Louisa is nervous about being sent away to a boarding school -- but she's excited, too. And she has her best friend, Maddie, to keep her company. The girls have to pretend to be twin sisters, which Louisa thinks just adds to the adventure! Country Manor School isn't all excitement, though. Louisa isn't sure how she feels about her new roommates: athletic but snobby Rosie and everything's-a-conspiracy Evelyn. Even Maddie seems different away from home, quiet and worried all the time. Still, Louisa loves CMS -- the survival skills classes, the fresh air. She doesn't even miss not having a TV, or the internet, or any contact with home. It's for their own safety, after all. Or is it?

     Glen Retief's childhood was at once recognizably ordinary--and brutally unusual.Raised in the middle of a game preserve where his father worked, Retief's warm nuclear family was a preserve of its own, against chaotic forces just outside its borders: a childhood friend whose uncle led a death squad, while his cultured grandfather quoted Shakespeare at barbecues and abused Glen's sister in an antique-filled, tobacco-scented living room.But it was when Retief was sent to boarding school, that he was truly exposed to human cruelty and frailty. When the prefects were caught torturing younger boys, they invented "the jack bank," where underclassmen could save beatings, earn interest on their deposits, and draw on them later to atone for their supposed infractions. Retief writes movingly of the complicated emotions and politics in this punitive all-male world, and of how he navigated them, even as he began to realize that his sexuality was different than his peers'.

    At first he is just relieved to be away from home, but he soon realises that there's something really weird going on at Crammer Grammar.

    With only her kindly nurse, Rose, and her cat Mr Tompkins for company, she knows very little of the outside world - or of her own family's shadowy past. What she does know is that she is NEVER to go outside unsupervised. And she is NEVER to over-excite herself, because of the mysterious 'condition' that she has been told she suffers from.But Charity has a secret. All her life, she has had the same strange dream - a dream of a dark corridor, hidden somewhere in the house. Then, one day, Charity stumbles across the corridor. It leads to a door . . . and suddenly she realises things are not quite what they seem.

    Agatha's Boarding School for Young Ladies. Dropped at a deserted station, with no one to meet them, they trek through the pelting rain and darkness for miles until they find a sign to St. Agatha's which points to an unlikely overgrown track leading up a mountain path. A foreboding place, St. Agatha's School is surrounded by a sea of mist, and overlooks a loch. Coming face to face with the grotesque caretaker, Mandrake, is not the only thing to unsettle them. What is the significance of the strange rings worn by Miss Blackthorn, the head teacher - and why does everyone behave so oddly? The girls stumble across a forgotten burial chamber. Inside, lies the crumbling skeleton of Sister Beatrice, clutching a note which tells of a curse. Locked in the chamber as a punishment, the friends discover an old book within which is the antidote to the curse... but it is hidden in code.TRAILERhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Ezh...Editorial Review from Readers' Favorite:5*Mandrake’s Plot by Helen Laycock is an exciting mystery that finds two young girls uncovering the secrets of their new boarding school. Evie is on her way to begin a new life at St. Agatha’s Boarding School for Girls when she meets fellow traveler Mia. The two quickly bond over their shared destination with neither expecting the grim greeting they receive upon arrival. They notice an immediate strangeness about the school as no one bothers to pick them up, which forces them to make their own trek to the eerie place. They’re immediately met with hostility and quickly notice something is off about the others living there. As the mystery deepens, they meet the caretaker Mandrake who has a surprising connection to the curse that ails the school and band together to find a way to break it.Mandrake’s Plot by Helen Laycock is a delightful mystery with a grim and eerie tone through the foreboding school and hostile students. The further the two children are drawn into the mystery, they discover darkness within that has taken over every corner of the school. The mystery is full of surprising twists and a supernatural turn. The story has everything that makes for an exciting read with a strange school, an eerie chamber, a supernatural element, and hostile behavior that spark Evie and Mia’s determination to find answers. The core of the story revolves around the friendship between the two girls which helps each of them through their individual coming of age journeys and to find the strength to break the curse. The safety of the entire school and everyone in it is placed upon their shoulders as only they can put an end to the curse. Young readers will be quickly drawn into this addictive mystery as the secrets of the boarding school are brought to light through Mandrake’s Plot which has suspense, action, and friendship.

    She is a demon princess from the underworld. She does, however, have teenager tendencies. She is outspoken, blunt, funny and rebellious. When a final act of rebellion sends her father into a rage, he sends her off to the North American School of Paranormal Princes-sing where he hopes she can learn to become a proper young lady and do something constructive with her life.Not the only princess being sent away to the NASPP, Hellebella meets a lively bunch of girls from different paranormal kingdoms, including fairies, a vampire and shape-shifters. But not everything is light and happy at school. The girls find themselves entranced by a secret and mysterious club in another realm. There, they are forced to dance every night, and if they do not the consequences are dire.Helle, as her new friends call her, must find a way to break them free of the spell holding them hostage, figure out WHO is behind the malicious magic and struggle with her own love for her best friend’s brother. Hopefully she can save them in time, before they become ghosts powerless to stop the magic from harming someone else.