Published: 22nd May 2012
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Pages: 32
Format: Ebook
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy
★ ★ – 2 Stars
Legacy Lost is a prequel story to Anna Banks’ debut novel, Of Poseidon.
He is a mer-prince, she is the mermaid princess that his family orders him to marry so that their kingdoms unite. Grom dreads this arrangement, until he meets Nalia — both beautiful and smart, she’s everything he ever wanted. But just when their connection grows deeper, tragedy strikes.
I thought since I mentioned it we need to add in the review. It is short, mainly because the prequel was short, but there isn’t much I want to say about it, partly for spoilers, and partly because it was annoying. Oh my was it annoying. I don’t think my eyes have rolled that much in a story until I read this story. Like most prequels, this is one that really should be read before the main first book because it makes you read it very differently when you know the future, even if you miss out on a lot of information given in the book. It is supposed to be an extension on the backstory of events mentioned in Of Poseidon.
The main players are Grom, who we see in Of Poseidon, and his intended mate Nalia. This is a story of the past so Grom is younger than in the book, and the story revolves around the events leading to the union of the pair. By the end of this story it does become something pretty reasonable, but for the most part it was very weak. Grom is a complainer for the first part of the story and after awhile it gets a bit annoying, but then he changes it to being this forward, clichéd and failing to be romantic guy and it makes you wish he was complaining again. There is a scene between Nalia and Grom reuniting after a period of time and it is eye rolling at best. It is stilted and corny and there is a line in there that reminded me of Princess Bride – you know the one, that one, but I think that was my mind trying to think of anything except the story.
Grom’s intentions for his actions are clumsily revealed as the story progresses and they are quite petty with rather childish reasoning behind them, all as consequence for a prophecy and agreement, something that was always known so it was no surprise to anyone. As a character Grom is quite unappealing, in Of Poseidon he seems stronger and tolerable. I know that is set in the future where he would be grown but it is hard coming from the book to this short story prequel and accepting he is the same person. My mind also wandered and certain bits reminded me a lot of Disney’s Little Mermaid which was interesting. As its own story it was poor, and even as a prequel I think it was just ok, but something I think, since this was done so badly, the storyline could have been introduced into the second book in a better way. Perhaps if it was a bit longer Banks could have made it flow a bit better and make the interactions more convincing.
You can purchase Legacy Lost via the following
Or you can read it here.
Lost in a Good Book 