Author: Nora Roberts
Publication: St. Martin's Press (May 25, 2021)
Description: #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts presents Legacy, a new novel of a mother and a daughter, of ambition and romance, and of a traumatic past reawakened by a terrifying threat…
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…
My Thoughts: When Adrian Rizzo met her father for the first time at age seven, he tried to kill her. He died instead. Her mother is a fitness guru who puts business in front of everything. Luckily, Adrian has her mother's personal assistant Mimi, her mother's business manager Harry, and her loving grandparents to provide emotional support. After being dragged all over the US while her mother Lina builds her business, she rebels at age sixteen and decides to make her own life.
Adrian gathers a cohort of great friends at the last school her mother sent her to who help her make her own fitness video. With Harry's support, she begins to build her own fitness empire with the help of her friends.
When her grandmother dies in a car accident, Adrian moves her life back to the small town where her grandfather lives because that's what you do when you love someone. At the same time her grandmother dies, her best friend's brother Raylan loses his wife who was a teacher in a school shooting leaving him with a broken heart and two small children to raise.
Raylan and Adrian met when her mother left her with her grandparents to get away from the publicity around the death of her biological father. He was ten and she was seven and she was his sister's new best friend. They heard about each other over the years but were both busy building their own lives. He is an artist who works with friends to produce graphic novels about super heroes of their own devising.
More time passes with Adrian getting a threatening poem once a year from someone who wants her dead. The first one arrived shortly after the release of her first fitness video when she was seventeen. It was scary and she let the police know but thought it was just some jealous fan. But the letters kept coming. First once a year but the pace kept escalating so that now when she's near 30 she's getting four a year. And the poet has decided it's time for her to die.
This story is filled with love. Even Raylan's dog Jasper and Adrian's dog Sadie are in a romantic relationship. There is the love of friendship with her girlfriend and romantic love as their friends find their own life partners. Adrian and Raylan are building their own relationship as a friendship grows into a romantic relationship. This is in stark contrast to the glimpses we get of the poet's isolation and obsession with revenge.
The story was both heart-warming and horrifying as the poet gets closer and closer to Adrian. Fans of Nora Roberts will enjoy this one with all her trademarks: smart dialog, strong relationships, cute kids, and even dogs.
Favorite Quote:
Favorite Quote:
"All right. You made me feel better than the kale smoothie I'm making myself for dinner.""Jesus, God, I hope so." He kissed her again, quick, then headed down the steps. "I'm never drinking one of those. Let's go, Jasper."
This sounds very creepy (and very interesting reading) Thank you for the review.
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