The Last Legacy by Adrienne Young

I would like to thank Sarah from Titan for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Titan

Published – Out Now

Price – £8.99 paperback £6.64 Kindle eBook

When a letter from her uncle Henrick arrives on Bryn Roth's eighteenth birthday, summoning her back to Bastian, Bryn is eager to prove herself and finally take her place in her long-lost family.

Henrik has plans for Bryn, but she must win everyone's trust if she wants to hold any power in the delicate architecture of the family. It doesn’t take long for her to see that the Roths are entangled in shadows. Despite their growing influence in upscale Bastian, their hands are still in the kind of dirty business that got Bryn’s parents killed years ago. With a forbidden romance to contend with and dangerous work ahead, the cost of being accepted into the Roths may be more than Bryn can pay.

In fantasy family is a big theme – the ones you find, the ones you lose and the ones you can get into conflict with. As so many of us start reading this genre in our younger years its no wonder that as we start to see the world outside our own homelife that we want to explore different ways of living with others. Who hasn’t dreamed of hiring assassins to deal with an unruly sibling…ah well that’s certainly not me…honest guv’nor. Crime families are always fun and in Adrienne Young’s The Last legacy we have a young woman explore her family’s less than honest business and has to decide where this leaves her to.

Bryn Roth has spent many years away from the bustling merchant town of Bastian. Shielded from the infamous Roth family business she has been trained instead to be a lady in genteel society. But she knows her Uncle Henrik who rules over the Roth brood will come a calling eventually. At 18 she arrives in the family and learns already Henrisk has plans for her. Amongst the skulduggery she also comes into contact with the Roth’s silversmith Ezra who seems to resent her presence and yet they are forced to work together. Bryn is going to learn being a Roth usually means a price to pay.

This was a fun engaging read. What I enjoyed with it was Young’s usual strong ability to capture a character voice. I liked Bryn an independent lady who wasn’t totally enamoured of high society but would be much happier in trousers rather than dresses. Knowing she is back to a family of criminals isn’t frightening to her you can sense fascination and excitement. We also soon see she has a strategic and calculating mind to match that of Henrik. Henrik is equally a fascinating antagonist pulling strings; loyal and occasionally caring but balanced with at the same time scheming with a cruel streak fi he feels slighted. Bryn starts off outmatched, but we see her soon learn the ropes of Bastian and Roth society and turn that to her advantage.

The main two plots are entertaining. Henrik’s scheme is to move the family to respectable business family and needs to impress the nobles and also secure some allegiances. Bryn neds to train the family up in manners; find a way to get nobles interested in the family and get some traction on family secrets. An entertaining plot as the hard men of the family have to learn table manners and dress sense. Bryn though also needs to learn lockpicking from Ezea and the more time together they find themselves both on the same side as family outsiders and also attracted to each other.

The beats of the story, the reversals and triumphs all work well. I had fun reading this, but I found the story a little too compacted and fast paced. We race from scene to scene and didn’t really get to feel Bryn learn the ropes or see more of the family’s contradictions. I’d had liked some more exploration of the family’s darker side and Henrik is initially looking like a villain and slightly falls away in the final third of the story without really any explanation. The romance is following a tried and trusted format but the emotional pulls are delivered as well as Young always has in their previous work but I just would have liked a bit more for the two to do together as their turning into lovers is rather swift.

This was a fun read. Fans of the Fable universe that Young has already created should enjoy another return to this world. Relaxing, charming, and entertaining reading.