Legacy - a beautiful thoroughbred who loved to run for the sheer
pleasure of it.
Legacy - a distrust bordering on paranoia
based on a 15 year old murder that had never been solved.
Legacy -
a past wrought with deception warring with future with great
potential.
JAK sets the stage for a classic romance that drags the
past into the present & forces Honor Mayfield & Conn Landry to
carefully assess each other. They need each other from the instant that
Conn manipulates Honor in a manner that both saves her a great deal of
embarrassment & hassle while it places her neatly within Conn's grasp.
The couple is wildly attracted to one another, but the past haunts them.
Did Honor's father coldly murder Conn's father years earlier in a
business deal gone wrong? Was Conn's father the villain of the piece?
Honor recognizes Conn's danger even as she is compelled to love him. She
knows that something's not quite right, but Honor is unable to identify
the missing link to her dilemma. Conn helped her out of an untenable
situation, but Conn also neglected to disclose information that would have
changed everything - immediately.
This early Harlequin Intrigue was
as much fun to read in 1998 as it was in 1985. Classic JAK characters
dance through a situation that is believable while fascinating the reader
with unexpected turns. Conn has worked in odd spots in the world where
things are murky & everyone is a villain or a victim. He can
intimidate men who are not easily intimidated. These traits, as well as
some of his actions, are reminiscent of Gabe from Double Dealing or Simon
from Scandal. Conn uses a little known weapon of eastern origin that
brings to mind the Way of the Water. And, Conn expects some undefined
answer that he seeks just as Jonas looks to Verity to provide an unknown
solution to his indescribable pain in GIFT OF GOLD.
One of Conn's
fundamentally JAK-granted characteristics is the fact that for Honor, he
is her greatest joy & her greatest pain; her greatest comfort &
her greatest threat. Conn is also Honor's staunchest advocate &
protector. Conn, as a hero, has mixed motives & mixed emotions. This
dichotomy is not unique to Conn, but it is a distinctive trademark of
JAK's work.
This 1985 novel foreshadows the great single title
releases to come in JAK's future. It has mystery, bloody & unresolved.
LEGACY has great characters that speak to readers on a multitude of levels
while the plot allows each to show his or her finest attributes. A great
read that can be found fairly quickly in the reprint version.
