New Fantasy Novels: Legacy

Title: Legacy
Author: Molly Cochran
Release: December 20, 2011
Pages: 432
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Being a 16-year old girl is hard enough. Try being a 16-year old witch your Dad decides needs to move out to a boarding school in Massachusetts. But Katy Jessevar is both feisty enough to work hard to overcome it and strong enough to learn to deal with a student body who for some reason just seem to despise her. She soon discovers something else, too. Sometimes it turns out that what appears to be a door slamming in your face is actually a totally new one opening up for you.

Katy begins to wonder if that is what this new life is about when she discovers that the school her Dad sent her to, Ainsworth Preparatory School is also a place where nearly everyone is a witch, just like her. Unfortunately, she also discovers it is the place where her Mother committed suicide many years ago when Katy was just a child. That wouldn’t be so strange if it weren’t for the fact that there are a lot of questions surrounding her death. And they are questions that no one seemed willing to answer, least of all her Dad.

She soon discovers that those same dark forces seem to be returning once again to Ainsworth, and they are just as menacing as when her Mother dealt with them. Even meeting a boy, a special boy with special meaning for Katy can’t help her shake a bad feeling. It is a feeling that whatever the dangerous forces are that are converging on her; they are something that will threaten not just her, but this boy, her town, and perhaps even the world.

Legacy is an amazingly good book for a first effort, one that leads the reader on from the first page. Molly Cochran is a gifted writer with just the right touch for a YA fantasy book. Katy is someone we will want to see more of in the future, and I am sure we will!