Though I do not read horror stories on a daily basis, I do occasionally enjoy a good scare. A friend recommended Scarlett Dean's The Academy to me as a decent read, so I decided to put my latest romance novel on the back burner and move over to the dark side.

We meet fourteen-year-old Grant Taylor as he becomes the newest pupil at the Knollwood Academy for boys on account of his carrying a pocketknife into his old high school. True, he had fallen in with a rough lot and made his share of trouble, but expelled? And sent to jail in the form of the Academy? This was just too much.

Things had been hard since his dad died and his mom was doing her best, but he felt guilty that she worked long hours to pay for his sports and clothes and yet he also resented her leaving him alone. Now this Academy thing, that's big money, too.

Though he vowed to stop making trouble for his mother, Grant found it hard to fit in at Knollwood. The place was creepy and what was it with all these beetles, the strange noises and the pit in the back garden? It was as if everyone knew some kind of secret and as the new guy he hadn't yet be let in on the joke.

Grant Taylor wasn't the only one who wanted to know what was up at the Academy. Dreeson Cooper, an art teacher known mostly as "Coop", didn't quite believe his uncle Eb died of natural causes at his home in Knollwood as the death certificate claimed. Coop knew Eb was a caretaker at the Academy and had pointed out the unsafe conditions at the school. He was pretty sure his uncle had met with foul play of some kind.

After the local cops tell him to mind his own business and forget about the Academy, Coop does just the opposite and applies for a teaching position. What better way to look the place over than from the inside?

But once inside, Coop finds the Academy even more bizarre than it had appeared from the outside. Books written in archaic languages that changed titles, rooms filled with cold presences and the unexplained eeriness warns Coop that Knollwood Academy is not what it seems. But just what is it?

Ms. Dean brings Grant and Coop together to uncover the mysteries of Knollwood Academy in a way that will keep you wondering what is next. Part horror and part suspense, she rounds the story out with well developed characters who expertly lead the reader deeper and deeper into the heart of Knollwood Academy.

If you like to be scared on a stormy night then The Academy, with all its twists and turns, is for you. Just be sure to read it with the light on. 
 
Reviewed By Sabine Maurier
© January 2008