Checkmate, Malorie Blackman

Synopsis: Can the future ever erase the past?

Rose has a Cross mother and a nought father in a society where the pale-skinned noughts are treated as inferiors and those with dual heritage face a life-long battle against deep-rooted prejudices.

Sephy, her mother, has told Rose virtually nothing about her father, but as Rose grows into a young adult, she unexpectedly discovers the truth about her parentage, and becomes determined to find out more, to honour both sides of her heritage. But her father's family has a complicated history - one tied up with the fight for equality for the nought population.

And as Rose takes her first steps away from Sephy and into this world, she finds herself drawn inexorably into more and more danger.

Suddenly, it's a game of very high stakes that can only have one winner...

My Thoughts:I was a massive fan of the first book in this series as I thought it was interesting, thought provoking and tightly written.

This isn't the case here.

Although Blackman has brought together the numerous strands of the complicated narrative well, this novel is also repetitive and very slow in places.

Towards the end of the novel I became impatient with Callie and her never-ending angst and I just wanted to grasp Sephy by her shoulders and give her a good shake! Jude is also a bit of a cut-out villain and his passages left me cold.

On the plus side however, Blackman did keep me reading as I wanted to know where the twists of the narrative would take her characters next. I also liked the early passages with Callie where she talks to her dead father as I thought Blackman caught the spirit and voice of a young girl well.

Overall, although I found this book a bit hard going and tiresome in places, it was a satisfying conclusion to the series and a fitting end to Sephy and Callum's story.

***