Maddie Temple has put her life back together since the night her father and twin sister died in a car accident when she was a teenager: she's a respected doctor and E.R. specialist and has just started seeing the handsome Jarred Keith. All she needs now is for the nightmares to stop. Nightmares that have her killing another woman, that only become stronger, and start tearing her life apart when she realizes they are not her own. Her sister isn't dead. And that's not the only thing her mother has kept from her. To save her crumbling sanity, Maddie must face her insane sister and the dark secrets of their past and the darker possibilities of their future.
Impression:Dark Legacy was a mixed bag for me. I loved the paranormal/fantasy element, which was what kept me reading; but the romance elements, while they worked most of the time, turned me off when they went to the genre's extremes. I just can't buy that anyone, no matter how much they love someone, will lay there and let that someone stab them with a knife until they are close to death. That's not love/romance, that's stupidity, and I don't care if someone else is possessing the body doing the stabbing. Anyone with common sense and an ounce of survival instinct is going to get out of the way of a knife in the hands of someone who is determined to kill them, possessed or not.
Other than that kind of "romance" extreme (which didn't happen more than once or twice, thank goodness) and the whole idea that falling in love makes a person toss their common sense and ethics out the window, the story was okay. I really liked the use of the tie between the twins and Maddie's need to figure out the mysteries behind her gifts. I did have a problem with Maddie's stubborn determination to see herself as evil, but I can also almost see where it came from and how it would be hard to change those thought processes in just a few days. Outside the romance plot, the story was well-plotted and well written. My issues with characters are generally tied up with the romance elements that didn’t work for me.
So Dark Legacy is a paranormal romance I almost like. If the romance elements had been more realistic for me (and I have to say, at least there was no sense of "Oh my God, my life's in danger, but man you have a cute butte, let's do it!", which would have totally turned me off, so I give the author huge credit there), I would consider the book a really good read. All that being said, I can see how someone who is into paranormal romance (and who doesn't have my issues) would really enjoy Dark Legacy. I can't put the novel into a best reads category, given my issues with it, but I can still highly recommend it to others who like the genre.
Unless otherwise noted, all books reviewed have been purchased by me.
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