Update: Y’all, it’s time for a giveaway!
- One copy of My Daughter’s Legacy
- One $75 Visa Cash Card
My Daughter’s Legacy (Cousins of the Dove #3)
BY: Mindy Starns Clark and Leslie Gould
Find it on:
First Person & Third Person • Fiction • 400 Pages
About the Book (Backcover Blurb):
Virginia, 1864
Therese Jennings cannot abide the thought of owning slaves. When her widowed mother inherits a plantation, Therese flees to Civil War Richmond, where she works as a governess by day and tends to wounded soldiers at night. But when trouble befalls her family, can she reconcile her obligations with her beliefs? And will love—whether with an old beau or a handsome new suitor—ever fit in her broken world?
Virginia, present day
Nicole Talbot’s life is back on track after years of substance abuse. Home from college for the summer, she’s finally ready to share a shocking secret, one that raises new questions about a traumatic childhood experience. But when facts she uncovers cast doubt on her family’s legacy, she must risk all that she’s gained—her fresh start, her family’s trust, and her growing relationship with a new man—to unlock the secrets of the past.
Why I Choose this Book:
I don’t even remember what made me want to read this book, and by the time I received it in the mail I’d totally forgotten what the backcover copy said except for it taking place in two different eras. (YAY! Going into books “blind” is my favorite.)
Warning: (Very) Slight Spoilers
What I Thought about this Book:
Completely honest bookworm moment here: I wasn’t enthused about reading this book. When I started it I was actually kinda bummed because I had another book that looked a lot more interesting, but because of review dates, I needed to read this book first.
Oh my lands, people. This book grabbed me by the second page and wow. I applaud the authors. If the book would have been shorter, its rather doubtful that I would have put it down, before finishing it. But, alas, I started it on a Sunday night and of course didn’t want to be sleepy in church, and therefore had to read it over the period of Saturday and Sunday.
What impressed me probably the most is how Nicole’s struggle as an addict was depicted. It certainly wasn’t the main plot point at all, but it wasn’t glossed over either. I thought it held a very balanced place in the book and that had me gushing to a friend about how important it is to include stuff like this in books.
Slight spoiler: The book is about a murder that the main character stumbled upon as a kid, like 22 years before. I don’t like books that include murder, and I don’t read murder mysteries. Human life is incredibly precious, and when authors toss the loss of human life around as a plot point or a scare factor I feel like that numbs the reader (and writer) to how horrible murder actually is.
But this book was totally different in that respect, and I wouldn’t consider it to be a murder mystery at all, although it was a mystery that contained someone having been killed. I thought it handled the trauma and loss of a life very well, nor did it go into needless details about violence.
The first storyline kept me so intrigued that I thought it was going to be hard to switch when they finally went back to the Civil War era, but no. The authors did such a good job with that storyline, too, that I was (although not instantly) pulled in and held fast. I applaud the way the book gave several chapters with each storyline at a time, instead of switching back and forth too rapidly. As a reader I was really able to get into each time period and character before being pulled out of it.
At first I really thought I’d like the modern storyline first, but in the end, I’m fairly sure that the two storylines tied for me. They were both intriguing, well-written, and had realistic characters that I could relate to.
The ending was as bit of a disappointment to me (which is fairly common with books I really like), and there were a few elements that were a little bit hard to find believable, but that didn’t detract too much from the book.
Conclusion:
The book isn’t what I would consider violent or gruesome, but it does take place during a war and talks about death, wounds, and slaves. (Cause, it’s the Civil War.) I felt like the romance in the book was nicely done (if I remember correctly – I read it several books back.
Overall I really liked this book.
Rating:
I’m giving My Daughter’s Legacy 4 out of 5 stars, and 8 out of 10
Noveltea 