Kensington Books and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Liars' Legacy. I voluntarily chose to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Twins Jack and Jill were raised by their mother to be spies, to be ruthless in their pursuits, and to let no one get in their way. Pitted against each other from an early age, will the twins be able to align themselves on the same side for their own sake?

In the world of espionage, being hunted or prey depends on circumstances. In Liars' Legacy, there are different factions that are both in danger and dangerous. As far as spy thrillers go, this book has the classic elements, but the convoluted plot was not a successful way to tell the story. There were too many hunters and prey, which muddied up the plot until the story itself was lost. I liked the first book in the series, Liars’ Paradox, more because of the newness of the characters and the fast pace. Too much of this book was spent on who was hunting who instead of on actual plot. For these reasons, I would be hesitant to recommend Liars' Legacy to other readers.

Taylor Stevens is a fantastic writer. It’s a rare thriller with this much non-stop action that also manages to engage the reader with deep characterization. My only complaint is that the plot was unnecessarily confusing at times. In basic terms this is the story of assassin twins, Jack and Jill, on a quest to determine their paternal lineage in Russia, and instead caught up in a cat-and-mouse war with several other hit teams intent on killing them. Great fun!

Taylor Stevens's newest novel Liar's Legacy is a sequel to Liar's Paradox. To save time, I will merely copy portions of my review of Liar's Paradox because my thoughts are pretty much the same:



"Stevens writes the action well. The fighting and hunting scenes are breathless and exciting. The weakness of [Liar's Legacy] is the rest of the story. Why are these people hunting each other? Who is Clare, really? Who's calling the shots? To the extent that these questions are answered, I never really cared. Stevens falls into the same problem as a number of movies I've seen, where assassins are targeting each other but the motivations are murky. That's the case here. Stevens sheds little light on who these assassins have worked for, or who their targets have been. We just know they are now targeting each other. It just seems pointless and cartoonish. . . ."



That's pretty much it. It's a pointless hide-and-seek chase on an international stage. I wanted to like this more, but quickly got bored of the pointlessness of it.





Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

I absolutely loved the first book in the series and was so excited when I saw that the second was available. I started reading it, eager to dive back into the crazy world of Jack and Jill and Clare, only to find myself utterly and completely lost in a mire of names, assassin teams, governments, secrets, lies, red herrings and every other possible trope known to man... They were all jumbled together and I couldn't make head nor tail sense of any of them. In and of itself, an abundance of information and a lot of misdirection is not a problem - when it is a problem though, it is because the story-telling surrounding those story features feels garbled and cobbled together and the characters never seem fully-fleshed enough to generate interest... That's what I found here. I made it a quarter of the way through, painfully, and stopped altogether when I realized I didn't care what happened to anyone. I couldn't gin up empathy for Jack again, as I had in book one. Jill was still a psycho but nowhere near as interesting and compelling and engaging and snarky as in the first book. The mysterious Clare remained mysteriously behind the scenes, as did a handful of other people who were introduced and reintroduced but never with enough intrigue surrounding them for their lack of clarity to be anything other than confusing. And the multiple assassins just felt like stereotypes thrown in for additional obfuscation. It didn't intrigue me though, it just annoyed me. I have seen other reviews suggesting it picks up at the halfway point, but honestly I couldn't even bear with it long enough to find out... So disappointing!

Twins Jack and Jill board a flight to Berlin hoping to meet Dimitri, the father they've never known. What they do not expect is that two teams of American operatives are on the same flight to stop them. Often estranged, the twins are caught up in a deadly chase across Europe, back to the United States, and into an unholy alliance with a third assassin named Holden.

This was another thrilling, action-packed read in the series.

I received an eARC from Netgalley and Kensington with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book and provided this review.

Another fast-paced novel by Ms. Stevens that makes politics seem even more so like a big game. Who is pulling the strings for real and who thinks they are pulling the strings?

Looking forward to the next one.

Liar’s Legacy by Taylor Stevens
Jack & Jill Thriller #2

Though I ended up loving this book it took almost halfway into the story to finally figure out what was going on even though I had read the first book and the book description. When I finally “got it” I could not put the book down and read through the night.

What I liked:
* Jack, Jill and Holden: Intriguing intelligent and lethal people that I want to know more about.
* Jack is a bit of an enigma and yet I do like him...he seems more of a pacifist than his sister Jill but boy can he be lethal when necessary!
* Jill is a bit more emotional, or seems so, with issues from childhood that have left a different kind of mark than those left on her brother.
* Holden is a man I would love to get to know better. I wonder if and definitely hope that he and Jill will find a way to an eventual romantic relationship.
* Kara was a mystery for much of the book. As I got to know her I really liked her and do hope that she will show up in book three.
* The fact that though assassins the characters are “real” and not without soul/heart
* The story – once I “got it”
* The sleuthing that took place when my brain decided to see why the twins were named Jack and Jill and how they might tie into the children’s nursery rhyme of the same name.

What I did not like:
* The political types who put their agenda before the people they were in charge of
* The fact that life has little value to others – at least at times
* Having to say goodbye without knowing about Dmitry, wondering what will happen next and having to wait for book three to find out.

Did I like this book? Yes
Do I want to read more in this series? Definitely

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Publishing for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4.5 Stars

"……and in the end turn the murky dangerous world of assassins into a free for all. An assassins ball so to speak. It would be fun to watch. From a distance, a very great distance.” I’m quoting from my review of Liars' Paradox, the first book in Taylor Steven’s Jack and Jill series.
I was right, for in Liars' Legacy the death of the broker, the controller of most of the world’s assassins-for-hire has turned the assassins’ world into a killing free for all. This on the part of the assassins themselves and on the governments who in the past made use of their skills.
The US government has decided to go after the assassins, terrified of the mischief they could wreak, killing off the people they helped create.
In the first quarter of the book, passengers board a flight from Dallas to Frankfurt. An inordinate number of killers are on board, the killers and those to be killed, oh wait, each is both. A regular assassin’s ball. No one, including the reader knows who is whom until bodies start dropping.
Identical, fraternal twins) Jack and Jill are on the flight, but they just want to be left alone. They are heading to Germany to meet with a high level Russian intelligence operative, their putative father, Dmitry. Oddly enough, Russian intelligence decides to interfere and the story takes a much darker turn.
Clara their trainer, their torturer, their abuser, their loving mom is currently missing from their lives. They don’t know if Clara is busy elsewhere, dead, or busy pulling everyone’s strings.
The twins are not left totally alone; the receive assistance from some surprising sources.
Taylor manages to ratchet up the confusion, suspense, and the feeling of being in free-fall; usually with the reader having no idea of what will happen next. What a ride, baby, what a ride.
The Liars books seem like an education in all aspects of the art of black ops. Liars'Legacy is much better with the detailing and planning than I have read in so many other thrillers.
There are shocking turns that leave me applauding the audacity of Liars' Legacy. Rescue isn’t always an option. Very bad things do happen in real life.
I think many readers and/or reviewers might ding Liars' Legacy for the first 20% or so for being confusing. I think that is the whole point, no one knows what is going on, including the American intelligence control team back in DC, so why should the reader? Fog of war and all that.
The war room operatives have access to amazing – once again finely detailed in Stevens’ books- scary technology. The DC controllers are either just as confused or are purposely holding back information from their own people on the ground and in the air.
Stevens refers to the twins as Jack and Jill, but other characters know them by other names, John and Julia. It was disconcerting at first to understand who was being referred to on the name switch as there was no smooth transition.
Jack and Jill are still damaged by their upbringing, but they are trying to learn to trust themselves, each other, and possible allies.
A fast-paced adventure, Liars' Legacy, rarely lets up on the story of betrayal, lies, death and loyalty.
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange of a fair and honest review.

Published by Kensington on December 31, 2019

The Russians are up to no good in Liars' Legacy, the second novel in Taylor Stevens’ Jack and Jill series. An American intelligence bureaucrat named Hayes is also up to no good, in the sense that he wants to further his own interests rather than the country’s.

The plot involves “a son trying to escape his mother’s past and hoping to find a father.” The father is Dimitri Vasiliev, a KGB officer, and the mother is Clare, who at the time of her pregnancy was an American agent in Moscow. Jack and Jill have been shaped by Clare to be world-class assassins. As one might expect, they didn’t receive the kind of nurturing from Clare that children crave, but like Johnny Cash’s legendary Boy Named Sue, adversity imposed by a parent teaches them to survive. That talent comes in handy, given the number of killers who try to take them out as the story unfolds.

Other key characters are also in the killing business. Kara works for a nebulous government agency that has decided to kill the assassins on the Broker’s list, a list that includes Chris Holden. Kara is an analyst rather than a trigger puller, but events force her into the field when she is assigned to a tactical team that chases a dangerous target — until the target starts chasing her team. Up the chain of command from Kara is Liv Wilson, “a politics-playing, ass kissing ladder climber,” a “woman who saw competence in other women as a threat to her own position and who’d sabotage in a hundred petty ways."

The story begins in the aftermath of the Broker’s death, the Broker having been established in Liar’s Paradox as “the man who played king against king and bartered souls for national secrets, who’d negotiated hits between buyers and assassins, and who’d forced order onto lawless chaos.” A couple of hit squads seem to be following Holden on a flight from Dallas to Frankfurt, but maybe things are not as they seem. Holden is following Jack and Jill, Jack’s ticket having been purchased by someone who claimed the ability to connect him with Dimitri, the father that the twins have never met. Jill is along for the ride to watch Jack’s back, although she hopes that the search for Dimitry will “put meaning to their mother’s past and make some sense of an upturned childhood.” Jack’s feelings about Clare are less complex; he hates her for forcing him to live a life of lies, always looking over his shoulder for real or imagined threats.

Frankfurt is a step on a journey to Berlin, where the players converge. The twins are tracking their father while the Russians, the Americans, and Holden are tracking the twins. Later destinations in the journey include Prague and the United States, where events transpire that include a Russian plan to sow chaos by assassinating one or more American politicians. Jack might be tasked with one of those killings in a twisty plot that always has the reader wondering whether Jack, Jill, Holden, and Kara will eventually succeed in killing each other as well as their targets or pursuers.

Stevens manages to keep the story moving at a steady pace without dumbing down the plot. She writes action scenes that compare favorably with the best action-thriller writers. Characterization is nevertheless her strength. Holden thinks Jill is “a few sane days shy of crazy,” an apt observation given her love-hate relationship with Jack, Clare, and the world. Holden, who was “delivered as a trophy” to the man who ordered his mother’s death, is nearly as complex as the twins. Yet while none of the characters act out of high moral purpose, save possibly for Kara, they are all capable of kindness and empathy.

Taylor Stevens has earned critical acclaim as a thriller writer, but I’m not sure she has the same following as lesser writers who churn out books that readers might find more comforting. Her childhood history is a compelling story and her experience overcoming adversity plainly informs her writing. I enjoyed her Vanessa Michael Munroe series and I’m now an equal fan of Jack and Jill.

RECOMMENDED

Thanks to Kensington Books and NetGalley for providing me a copy of this book for this honest review.

Jack and Jill are back in the second book in Taylor Steven’s new series (after Liars’ Paradox). These 26-year-old twins have been trained by their mother to always be on the run and to protect themselves from any difficult situation. This second book is as much a continuation of the first book as it is a sequel. In following what was discovered at the end of the last book, the twins are on their way to meet with the man they believe is their father. However, many different people from the US and Russia (and ??) are following them as at least one of the twins are believed to be out to murder a key Washington congressman.

This book is as much, if not more, about the action and less about advancing the story that began in the first book. The author shows the complex way the twins avoid capture and how they continue to plan their adventures, while still trying to find a way to meet their father. Lots of fun and exciting reading, interesting characters, and action, but all of this is more distraction that keeps the story from moving along.

I read the first book and was a bit distracted by the amount of time spent creating the back story about the twins and their mother. This book does not do that which I really appreciated and enjoyed. However, I would strongly recommend reading the first book before reading this one. The references to the first book were good reminders for me, but I don’t think they’d be enough for someone who was unfamiliar with the key characters.

Liar's Legacy starts off strong and the action continues to the last page.

I loved it.

Jack and Jill are trained killers, they are twins and they live their life like no other.

It was a fun fast paced read !! Cant wait for book 3. Sign me up !

This is book 2 in the Jack and Jill series, though you could read it as a standalone, you would get more out of Liars Legacy if you read book one.

Thanks to Net Galley and Kensington books for another great read in the Jack and Jill series.

Jack and Jill, introduced in Liar’s Paradox, are at again in this assassins dangerous romp. While listed as a standalone, I made a point of reading the first book in the series. It helped to keep clear all the major characters with a better understanding of where they are coming from in behavior, attitudes and experiences. Jack and Jill, twins and in a love/hate relationship, were raised violently by a psychopathic mother who played on there emotions from their earliest years and now as adults dangerous spies and assassins. Politics, governmental priorities, the Russians, the United States all come into play in the world of spies and assassins. Follow along and fear the mind of the assassin and how they think, their motives, their intentions and their training. Stevens keeps you wondering who has been assigned to work with who, what country is involved, and who are the targets. You’ll find more detail than ever on how the twins early experiences make them the capable dangerous assassins they’ve become with intelligence, wit, and no fear. You’ll not want to put the novel down until you find out who survives and who the final individual to be killed is named. Will it happen and who will do it? Who will survive? Where will Jack and Jill be when it is all over

This *could* be read as a standalone, but if I'm being honest the action starts RIGHT FROM THE OPEN and it's complex with several players, and I feel like you would be more comfortable sliding right into the story if you read Liars' Paradox first.
Otherwise the first 1/3 of the book might be a bit confusing as you try to figure out the main players, as it picks up just past where the last book finished, which I LOOOVE.

In the first book, I found the main characters more intriguing, interesting, layered, and engaging rather than actually likable, which is totally okay for me - I don't have to like you to pay attention to you. They've grown on me though, for sure, and they're even more fascinating in this new book.

The peeling away of layers of deception and disguise and the quick-change artistry.
The advance thinking chess-like 'game' that is their lifestyle, out of habit AND necessity.
They're pretty freaking brilliant, but with all too real weaknesses and flaws.

I am a huge fan of this author, including her first series of character Vanessa Michael Munroe.
I highly recommend!
GET THE WHOLE REVIEW HERE:
http://brain-soup.blogspot.com/2019/12/liars-liars-liars-yeah-theyre-gonna.html

This is one of the most confusing thrillers Stevens has ever written. The action never lets up but it's unclear exactly what's going on, who the bad guys and girls are and who's the target of the multiple teams of assassins deployed to Frankfurt,Berlin, Prague, and ultimately an amusement park in San Antonio. A brother and sister pair who've been raised by a justifiably paranoid mother whose lessons in survival have kept them alive long enough to search for the father they've never met are the protagonists of this murky novel, but who the antagonists are us never entirely clear, and the result is a frustrating experienced for even the most attentive reader.

I really enjoyed this sequel to Liars' Paradox! It picks up just about immediately after the events of the first book's conclusion and like the first one, is action-packed from start to finish! The training that the twins' mother/mentor gave them helps them navigate the aftermath of the first book as they begin to track down their birth father.

But, this one adds plenty of plotting from outside agencies - namely between Russia and the US. New, but likable, characters are introduced. This really makes for a fast and engaging read. Because the main characters are a bit more established now, there isn't as much background (which, I must admit, I did miss because those flashback/background scenes were some of my favorites in the first book). This one, for the most part, moves rather relentlessly forward due to the plot.

There are some hints at perhaps deeper relationships to come, which certainly works well to draw the series out and I enjoyed a few rather teasing scenes that hint at that direction to come. This one definitely has that same cinematic appeal that the first one has (though perhaps more episodic and better suited for the smaller screen). And the end really left me hanging a bit more than I expected - I am definitely anxious for the next installment! The abrupt ending startled me a bit, but I am eager to see what will come next in this fun series!

Taylor Stevens gets better with age and each passing book. Liars' Legacy continues that tradition with further action with Jack and Jill.

This is the second book in a series. It works as a stand alone but I think I would have been less confused if I had read the first. To say this book is about espionage would be an understatement. It reads like an espionage, assassin, evasion-from-detection how-to manual. It was a good read but I will say it was a difficult read for many reasons. First, it took 49% of the book to set up a pivotal meeting and it took me that long to figure out what was going on. There were so many assassin teams introduced it was hard to keep them all straight. Too many hit lists and a convoluted plot made the story difficult to follow. When reading a spy thriller like this I like to know who the good guys and bad guys are and I’m still not sure who they are, maybe there were no good guys. Second, there was too much explanation of the spy craft, for example, how to tell if you are being followed, how to spot people who aren’t supposed to be there, etc. Third, there were a lot of unbelievable aspects, the stashes and ID’s being hidden all over the world, they ditch their bags full of gear but sometimes without visiting their caches somehow manage to have money, clothes, weapons and new identities. It just seemed too fantastical to believe. I liked the characters but because I hadn’t read the first book, didn’t understand all the relationships between them. Jack and Jill are twin assassins who’ve been trained by a psychopathic mother to be the best in the world. They are trying to locate the father they’ve never met. One minute they are working together like a well-oiled machine and the next they are at each other’s throats. It was confusing. When they partnered up with another superhuman assassin it was a little unbelievable. The writing style was difficult to follow in some instances and sometimes it was so verbose it made the action scenes drag on and on. I liked the story but I think it would benefit from some good editing. With a little more editing, I would like to read more from this author. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

It was hard for me to get into this book—I found the myriad of characters and the byzantine plot confusing. Then I wasn’t really sure who were the good guys (were there any, really?). Everyone was ostensibly on someone’s hit list, or looking to kill someone else. The main characters, twins Jack and Jill, were raised by a psychopath, and are now trying to locate the father they have never met. Stevens is a good writer-- I read all of her Vanessa Michael Munroe books-- but my perception is that her writing has gotten much, much darker in this new series. Thanks to Netgalley and to the publisher for this ARC.

Harder to follow than previous books by Taylor Stevens. Little character development.
Interesting when dialog was realistic.

I wonder if one of the espionage training facilities for spies and assassins is still located at Langley? Because if it is, I feel like I could walk right in and take the written test to become a card carrying spy with a Masters in assassination just from reading the first two books in the Jack and Jill series. These books are intense; action begins on the first page and doesn't pause for breath the entire way through. Now, if you were a friend asking me about this second book in the series I would strongly advise you to read the first book before you tackle this one. Two reasons: #1 the childhood of Jack and Jill is of paramount importance to understand these characters and that is covered best in the first book. #2 is that this second book just jumps right into the action without the author spending any time bringing new readers up to date. Most readers will catch up if they persevere, but some just will not have the patience.

The twins have been told their father wants to meet with them. They don't have any idea if Dmitry is real, is alive, or is just a carrot the Russians are dangling over their heads to facilitate some unknown result. This episode of the story moves all over the globe and shows author Taylor Steven's imaginative abilities on steroids. Granted, our main protagonists have to have the best luck and skills known to mankind, but it's still one heck of a story. The character development in this series is second to none and I can hardly wait for the next thrilling installment.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for an e-galley of this novel.