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Title: The Legacy of Eden
Author: Nelle Davy
Narrator: Tavia Gilbert
Format: Unabridged
Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
Language: English
Release date: 02-01-12
Publisher: Harlequin Books S.A.
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher's Summary:
For generations, Aurelia was the crowning glory of more than 3,000 acres of Iowa farmland and golden cornfields. The estate was a monument to matriarch Lavinia Hathaway's dream to elevate the family name - no matter what relative or stranger she had to destroy in the process. It was a desperation that wrought the downfall of the Hathaways and the once-prosperous farm.
Now the last inhabitant of the decaying home has died alone. None of the surviving members of the Hathaway family want anything to do with the farm, the land or the memories.
Especially Meredith Pincetti. Now living in New York City, Lavinia's youngest grandchild has tried to forget everything about her family and her past. But with the receipt of a pleading letter, Meredith is thrust into conflict with the legacy that destroyed her family's oncegreat name.
Back at Aurelia, Meredith must confront the rise and fall of the Hathaway family... and her own part in their mottled history.
Members Reviews:
What's in a name?
For seventeen years, Meredith Hathaway has tried to forget everything about her family and her past. But when she feels compelled to return to the three thousand acre family home in Iowa, known as Aurelia, she is forced to face her own past - a childhood burdened with deceit, abuse, alcoholism, dysfunction, guilt and a misguided belief that the Hathaways were a family to be revered and envied. For Meredith, the memories of the legacy that destroyed her family must be confronted in order to move beyond her own part in their sordid history.
Not up my alley.
I couldn't get into the story although I gave it good try. Was sorry I purchased it. I should have sampled it first.
Too many things wrong with this one!
This is a book written by a born-and-bred Londoner about a multi-generational dysfunctional family in Iowa, and truly, she did not do it well.
The main problem with this book for me is that it is so ridiculously MELODRAMATIC. I counted five face-"slappings" or more violent whamo-o's to the face, and then I quit counting; it seemed that every dysfunctional encounter between the characters ended with one, as if the author could not conceive of another way to express violent emotion....
Except, of course, to make almost every character some sort of WAY over-the-top villain.... the kind that would, yes, appear in an old-time melodrama where the audience entertains itself by booing and hissing them. The main characters are a greedy, manipulative adulteress, two or three unpleasant drunks, a woman who enjoys kinky sex with multiple partners, a girl who runs away instead of helping her sister (to whom something very unpleasant is happening),child abandoners, a wife torturer, a rapist, various haters, schemers, manipulators. Of the characters we might call "good," mostly they just stand by and watch the villains emote and chew the scenery, just like Pearl Pureheart in a melodrama. Many books have this kind of character, but OVER-THE-TOP is the watchword here. If any of these villainous characters had mustaches, you can bet they were twirling them, even if the author does not report it.
Another problem is that the setting never comes alive. The farm, Aurelia, is supposed to be the centerpiece of the book, but we get no sense of it at all as a piece of land...
