Jenny’s Legacy

Cassandra Barnes
Five Star (2006)
ISBN 1594144338
Reviewed by Linda Benninghoff for Reader Views (3/06)

Gaelynn’s parents are failing. Her mother can’t remember things and her father has had a heart attack. It is everything she can do to keep them out of a nursing home or--less terrifying--an assisted living facility. She’s just started a new business lecturing and working as a consultant on psychic phenomena--she has intuitions and a sixth sense, the ability to foretell the future. However, her partner and best friend, Celeste, is planning to leave and take another job.

Gaelynn has always had someone to rely on--her parents, her former husband, Scott, and then Celeste. How will she weather this crisis? Will she keep the independence she seemed to be in the process of attaining-- or will she become the victim of adverse circumstances, either because she doesn’t trust her intuitions and inner visions or because the people she meets are cruel and thoughtless?

"Jenny's Legacy" tells the story of Gaelynn but also of Kyele, and Jenny his sister who died in a drug bust after she ran away from home to live with Master Kundalini, a sort of cult leader who also was interested in developing Jenny’s psychic powers. This seems to have turned Kyle against all psychics. When he meets Gaelynn, although he is attracted to her, he has many barriers to overcome. The possibility that Gaelynn and Kyle will get together despite their differences makes this novel an exciting page-turner.

This is a story about an intelligent woman with two jobs, one being a school psychologist. It will appeal to women with education and careers. As part of Gaelynn’s experience working in her lecturing and consulting business, she must fight prejudice. Her sixth sense and her knowledge about psychic phenomena are not explained in full, but what comes across in the novel makes for interesting reading.

In all, "Jenny’s Legacy" is a well-plotted novel with excellent characterization and a story that will interest many readers. I particularly liked the series of coincidences which seem to occur naturally--Gaelynn is psychic and knowledgeable about psychic abilities, yet Kyle and Kyle’s father feel a strong prejudice against psychics, their differences making it surprising these people even meet. The impossible dream of these prejudices being forgot and overcome makes this novel excellent.

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