Knife Edge - Malorie Blackman
Knife Edge is the second installment to the four part Noughts and Crosses series by Malorie Blackman. This story picks up a little after Nought And Crosses (book 1) left off, with the birth of Persephone's (Sephy's) daughter, Callie Rose. During this novel, Persephone and an infant Callie Rose move into the house of Meggie McGregor, mother to Callum McGregor, the deceased father of Callie Rose. It follows Persephone's struggle of being a single mother to a mixed-raced daughter, in a world of black dominance and extreme racism.
I was eager to follow the story through to this book, as Noughts and Crosses had such an impact on me through my studies of Civil Right in the USA. However, Knife Edge has a much different feel to it than Noughts and Crosses; while the first book had me gripped on every page to follow the story of two forbidden lovers, the end left me deflated. I was waiting for Sephy and Callum's happy ending, but politics got in the way; something I was unfamiliar with in novels. By following Knife Edge through, I finally understood while Blackman chose to end Noughts and Crosses as she did; the controversy, racism and violence in the world of Sephy and Callum is heaving with so many problems, that a happen ending was unrealistic.
Knife Edge very much focuses on Sephy's struggles; trying to juggle motherhood with independence, a career, and a social life. Such a task is difficult enough without a threatening 'brother-in-law' figure emerging onto the scene, and a letter which leads Sephy to question everything she knew about Callum. If I were to put myself in her shoes, I too would find myself falling apart at the words. Sephy's struggles come to a tense ending when Meggie rushes home to find Sephy having trouble with her daughter. The only indication to the problem is one of the final sentences in the book, and no more detail was given. This, of course, left me hungry to find out what was going to happen next, therefore compelling me to pick up Checkmate (Book 3).
Overall, I think that the issues in Knife Edge are much more explicit than in Noughts and Crosses; the first novel has its themes cushioned by forbidden love and domestic problems, while all that is gone in Knife Edge, leaving the cold, hard problems that Sephy has to face. With no love left, and a past full of regrets, what can she do to go on?