Ever since I saw the eye-catching cover I wanted to read the exciting young adult book MURDERESS. The tale starts in a way familiar to Harry Potter fans - with a girl on a train heading for a boarding school. Lu Killer has no bunch of friends however; this is not her first boarding school; and she has no idea that a boy is about to fall from the sky and land on his feet in the train.

Daya Marnin certainly catches our attention with the opening chapter. After that, Lu finds her feet at the school outside London, coming across to us as a lonely, depressed young lady. She doesn't know what to make of the Essex girls who fill the room with chatter and insist on giving her a makeover. When scary things start to happen - like the windows all shattering - Lu doesn't know the cause, but one of the girls, Bridget, seems to blame her. Jolted out of her torpor, Lu decides to investigate.

While she knows perfectly well that she has issues, these have been caused by her lack of a family and constant moving between schools. So she's surprised when a scholar who interprets family names shouts abuse at her, once he hears the surname Killer. He calls her a MURDERESS and blames the loss of his family on her. The unjust treatment makes Lu so angry she could burst into flames - and suddenly she's sending a lance of fire at the old professor.

Both a modern day witchcraft tale and a fantasy involving other worlds, MURDERESS has plenty to interest teens who like their reading on the darker side. I really enjoyed the massed snowball fight at the school, which is also the first time that Lu enjoys herself. Not all battles are so innocent however. The land of Greywall'd is only a heartbeat away once Lu wakes up to her powers, but she arrives there in the midst of a war. Be prepared for mortal combat as the tale turns darker. While my first impression of the world of Greywall'd was brief, Lu returns there and the land comes alive as she explores. Missing this well- realised medieval land, with indigenous ecology and peoples would have been a shame.

Daya Marnin is herself a young adult and she has captured the essence of the Goth girl, then clearly revelled in casting her heroine into experiences beyond her wildest dreams. The book is translated by N.L. Lumi and is also available in the original Hebrew. I'm hoping the next heart-stopping instalment in The Exiles of Greywall'd Saga will be out soon.