Grace was raised by a mother who suffered all her life from bipolar disorder and obsessive love, and a biological father who beat her and raged at her. For the past six years, her mother has been confined to an institution, the best that Grace could afford, and now on her death, Grace may be about to discover that the manic ramblings about Lillian’s baby’s danger might not be just dream fluff after all. When her mother dies, Grace discovers a diary and letters from her mother, creating even more mysteries. In an effort to discover the real truths about her life and heritage, Grace returns to the abandoned house in a small town near Savannah in which she spent her life until age eighteen.

In the same small town, Nick, a former Atlanta police detective, recuperates with his large Italian family while he tries to recover from the mental and emotional trauma of the shooting in which he lost his partner. On the night after her mother’s funeral, Grace had willingly participated in an overnight fling with Nick, whom she met at a bar, and only later realized he reminded her of a popular boy on whom she’d had a crush back in high school. When the two meet again at Grace’s childhood home, the sparks fly, the sensuality sizzles, and the earth practically quakes.

The intimacy steams off the page in this novel, together with the heartwrenching story of Grace’s childhood, and her mother’s continuing mental disorder. I defy any reader to walk away from this novel unscathed and dry-eyed. Flesa Black delivers a scorcher which is a not-to-be-put-down story, and a likely re-reader. Nick and Grace are nearly perfect for each other; Nick is too gorgeous for words, yet too troubled and distraught over his losses. He’s quite self-analytical for an Alpha male, making him all the more appealing. Grace is a late-blooming former ugly duckling working through an atrocious past and the memories it leaves, now coming face-to-face with worse terrors than those she thought she had outgrown. Legacy is a tale not to be missed.