Why Spirit Legacy will never be a 5-star read even if it’s an all-time favorite

What if I said you can love a book while acknowledging it’s not the greatest read in the world? Yeah, that’s the case with Spirit Legacy, which despite serving as a prominent series starter, is nowhere near a 5-star read.

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But then again, it’s even hard to call Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s (Sorcerer’s) Stone as such, given the number of plot holes in the first chapter alone. I could probably devote an entire article to the subject, but that’s not why I’m talking about Spirit Legacy in such tones.

Instead, there are two things wrong with this book that have always made it a four-star read:

Jess Ballard’s Aunt Karen’s refusal to explain what she was, and

The fact Jess and Karen had to rescue Hannah with no real help

Oh, and in case you’re wondering what this review has to do with libertarianism, let’s just say that you can sense a little corruption early on when you read this thing. E.E. Holmes doesn’t elaborate much, but she clues you in some on that notorious Council. Anyway, let’s get to it.

Karen’s Refusal

We find out very early on that Jess sees spirits and it’s something that Karen would know the symptoms of early in the work of what was going on. Heck, we can even point out that Karen may’ve known about Jess’ ability as early as Chapter 2 when Jess’ supposedly senile grandfather confronts her in the nursing home he’s living in that he’s “seen it.”

Yet, Karen even goes as far as to lie to Jess at Christmas regarding this mysterious, blank, ancient book that appeared under the tree. Karen claims she gave it to Jess and forgot about it, but her reaction upon seeing the book told us all this was a poorly crafted lie.

Later in a subsequent scene, Jess overhears Karen speaking to a woman named Finvarra. And it doesn’t take long for Jess to realize that she’s the subject of the call and the book is also mentioned.

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It’s not until a horde of restless spirits nearly kills Jess does Karen finally crack. Of course, Karen still acts like she can only tell Jess so much, but a subsequent visit from two Durupinen finally forces her to reveal the truth.

While Karen may not have known Jess was born with the ability is plausible, I digress. Karen knew about Jess’ “talent” for seeing and interacting with spirits. She saw Jess holding the Book of Teigh Anonn. She even hesitated to talk when Jess ended up in the hospital thanks to those restless spirits trying to literally rip her apart so they could cross through her and into the aether.

Yeah, the Durupinen are an ultra-secret society shrouded in mystery and all. I get that. But a corporate lawyer like Karen would have logistically known better the second Jess interacted with Evan’s spirit.

What was her reasoning? That she kept a promise to Jess’ mother, Lizzy, to never reveal any of this to Jess before the book’s events. That, and Finvarra apparently didn’t give permission to reveal anything, either. For me, it was hard to believe this entire rhetoric.

Rescuing Hannah

Despite having nearly 15,000 reviews and ratings at the Zon, Spirit Legacy is still nowhere near Harry Potter or Hunger Games in popularity, so there are some names I didn’t want to drop to spark curiosity. That would’ve been the case here had I not inadvertently revealed some details in a previous post.

Now, before I critique this point, I do want to say this: Long-lost siblings are among my favorite tropes regardless of the genre. That and the evil relative narrative except for when Star Wars does it to try and hone in some original trilogy nostalgia.

Anyway, before I dive further off-track, a pair of Durupinen named Catriona and Lucida pay Jess and Karen a visit. They reveal they’ve located the long-lost sibling, Hannah, but they do nothing more than give the aunt-niece duo an address of a psyche ward that the girl’s residing in because her “talent” manifested at a much younger age than Jess’.

Why they didn’t just use their influence to bail the girl out themselves is something that’s been lost on me for ages. Every time I read this book, I always think I missed something to explain this and so far, I’ve come up with just one explanation: Catriona and Lucida, especially Lucida, love entertainment at the expense of others.

In other words, you’ll learn in later books that the two are pests who openly don’t care for Jess. So, maybe they’d just have found it funny to task Jess and Karen with the bail-out and nothing more. Yeah, Lucida said she and Catriona would help at one point and Karen denied her. But, whether Lucida was serious here is a topic of discussion.

Corruption Foreshadowed

If I were to make an educated guess, the Durupinen are the most powerful people in Jess’ world. So, naturally, they’re a corrupt bunch. If there are positives to be taken from these two criticisms, it’s just that: In both instances, there’s some leeway here.

Clearly, Karen knows what’s going on with Jess, but to her defense, she also doesn’t know about Hannah, the key to Jess’ Gateway. Since Durupinen always come in pairs, it’s plausible that Jess was more of a sensitive than a fully-fledged Durupinen.

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Secondly, Catriona’s and Lucida’s refusal to help Jess and Karen rescue the sister shows off a ‘because we can’ mentality. Why track the girl down without actually partaking in the rescue? ‘Because we can.’ And that’s how the Durupinen act. So, while it doesn’t make sense on the surface, it’s understood more in later books.