Warning! A Cold Legacy is the finale to the Madman's Daughter trilogy. If you haven't read The Madman's Daughter or Her Dark Curiosity, you can check out my reviews by clicking on the titles.
Just as in the first two books, A Cold Legacy leans heavily on a classic horror story. This time, it's Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I continue to be super impressed with Megan Shepherd, as she manages to work these classic tales into entirely new stories with new characters.
Even though this novel is based on a different classic than Her Dark Curiosity, the characters remain the same. The second book closed with a very narrow escape for Juliet, Montgomery, Edward, Lucy, and Balthazar, and A Cold Legacy opens on the very same scene, with the characters still on the run. They have directions from Elizabeth, to reach her secluded manor on the moor. She has just revealed to the group (at the end of the second book) that her family's last name used to be Frankenstein.... so what will await them at the manor?
Action! Fright! Dangerous things! <--what awaits them at the manor
But if you've been reading this trilogy from the start, that is what you'd expect. This trilogy definitely does NOT tire in it's finale! I would even venture to say that A Cold Legacy is more exciting and gripping than The Madman's Daughter. There wasn't every more than half a page of rest between reveals and surprises and action. This book was definitely chilling: Megan Shepherd doesn't hold back at all when describing medical conditions. (Elizabeth, remember, is a skilled surgeon; and Juliet is self-taught at medicine.) I hold to what I said in my review of The Madman's Daughter: this trilogy is like Stephen King for the YA set. The lines between right and wrong seem very wide and very gray. I've never loved a character so much while hating her decisions so much as I have Juliet. All of the characters are so very complex and imperfect; you may find your loyalties changing chapter to chapter.
The only slight bump in the book came near the end, when Juliet is performing a surgery... she manages to do a procedure in a few minutes that I really feel should have taken a few hours. (I'm not a doctor; I just watch medical dramas on TV. But when you get to that scene you'll probably agree with me.) And then the patient recovers much more quickly than I felt was realistic. This particular procedure played a large enough part in the plot that it kind of bothered me. But by the time I reached that scene I was hopelessly hooked, and the action does return to closer to realistic soon after.
I can't underscore that last sentence enough: I was hooked. In fact, I sat down to read in the early afternoon and didn't put it down until after sunset, until I'd read the last page. Now I'm a little sad that the trilogy has ended. I recommend this series at work all the time, and I recommend it to you too!
I just skimmed because I haven't read the other books in the trilogy but I have been meaning to for a really long time!
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