Hardcover, 336 pages
English language
Published Jan. 10, 2008 by Grand Central Publishing, Grand Central Pub..
From the acclaimed author of A FIELD OF DARKNESS comes another compelling novel featuring the acerbic and memorable voice of ex-debutante Madeline Dare.Madeline Dare has finally escaped rust-belt Syracuse, New York, for the lush BerkshireMountains in Massachusetts. After her husband's job offer falls through, Maddie signs on as a teacher at the SantangeloAcademy, a boarding school for disturbed teenagers. Behind the academy's ornate gates, she discovers a disturbing realm where students and teachers alike must submit to the founder's bizarre therapeutic regimen. From day one, Maddie feels uneasy about smooth-talking Dr. Santangelo but when she questions his methods, she's appalled to find that her fellow teachers would rather turn on each other than stand up for themselves, much less protect the students in their care. A chilling event confirms Maddie's worst suspicions, then hints at an even darker secret history, one that twines through the academy's very heart. Cut off …
From the acclaimed author of A FIELD OF DARKNESS comes another compelling novel featuring the acerbic and memorable voice of ex-debutante Madeline Dare.Madeline Dare has finally escaped rust-belt Syracuse, New York, for the lush BerkshireMountains in Massachusetts. After her husband's job offer falls through, Maddie signs on as a teacher at the SantangeloAcademy, a boarding school for disturbed teenagers. Behind the academy's ornate gates, she discovers a disturbing realm where students and teachers alike must submit to the founder's bizarre therapeutic regimen. From day one, Maddie feels uneasy about smooth-talking Dr. Santangelo but when she questions his methods, she's appalled to find that her fellow teachers would rather turn on each other than stand up for themselves, much less protect the students in their care. A chilling event confirms Maddie's worst suspicions, then hints at an even darker secret history, one that twines through the academy's very heart. Cut off from the outside world, Maddie must join forces with a small band of the school's most violently rebellious students-kids whose troubled grip on reality may well prove to be her only chance of salvation.
Set in an expensive boarding school for the troubled children of wealthy parents, this follow up to Field of Darkness offers an intriguing setting, more of the main character's sassy voice, but less of the brilliantly lyrical language of the first in the series. If my response to the first book was a bit bipolar, this one left me both less annoyed and less entranced.
