I’ve discovered (over the last 6 years) that writing reviews for books I love is a much harder task than writing a review for a book I hate. Writing a comprehensive review for a book I love? Even harder. Sometimes (despite my predisposition for penning incredibly lengthy reviews) I want nothing more than to write just once sentence. No explaining why I thought it fit the bill, no over-analyzation of the plot, no…the characters are great because. Sometime I just want to write:
“This book is superb…buy it!”
And call it a day.
This is one of those times.
World War 3 lasted twelve days and almost eradicated the human species. Growing up in post nuclear America, Rebecca Davis remained blissfully ignorant of the despotic leadership that had seized what was previously the most powerful nation in the world. When the truth is revealed and Rebecca discovers that everything she has been taught is a lie, she is determined to fight for the life that she has not been allowed to live.
One woman prepared to sacrifice everything to stop him.
One war that changed the world.
“Eric Dane has segregated the wealth and resources that remain, giving a select few the highest chance of survival and leaving the rest to starve!”
In order to do this, Rebecca has to cross the boundary fences and venture out of the safety of the New United States, into the barren wastelands. It is there that she finds allies she never dreamed existed.
In Rebecca, the Resistance has finally found the ultimate weapon.
“You were given this life Rebecca, because you alone are strong enough to live it.”
Yeah, yeah…don’t look at me like that, you knew I was gonna keep talking. (Smarty pants.)
The problem with one sentence reviews…they spawn 500 questions. 500 questions that frankly, I don’t have time to deal with. WHICH is why I generally write until I have exhausted all of the details I can possibly think of. So buckle up, here comes the flood.
For a book like “The Legacy” (aka: post apocalyptic) to succeed there must be (first and foremost) an active attention to detail. (ie: world building) If the reader cannot picture the setting in their head, the story will suffer. Simple as that. Post Apocalyptic literature is the “what happens after” story. But, it is imperative to know what happened BEFORE in order to establish precedent. Delport does an impeccable job of covering both angles (the before and the after) and she does so in a rather unique way. With an information dump. Chapter one starts off 20 something odd years AFTER the events of WWIII, so it was all but necessary to build a world before the opening of Rebecca’s story. (In which she starts off already married to the spawn of Satan.) And though I generally regard info dumps as a bad thing (they usually bog down the forward movement of a story) that was NOT the case when it came to “The Legacy.”
Between the prologue and the first 3-4 chapters Delport offers up every single bit of background necessary to make her story successful. She builds the world before 2016, after 2016, and manages to character develop (full histories for) 5 different players. Choosing to do this allowed her to maintain her speed when relaying the events “after.” (Which is where Rebecca (or Bex) lives.) The story is a fast paced one. Action fueled and full of gusto. If Delport had NOT built her world (and characters) before she got into the guts of her story, those details would have acted as a brick wall. Halting forward momentum and ultimately breaking the connection between reader and scenario. Instead, it added spark. Having already established a brief background of the main characters Delport could insert them on the fly without having to drum up a flashback or unnecessary dialogue to do something as simple as introduce them.
Speaking of characters…
Much like the character’s in Devon Monk’s “House Immortal” (which I reviewed yesterday) Delport created not only incredibly lovable leads, but realistic (despite them be genetically altered) ones as well. I wish I had highlighted a ton of dialogue to illustrate my point, but it’s safe to say that emotional connection isn’t going to be a hard earned badge when it comes to this book. The people between these pages are in search of only one thing, free will, and Bex (and her crew of very devoted followers – Reed, Kwan, the Kelley’s) are willing to throw themselves to the wolves in order to provide that for them. It’s admirable, and it comes off that way. (As it should.) Even Eric, Satan’s henchman, has moments of breathtaking vulnerability, something that is sometimes hard to find in a fictional villain. The story is an impressive one, but the people living that story are what makes it come alive, jump off the page, and embed itself in your heart.
This is easily one of the better books I have read lately, especially in this genre. Even without the surprise ending (which was just… gah!) I would have been scrambling over myself to tell you all about it.
So there you have it, one sentence vs one hundred, the fact still remains that this is an excellent book. Buy it.
Live it, love it, pass it on.
Happy Reading my fellow Kindle-ites and remember: Even the coldest heart has the capacity for love, you just have to coax it out.
Add it to your Goodreads shelf / Amazon wishlist
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| Overall: | 4.5 |
Her first novel, The Legacy, self-published in 2013, is the first in The Legacy Trilogy, and is followed by the sequel The Legion. The main-stream publisher,Tracey McDonald Publishers, is re-releasing The Legacy and The Legion in July 2014. Book 3 of the trilogy, The Legend, is due out in 2015. Melissa has also written an independent novel entitled Rainfall, a psychological romance, and a science-fiction, action-adventure called The Traveler. An avid reader herself, Melissa finally decided to stop “watching from the sidelines” and to do what is her passion. “I was driving home from work when inspiration struck, and a storyline started unravelling in my head. For a few days, it was all I could think about and eventually I realised that the only way to get it out of my head, was to put it all down on paper. I started writing, and that was that.” The Giveaway! Because I enjoyed it so much, I’ve decided to give 1 Kindle copy of “The Legacy” away. Just fill out the Rafflecopter below and Good Luck!
