Review: The Final Target by Nora Roberts

The Final Target by Nora Roberts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided an ALC and ARC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

This follows Arden from publishing her first book through her successful career as an author.  As she is gaining success she meets Dustin, an eager fan with a bit too much enthusiasm.  He sets off all of the alarm bells after coming to one too many events, and oversteps the line of fan to stalker very quickly.  After things take a violent turn, Arden moves across the country to seek the peace, quite, and safety she so desperately needs.  She also finds community and support in the small Oregon town.  While Arden is putting her life back together, Dustin is building their life together in his head after he gets released from psychiatric treatment.  Can her found family protect her or has she built up the skills she needs to protect herself from the privileged stalker when he comes for her a second time?

I really enjoyed getting to know Arden, her friends, and her family.  The author did a really good job with her character development and did a great job making Dustin's character horribly creepy.  His personality and ideals were something to behold, and not in a good way.  The cast of characters was well developed, and I love a good found family element to any book.  There is a nice romance element but it isn't over the top.  January LaVoy's narration as always is phenomenal.  Her work is always top notch.

I did find this to be a bit formulaic and predictable when compared to a few of Robert's more recent novels.  The plot and characters were similar in nature to a few of her books in the last few years.  Does that mean it wasn't entertaining?  Absolutely not, I still enjoyed it and the characters were engaging.

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Review: Mind Games by Nora Roberts

Mind Games by Nora Roberts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided both an ebook and an audio ARC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

I mainly listened to the audiobook, because January LaVoy is one of my favorite narrators.  As always she does a fantastic job voicing all of the characters in the novel so you always know who is speaking and what they are feeling.  

I actually really enjoyed this book!  This started out as a questionable read for me, as the main character Thea is a child when the villian Ray Riggs enters the storyline.  I don't enjoy thrillers where children are involved, but I really liked what the author did with the interactions between Riggs and Thea.  I thought it was a creative way for them to interact, while still protecting Thea as a child and as she grows up and she is ready to face him in person.  Make no mistake the interactions with Riggs are plenty ugly and at time vulgar, but knowing that he and Thea are never physically in the same space makes for an interesting plotline and easier to stomach when she is younger.  There are several scenes where you are going to want to check trigger warnings for especially when Riggs is in the drivers seat or when Thea is describing crime scenes to the detectives.  While short, they are disturbing.

I thought the pacing was good in this one.  I sometimes find Roberts book to be a tad on the long side and the pace to be slow, but I didn't find that to be the case with this one.  This follow Thea and her brother from childhood when tragedy strikes their family on their annual 2 week trip to their grandmothers Kentucky home.  Grammie becomes their legal guardian and raises them into successful adults.  Both Grammie and Thea have a gift, so this does delve a bit into the paranormal throughout the book as Thea has a connection with the man who killed her parents.  She works hard to keep him out, but he is working just as hard to break down her walls.  As we follow Thea through adulthood, we see her build a successful career and life, and when she least expects it love enters the picture.  I thought all of the characters had good character development and well defined storylines.  I loved all the side characters as well and felt they did a good job to support the story.  I was invested in Thea and Ty's relationship as their romance developed, and thought they had good chemistry.  This is pretty closed door when it comes to the spice, which I prefer.  I also loved all the references to home cooked meals.  This book should come with a supplemental cookbook for all of the yummy things Thea and Grammie cooked, as well as Grammie's secret recipes to her soaps, candles, and lotions.  

Overall I thought this was really entertaining.  Sometimes the author's work can feel a bit formulaic, and while that might have been true for this book that formula worked really well for me here.  If you are a Nora Roberts fan and like a thriller with a paranormal twist this, I recommend this one!

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Review: The Awakening by Nora Roberts

The Awakening by Nora Roberts
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was provided an audio ARC via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

This follows Breen, an unhappy middle school teacher who has been held back and put down by her successful and driven mother for most of her life. When she finds out that her mother has been lying about her estranged father for years and that he's been sending funds to provide for her since they divorced, Breen is understandably angry. She and her best friend Marco decide to take a trip of a lifetime to Ireland to try to find her father and reclaim some of Breen's lost heritage. While in Ireland, Breen begins a journey of self discovery starting out with Marco and it becomes even more after she meets her Grandmother and learns more about her family. This book has been out for a while so I won't go into the plot too much. I really enjoyed taking this journey with Breen, I was captivated by the story and enjoyed the characters! If the second book isn't out yet, I know it will be available soon.

I loved this! The narrator was wonderful, and I thought she did a great job with the different characters and accents. I didn't know much about the series going in, but I've read a different paranormal/fantasy series by Nora Robert so I thought I'd give this a try. I'm so glad that I did. I thought the world building was excellent and it makes me want to take a trip to Ireland even more than I did before. I thought Breen's character development was good, but some of the side characters could have used a bit more development. Keegan who I assume is going to play a much larger role as the story develops is a good example, Breen spends a good deal of time with him, but I don't fee like we know him yet. We know he's driven by duty and has high expectations of everyone, but we don't get to know the man very well, at least not yet. As for Breen, I really liked that she went from a timid kind of push over character to someone that while she was skeptical of the new world she is now part of, was willing to speak up for herself. She communicated her needs even if people weren't willing to listen, and she was willing to train to fulfil her duties even if she didn't always want to.

I felt that the magic system was a bit under developed. When it came to Breen developing her abilities, everything just kind of came to her without much effort. Maybe that was by design, but it felt too easy considering how hard she has to work at everything else. I also didn't love the ending. The audiobook is over 15 hours long, and the ending makes it feel like a really long introduction instead of a standalone novel. I'm very much looking forward to the next book, but I feel like the conclusion could have been a more sound as I prefer books even if they are part of a series to feel like they stand on their own. The ending almost felt like a cliffhanger after such a long book, I don't have a feeling of closure. It does make me want to pick up the next book ASAP, so that works in the author's favor. I'm looking forward to book 2 and seeing where the series is headed.
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Review: Legacy by Nora Roberts

Legacy by Nora Roberts
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was provided an ARC via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.  

This book was fine, it was way too long in my opinion.  It was marketed as a thriller and romantic suspense, but the thriller element is barely present and I didn't feel that it was suspenseful at all.  This is a family saga about a woman who has built herself up from her own ambition, despite sitiation.  Her mother, who is also ambitious, let her career come first and her daughter come when she had a free moment between filming yoga videos and doing appearances.  Adrian built her own fitness empire and family based on her desires and needs.  When she starts receiving death threats, her mother passes them off as part of the business and tells her to move on.  This is basically what the book does with the thriller aspect of the book.  The book focuses on Adrian, her work as a fitness expert, her relationships with her Grandparents, her friends, her dog, and her life in the small town of Traveler's creek.  This book is over 400 pages and the thriller aspect takes less than 25% of it.  For me it got a bit repetitive with the workouts, filming videos, entertaining of friends, and waiting for the bad guy to make his move.

The writing was good.  I like Nora Roberts as an author, but this was not the page turner I was expecting.  The romance was slow burn, and when the couple finally gets together it wasn't in my opinion very exciting.  The chemistry between them was kind of lack luster.  I felt the same about the reveal for the suspense aspect.  I had that part figured out very early on, so when it finally came there was no heart pounding suspense for me.  It was very much "it is about time" because it took so long to get to the action.  I feel had this book been significantly shorter I might have felt differently.  

Overall I felt this book was a bit on the boring side.  The pace was very slow and the characters were flat.  They never really developed beyond who they were.   I kept waiting for the action to pick up but it didn't.  The family and friends scenes were very repetitive.   If you enjoy family saga's  you may really enjoy this book.  The thriller aspect is fairly tame, there is not a ton of gory violence and there is so little of it in the book if you aren't a fan it won't turn you away from the main story.  Unfortunately, this one wasn't for me.

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