The Legacy
66. Katherine Webb, The Legacy
I received this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
Sisters Erica and Beth Calcott have just inherited an English manor house from their domineering grandmother Meredith. According to the terms of Meredith’s will, they must live in it together in order to claim the rest of their inheritance. Erica is willing to stay, but her fragile sister Beth is extremely reluctant to live there, and Erica knows why: one summer day, at that very house, their cousin Henry disappeared and was never found. As Erica tries to remember or discover what happened to Henry, she stumbles across an even older mystery surrounding her great-grandmother Caroline. Erica hopes that solving these mysteries will help her fragile sister to recover from depression; but the secrets she eventually uncovers might irrevocably change both their lives.
I wanted to like this book. I enjoy novels where there are two parallel stories, which is the case here: half of each chapter follows Erica and Beth in the present, and the other half follows Caroline’s life in the early 1900s. However, I didn’t find much to enjoy in this depressing saga. Erica and Beth’s story drags on and on, and the eventual resolution is pretty anticlimactic. I was able to guess what had happened to Henry fairly early in the novel, so the Big Reveal wasn’t very dramatic for me. Caroline’s story was more interesting, but it just got sadder and sadder as it went on, and in the end I felt no sympathy for her at all. I did like reading about Caroline’s journey to the American West in the early 20th century; it’s an interesting setting, and the descriptions of what life was like in that time and place ring true. The writing style in general is good also. Overall, though, I found this book a difficult and depressing read.