Legacy (Legacy #1) by Cayla Kluver

Release Date: June 21st, 2011
Publisher: HarlequinTeen
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 496
Format: Paperback (signed)
Source: Giveaway
_______

In her seventeenth year, Princess Alera of Hytanica faces one duty: to marry the man who will be king. But her father's choice of suitor fills her with despair.



When the palace guard captures and intruder—a boy her age with steel-blue eyes, hailing from her kingdom's greatest enemy—Alera is alarmed…and intrigued. But she could not have guessed that their clandestine meetings would unveil the dark legacy shadowing both their lands.


n this mystical world of court conspiracies and blood magic, loyalties will be tested. Courage won't be enough. And as the battle begins for everything Alera holds dear, love may be the downfall of a kingdom.
____

It's really hard to determine the real weight of the book, especially if you've talked to the author. But Legacy, I admit, was in the middle of that range of, oh, I absolutely love it, and oh, I absolutely hate it. Here's why:


So, from the beginning, I was a little bit skeptical. After all, the cover looked kind of weird-a girl learning on a man's leg? What? And then there was the really vague description on the back, and the way I couldn't determine if it was fantasy or historical fiction (turns out it's fantasy historical fiction.) But as I started reading the Prologue, things started to get better-after all, I love my creepy, mysteriuos prologues.

But then I started really getting into it. It wasn't that it wasn't good-I mean, it was really good as it closed up onto the end-but it wasn't that great either. My biggest problem was with the nuance and flow of Alera's voice-I loved how Kluver toned it so that Alera had a rich, honey-butter Jane Austen feel, but a lot of it was just fluff that I didn't need to know, and her dialect kept switching from regal to teenagers of today.

My next biggest problem was Alera's reactions to all the problems she was facing. It was like she didn't have a set personality; sometimes she was brave and even cruel, while others she was as meek as a mouse. And that wouldn't have been as big of an issue, except for the fact that it wasn't transitioned neatly enough for me to get that she was a human being, if you know what I mean. And another part of that is that I felt the secondary characters were more well-developed than Alera herself, because I could imagine the strong and silent London and Narian and the charismatic but stuffy Steldor much better than Alera.

And, let's just get it out-the romance. For some reason in my head, I'm rooting for Steldor. I don't know why, and don't ask me why, because even I don't know why. Even though Kluver kind of fluctuates in some other things of her writing, her romances are really strong and beautiful, and though Narian makes me sigh, Steldor is kind of the character who's come a long way in his personality, and that I, for one, find kind of mysterious.

Last but not least-the plot. I thought that was the best part of this piece. Even though it could be slow at times (especially at the beginning) Kluver excels at wanting us to read more and more and more. I stayed up all night until I could finish this book-so many new things were happening at each turn of the page, and the story just accelerated as it kept going.

So I'll just have to say that Legacy didn't give me that mind-blowing realization of "here's a good book, but rather one of, "I'll have to read the next one to really determine where this is heading." Lucky for me, I do have Allegiance in my hands-and while I catch up on my reading, you'll have to decide whether Legacy is a good next read for you.