story. While it's got a lot of familiar elements to it, LEGACIES sets itself apart by the lingering unease and sense of impending trouble. Students are not encouraged to form lasting bonds or strong friendships. Teachers and administrators lurk. Students disappear, never to be heard from again. Like Spirit, I didn't really know who to trust.

And, yes, Spirit does have friends. Once they realize that there's strange happenings at the school, threatening them and their classmates, and decide to do something about it, they also realize that they have to do it all on the down-low so they don't get caught and/or conveniently disappear. Everyone in Spirit's crew of friends has powers of some sort. Everyone, that is, except for Spirit. However, she deals with this disability admirably, using her brains to figure out some of what's wrong at Oakhurst. She's a character with great potential, potential that isn't fully developed in this novel.

Of course, this is the first in a series so, while the main plot arc for this particular novel is concluded (thank goodness, no cliffhanger!), there are plenty of questions and hints at a deeper, wider series arc. I'll definitely pick up the next novel which comes out in July of this year, so I won't have to wait too long to find out what happens next.
I thought I'd try one of these, even though I figured that it was going to be a little adolescent/romantic/social problem-ish for me. Well, guess what? Much more engaging than I expected, although still pretty thinly plotted.

First off, I don't see why there is any discussion of whether this is a Harry Potter clone. This is nothing like Harry Potter, which had a complete magical world and a sense that it was totally divorced from any particular time or contemporary problems. In "Legacies" the kids are all very modern and all very much of this time and this society. Heck, it's closer to "Gossip Girls" than "Potter".

That said, it isn't "Gossip Girls", even though that's what I expected. The characters have more appeal, more depth, and more "normal" personality than what I have found in the mean girl social books.

On the other hand, it also had a lot less magic. It almost has emerging "magical abilities" as more a metaphor for just being an adolescent. In fact, once it goes all out magical with the Great Hunt, it actually becomes less compelling.

So, the upshot is that we have a group of reasonably appealing teens coming to grips with a confusing world, without parents and without trust in the adults around them. There are magical overtones and romantic elements, and sort of a plot and sort of a mystery, and maybe that's all we need. (And, no one is as annoying or predictable or as heavily breathing as those "Twilight" people.) Not a bad read after all.
Liked it - didn't love it.
I wasn't sure if I'd like this as it is geared towards younger readers, but having read the authors' collaborations before, I thought I'd give it a shot.
I'm glad I did, as I found it an enjoyable read. This is actually more similar to Kelly Armstrong's Darkest Powers series than to Harry Potter, though in all three the youngsters must band together to solve problems the adults around them can't or won't handle. However, in this series the children are all orphans, are kept isolated at the school, and have no sources of information about magic - or anything else! - except what the school provides. So,can the school itself be trusted?
I was very caught up in reading the book and would like to read the next one when it comes out - but I did not immediately re-read it and I haven't found myself dwelling on the characters or the world created.