Select language, opens an overlay

Comment

FindingJane
Nov 09, 2014FindingJane rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
Books about magical girls coming into their powers clutter bookstore shelves these days. They’re about as common as novels about falling in love with vampires. So what makes Molly Cochran’s “Legacy” series special? Perhaps the fact that witches are encouraged to hone their powers but not to use them on the general populace. The witchcraft in these books center on people who are all too aware of the dangers the cowen (that’s the non-magical public) have posed to their kind in the past and are determined not to have history repeat itself. But what gradually emerges in this book is a history of people at one with and at war with itself. They fight a nebulous evil known as the Darkness and the true nature of this evil gradually manifests itself as an insidious spectre that they have been helpless to destroy in the past. The tagline on the cover--Magic lies within--gives a really good clue as to where the real enemy resides; what provides the nail-biting suspense is the terror that nothing anybody does can withstand it. Katy (a.k.a. Serenity) faces trouble on other sides: the requisite love interest who initially seems to hate her, hostile teenagers who see her as an outsider, a parent who’s dead and another who acts indifferent. In short, we get a lot of the usual clichés of troubled fictional teenagers, only with minor unexpected twists. The plot twists and historical background raise this novel slightly above others of its ilk. In any case, it is fast-paced and likable reading material.