He has since written over twenty children's books, including Pawnee Warrior (a sequel to Fly, Cherokee, Fly), a collaborative novel with fellow children's author Linda Newbery (From E To You), and the best-selling, award-winning The Last Dragon Chronicles. His books often contain environmental themes, and events based on things that have happened to him. I did like this book, but I can neither say I loved it or hated it. It was very much middle ground for me, but I feel most of that could be that it felt like it was directed to more younger readers. When he’s called to the offices of his dad’s solicitor and discovers he’s inherited millions of pounds, all he can think of is the flashy sports car he’s going to buy to impress the girl he fancies. He happily signs the documents the solicitor flashes in front of him (even though one of them is made from goat-skin vellum, which, frankly, should have sounded some alarm bells). Soon Luke discovers he’s inherited more than money from his dad: he’s also inherited a Host of eight vengeful ghosts. Now he has just thirteen days to solve the riddle of his dad’s necromancy notes to keep the spirits from revolting. I really enjoyed the magic system created in this book. It was macabre, it unveiled throughout the story really well as Felix learns more about the curse on his family, how it came about, and other forces involved in the use of this magic. The magic is all centred around death and I found it interesting how the author tied this in to the First World War. And it was pretty interesting for me to read to her, and she really got into it. It was unique, adventurous, plot driven, and very rapid. It's not big on characterization -- kind of flat characters all around: the boy who gets in fights at school, the mom who shakes her head, the sister who texts and whines -- but the story was pretty thought-provoking as the reader is exposed to this underground organization. It's revealed that his dad -- who was thought to have disappeared -- had ties to the organization, and now Michael apparently has some special ability that the Unicorne organization wants to help him develop and potentially utilize.

To end on a more positive note, while I was reading I found myself on several occasions wishing I could watch it as a movie. The descriptions and the way everything was set out really had me imagining it as if it were already a movie. The book got awesome and hilarious MC's and side characters that made me laugh out loud in the middle of the night. You see, I was expecting to get scared, to have a goose bumps while reading it, that's why I decided to read it on the middle of the night- to get more on the feels, instead I got a laugh and entertainment, which wasn't so bad really. The Great Gatsby meets The Inheritance Games in this #DarkAcademia thriller, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House The Great Gatsby meets The Inheritance Games in this gloriously twisty thriller, perfect for fans of #DarkAcademia and Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House Read more Look Inside Details The mystery was also well done, with the layers slowly revealed and a mostly satisfying resolution. The only thing that disappointed me was that it was hard to figure out just why this had the effect it did on Michael. Is he sensitive to ghosts as well as able to manipulate reality? And what, exactly, happened with that ending? I'm just hoping Michael was as clueless as I was and someone next book will explain it to him. The only thing I can figure is that something he was considering during that final confrontation ended up becoming an additional side effect.The narrative takes the reader through a twisting and gripping story that hooks you the further you explore the story. You are transported into a supernatural thriller full of danger, action and teenage reality. This makes a fantastic blend that anyone can relate to regardless of age or gender.

It’s about a young boy called Michael Malone, who is recruited by UNICORNE because he has an extraordinary ability to alter his reality. At the start of the series Michael’s father, Thomas, has been missing for three years after disappearing during a business trip. What Michael doesn’t know, however, is that his father was also a UNICORNE agent. Michael’s quest to find out what happened to his father forms the general arc of the series. HFA: The 1920s setting is the one thing that has never changed throughout the whole time I was working on this book. I have loved The Great Gatsby since I studied it for A-Level, which was when I felt that I really understood about the many layers that a book can operate on in terms of theme and metaphor. My imagination was really captured by the time period – the Jazz Age is known for its glitz and glamour, and yet they were living in the aftermath of the horrors of World War One… The theme of light and dark is central to the story. The overarching mystery was nicely done. I was surprised at how dark and graphic it got. I wish it could've been a slower sort of mystery but I was surprised at what was really going on, barring one specific person which I guessed from the vibes I was getting from them and then promptly second guessed myself. I've seen a similar sort of magic system in a book before, and it was no less horrifying here than it was there, which was very fun and added to the tension. CV: Dark Academia has really exploded recently, particularly on BookTok. Can you tell us more about this genre. Were you aware of its popularity while writing A Dark Inheritance?Note of CAUTION: Keep a few hours in hand before you start reading the book. Otherwise you'll continuously keep thinking about it. Maybe even visualise strange things. The book A Dark Inheritnce by Chris D Lacy starts off with the main character Michel Malone going to school. For him it is just a normal day but he doesn't know that when he gets stopped at the bridge that everything will change. While driving to school he gets stopped at the bridge. The reason is because a dog is on it about to jump. With Michels Unknown powers he saves the dog. He soon figures out that the dog be longs to a classmate of his. Little does he known that she died in a car accident. What will happen next. The beginning, with a father mysteriously disappeared then there being suggestions he had been involved in some secret organisation, is hardly original.

Michael's father disappeared a few years ago, and the family has been left to deal with the upheaval his disappearance caused. When Michael saves a dog from falling or leaping off a cliff, he becomes a local celebrity. The manner in which he did it, using an previously unawoken ability to bend and manipulate time and reality, brings him to the attention of a secret group called Unicorne, which seems to know more about his father's disappearance than anyone else. Michael is unwillingly drafted by this organization to solve the question of why that dog was on the cliff and how it's related to a strange Goth girl at schoolA powerful, heart-racing story of family, fate, and writing your own destiny. Intricately plotted and luminously written - I loved it.' Laura Steven, author of The Society for Soulless Girls I will say that D’Lacey’s books have plenty of originality. His first series, while odd, was super interesting and unique. This one had that same spark, because no one done anything quite like it before. We’ve got Michael’s strange powers, the trust issues with this UNICORNE organization, the connections between a dog and a dead owner, cellular memory… It’s all rather intriguing. But it’s also all rather jumbled together. Though (thankfully!) I mostly understood this book, it’s sort of difficult to get through such a dense plotline with the readers having to draw more inferences then it being explained. I’m all for showing and not telling, but if the plotline is as strange and new as this one, I’d like a little clarification of whether my thoughts about just went down were correct. For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more. He was born in Valetta, Malta, but as a child moved first to Leicester and then to Bolton. After gaining a degree in biology from the University of York, he returned to Leicester and got a job at the University of Leicester in their Pre-Clinical Sciences department. The blurb and the story idea made me want to read it. But it turned out to be just very confusing and having a complet lost of interest.

Une phrase qui donne envie n’est-ce pas ? Eh bien comme je suis une personne très influençable, j’ai tout de suite voulu lire ce livre. Michael Malone is going to school just like any other day except his mom is driving an alternate route to escape a flooded street so he and his sister, Josie won't be late for school. However they are stopped in traffic when Michael knows that a dog is going to commit suicide by jumping off the cliff. Knowing this he runs out of the car and teleports to the top of the cliff where the dog is. He saves the dog but at first doesn't understand or know how he got to the top of the cliff. This is not a normal day anymore. He gets the headline and his photo in the newspaper. His classmates tease him about it. He meets a mysterious man, Mr. Amadeus Klimt and his assistant Chantelle. Mr. Klimt tells him about the secret organization called Unicorne (the e stands for events). Michael finds out that his father was part of this organization and decides he wants in and will be a member. He asks Mr. Klimt if he knows anything about his father's disappearance, Mr. Klimt tells him he will let him know after his first assignment. Mr. Klimt agrees telling Michael that due to his ability, he may join even though he will be their youngest agent. With a cliffhanger in that you know this is only the. Michael has several close calls to being murdered and ends up in a private clinic where he discovers he has been tattooed. His father went to New Mexico for his work and disappeared. He was never found yet Michael believes his dad is still alive. Through working for Unicorne, his first assignment is to solve the mystery of the suicidal dog. It is a mystery that involves a classmate, Freya and a dead girl named Rafferty. Michael must learn to how to use his new "ability" to hopefully find out about his father's disappearance. Felix Ashe is sure of only one thing. In thirty days, on his eighteenth birthday, he will die. He might be the only one convinced of this, but the gruesome deaths of his three brothers before him seem to point to only one thing: a curse, one doomed to stop anyone inheriting his family’s incredible fortune.Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below. H. F. Askwith: Thank you so much! It’s been a long journey to get to this stage. I began working on the first seed of this idea when I was studying for my Creative Writing MA at Northumbria University. I’d written manuscripts before then, and not made my dreams of traditional publishing a reality, but the deadlines of the MA helped me to become resilient to the disappointment and keep writing and creating! The opening scene of an early version of this book won a Northern Writers’ Award, and through the New Writing North talent salon, I met my agent, James Wills at Watson, Little, and we worked together for a year on the manuscript before going out on submission. The book sold in 2018 and has been through many, many rewrites in that time while I tried to work out what I wanted it to say and the best plot to do that, with the help of my wonderful editor Naomi Colthurst. I definitely had to learn a lot about structuring plot and developing magic systems. I now plan my novels out in advance, but I didn’t used to, and it created a lot more work for me later on! While 13 DAYS OF MIDNIGHT is a horror story, it's not a scary story. It's a ghost story, and a creepy one, with some macabre imagery and heroes forced to use awful measures to prevent worse things from happening. It's a kind of horror that I enjoy very much.