Review: The Legacy by Katherine Webb

A fresh and exciting new voice in contemporary fiction, Katherine Webb debuts with a haunting novel about a secret family history. Already a sensation in the United Kingdom, Webb’s The Legacy is a treat for every fan of upmarket women’s fiction and literary suspense in the vein of bestselling authors Kate Morton, Sarah Waters, and Diane Setterfield. Taut, affecting, and surprising—a story that ranges from present-day England back to the American West in the early twentieth century—The Legacy embroils two sisters in an investigation into the strange, never solved disappearance of their cousin, a dark mystery that opened deep family wounds that never healed.- Synopsis from Goodreads

The Legacy centers on two sisters Beth and Erica who have jointly inherited their recently deceased grandmother's manor house. They return to the house to sort through the belongings and decide what they should do with the house. Sounds fantastic except that the home holds a rather unpleasant memory, one Beth has been trying to run away from and Erica has been trying to figure out.

While trying to sort out the demons in their own closet, Erica stumbles upon a mystery surrounding her great-grandmother Caroline who held onto a secret of her own. Chapters alternate between the sisters story in the present and Caroline's own story set in 1903. The language is beautiful. I found myself sucked right into the story, able to perfectly picture each and every setting.

I did connect more with Caroline's heart-wrenching story than I did with that of Beth and Erica. There was something in her that just made it a bit more compelling. Of course, both secrets come to the surface around the same time though I thought they would be more interconnected. Caroline's secret, while interesting for the sisters, held little to no real significance on their lives and had absolutely nothing to do with their own secret. It just made the stories a little disconnected for me. I would have liked to see them woven together a little more than just having Erica doing the detective work. Despite all that, it was still a good story and an entertaining read.A great representation of the way secrets and lies affect not just our lives but the lives of those around us.

*Disclaimer- I received a copy of the book from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.