• Legacy by Nora Roberts
5
Legacy Book Cover Legacy
Nora Roberts
New Adult, Literary Fiction, Romance, Suspense
St. Martin's Press
May 25, 2021
Kindle, Audiobook, Hardcover, Paperback
448

Adrian Rizzo was seven when she met her father for the first time. That was the day he nearly killed her—before her mother, Lina, stepped in.

Soon after, Adrian was dropped off at her grandparents’ house in Maryland, where she spent a long summer drinking lemonade, playing with dogs, making a new best friend—and developing the stirrings of a crush on her friend’s ten-year-old brother. Lina, meanwhile, traveled the country promoting her fitness brand and turning it into a billion-dollar business. There was no point in dwelling on the past.

A decade later, Adrian has created her own line of yoga and workout videos, following in Lina’s footsteps but intent on maintaining creative control. And she’s just as cool-headed and ambitious as her mother. They aren’t close, but they’re cordial—as long as neither crosses the other.

But while Lina dismisses the death threats that Adrian starts getting as a routine part of her daughter’s growing celebrity, Adrian can’t help but find the vicious rhymes unsettling. Year after year, they keep arriving—the postmarks changing, but the menacing tone the same. They continue after she returns to Maryland and becomes reacquainted with Raylan, her childhood crush, all grown up and as gorgeously green-eyed as ever. Sometimes it even seems like the terrifying messages are indeed routine, like nothing will come of them. Until the murders start, and the escalation begins…

A maestro of storytelling…

Legacy, Nora Robert’s romance/suspense novel, is everything it’s been promoted to be and more.  This contemporary piece of literature has it all: a great cast of characters, swooning romance, heartfelt and poignant moments, and heart-pounding suspense.  From the opening pages I was swept away by the intriguing story and confronted with an array of emotions that set the stage for what was to come:  “If her childhood had taught her anything, it was to make time for her passion, her responsibilities. And for the ones she loved.”

That is exactly what Adrian Rizzo does as life unfolds.  She takes charge of her life and her destiny, developing her own fitness brand and following, all while prioritizing the people in her life. But fame also brings out the crazies in the world, as Adrian understands as once a year she starts receiving threatening poems. While this trend is unsettling, she chooses to never forget the things that make life worth living: “friends, and family, … friends who were family” and love.  After the tragic loss of her grandmother, Adrian decides to move back home and live with her aging grandfather, a choice that will fulfill her life in more ways than one.  Raylan, Adrian’s first crush and the older brother of her best friend since childhood, has also experienced love and loss in life leading him to also move back home, near family and friends, to raise his two young children.  He never expects to be given a second chance at love, yet his reconnection with Adrain blossoms into something wonderful for both of them, “Love isn’t finite…it always makes more room”.

Legacy is an absolutely perfect balance of romance and suspense, light-hearted comradery and moving heartbreak, focused determination and dependence on others, all wrapped up in a well-written piece that is hard to put down.  Rarely do I critique the author when reviewing a book, but Nora Roberts truly has a gift for taking all the standard elements of a novel (characters, plotline, timing) and elevating each one into something so memorable and special that I couldn’t help but be in awe of her skill as a writer and storyteller and include that in my impression Legacy.  Even with over 200 titles to her credit, her writing is still vibrant, compelling, emotional, and worthy of five + stars.