One of the things I love most about Caroline Bond’s writing is the fact she places her characters in often controversial situations, their behaviour affected by the moral dilemmas they face which always makes for a thought provoking read. In The Legacy she tackles a most tricky subject, that of inheritance, which can be a difficult topic to broach with your nearest and dearest, especially when the family in question no longer exists in its original form. It’s a perfectly reasonable assumption to make that in this day and age many families are going to be of the blended variety, making the passing on or dividing up of assets fraught with complexities. In the Coulter’s case, husband and father of three Jonathan has remained living in the family home, The View, with partner Megan,until his recent demise from motor neurone disease. At the time of his split from wife Eloise, all three adult children cast Megan as the cuckoo in the nest, solely blaming her for embarking upon an affair with a married man which sounds the death knell for their parents marriage. The novel opens with the reading of Jonathan’s last will and testament with Olivia, Noah, Chloe and Megan in attendance, a scene that is excruciatingly awkward and tense given their open hostility towards their late father’s partner. However, things are about to get even more awkward when realisation dawns this is by no means a straightforward case of splitting everything three ways. Instead, Jonathan shocks them into stunned and quiet disbelief with his statement of wishes in which no provision has been made for his current partner nor ex wife, stipulating that his funeral should not take place until all three siblings have agreed on how to divide up his assets, whether that be fairly and squarely or not!