Shortlisted for the Leeds Book Awards 2014, 14-16 age category Leah escapes the siege in her school, but she can't avoid wrestling with impossible choices in this topical, terrifying new novel that's essential reading for teens everywhere.
Leah Jackson - in detention. Then armed Year 9s burst in, shooting. She escapes, just. But the new Lock Down system for keeping intruders out is now locking everyone in. She takes to the ceilings and air vents with another student, Anton, and manages to use her mobile to call out to the world. First: survive the gang - the so-called 'Eternal Knights'. Second: rescue other kids taken hostage, and one urgently needing medical help. Outside, parents gather, the army want intelligence, television cameras roll, psychologists give opinions, sociologists rationalise, doctors advise - and they all want a piece of Leah. Soon her phone battery is running out; the SAS want her to reconnoitre the hostage area ...But she is guarding a terrifying conviction. Her brother, Connor, is at the centre of this horror. Is he with the Eternal Knights or just a pawn? She remembers. All those times Connor reached out for help ...If she'd listened, voiced her fears about him earlier, would things be different now? Should she give up her brother? With only Anton for company, surviving by wits alone, Leah wrestles with the terrible choices ...
Violent, shocking and thought-provoking, this powerful novel for older teenagers is set in the near future and addresses issues of love and personal responsibility, disadvantage and state control. -- Booktrust
Author
About Sarah Mussi
Sarah Mussi was born in Gloucestershire. After her education at a girls’ school in Cheltenham, she completed a post-graduate degree at the Royal College of Art before leaving the UK for West Africa. She lived in Cameroon, Nigeria and Ghana for over eighteen years, finally teaching English in Accra. Sarah now lives in Brixton and teaches in Lewisham, splitting her holidays between England and Ghana.
Sarah’s first published novel, The Door of No Return, won the Children’s Book of the Year 2007 Award at the Glen Dimplex New Writers’ Awards and was shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award, shortlisted for Wirral Best Paperback of the Year and awarded Junior Library Guild Status in the USA. Her second novel, The Last of the Warrior Kings, inspired a London walk and was shortlisted for the Lewisham Book Award.
