Ed Townsend yearns for acceptance by helping those around him. Allowing his cousinas daughter, Kristina, to seduce him does not help him in his quest. However, Kristina is beyond saving as she plots to get her fair share of the Townsend family legacy. A Lethal Legacy, a psychological thriller, takes the reader on a journey through Edas discovery of why his family cannot find acceptance. Each of the characters suffers the consequences of living for othersa expectations. Gary Townsend struggles to admit his sexual preferences because he knows his father will never accept his sonas homosexuality. Kristina steals and even murders because she has never felt loved. And Ed Townsend believes he can save everyone in order to find acceptance from his family. It takes divorce, disease, and death for the protagonist to finally realize that acceptance only comes from within, once he is willing to face his true feelings.