Legacy ~ A Review

Now this is my kind of paranormal ghost story!

I knew as soon as I saw the author was Charlotte Greene that I would probably like Legacy. She has already scared me silly (in a good way) with Gnarled Hollow. I figured I would give her another chance to frighten me with this new novel.

The story is set on a mountain in Colorado. The mountain is privately owned by the Lemke family but is surrounded by a national park so there are no neighbors. One of the Lemke ancestors built a cabin near the top of the mountain, and until about two years before the book begins, this cabin was used as a vacation spot for the whole family. After a two year battle over ownership rights, Jo and Carter Lemke, two cousins in the family, along with Carter’s wife and a couple of friends go up to the cabin to clean  and make repairs to the place. They find the cabin and surrounding area a shambles. They also find a mysterious presence that seems to have taken over the area, and this presence doesn’t want them there. Jo, our main character, seems to be a special target, though the others are attacked by it as well. Jo will need all the help she can get, including from that gorgeous park ranger, Andy, to figure out what is happening before whatever is haunting the mountain either kills someone or forces them off the mountain for good.

Now, let me briefly describe where we live. We live in a house about fifty kilometers from the nearest city, in what Canadians like to call the “bush”. There is a swamp on one side of us, a tall forested hill behind us, a mostly empty vacation home on the other side of us, and a field with an old farmhouse across from us. Wolves live on that hill behind us, and we sometimes hear them howling at night. We have eagles that nest on Scarface, a cliff that sits behind that farmhouse across the road. The only night lights around here are the moon, the stars, and the fireflies in the summer. And here I am reading Legacy in bed in the middle of the night. Yep, I did that, and yes, I was deliciously frightened.

This is a wonderfully scary paranormal novel. The setting is perfect and well described. The characters are well-drawn and likable. The romance between Jo and Andy is especially charming and fits perfectly into the tale. This is just a wonderful story, and I’m so glad I read it, even in the middle of the night. If you love a good scary story, I believe you will love it too.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for an honest review.