I've justs started reading this series, and although I have only read the first few chapters in the first book, I'm rather hooked.

The series is set in a post-nuclear war world which is still struggling to come back from and deal with the effects of the war and the radiation. Basically, although set in the future (exact dates unknown) society has basically reverted back to the middle ages due to a great loss of knowledge. People known as 'The Council', who were originally those people who were outside the range of the attacks, are basically incontrol of the world and have evolved a thoery of a god named 'Lud' who punished mankind with the nuclear attacks (which they know as the 'Great White') for being un-pure.

Due to nuclear radiations there are, obviously, people with mutations (some of which take the form supernatural type power) and those who are born with obvious ones are burnt straight away while those who have less obvious mutations which present later in life are later classed as Misfits who basically become outcasts who are either burned or basically used as slaves, and those related to misfits are also usually suffer from similar punishments.

So yeah basically the story is from the point of view of a orphaned misfit named Elspeth who gets sent to a place called Obernewtyn, after being discovered as such, where they are secretly trying to use the gifts of misfits to unearth the secrets of the nuclear weapons which they have stumbled across in the mountains while using the cover that they are trying to find a cure for the misfits.

Worth a read . . . the insane stray cat Maruman makes it worth it alone ^_^