Savor the Moment by Nora Roberts ****

Savor the Moment by Nora Roberts

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is the 3rd in a series about 4 women who grew up together and are now in a wedding business together. Laurel McBane, the chef of the group, has always had a thing for Del Brown "of the Connecticut Browns", which implies, as she says, that he's not just rich - but wealthy. Del is the brother of one of the 4women, so he was always around. Unfortunately for her, he always considered her another sister. So she had to take control and show him she wasn't!

La Nora writes such wonderful stories, and she excels in celebrating the friendships of women. I have not glommed her work (who could keep up with her?) but have read quite a lot - often I find her books wonderful, and occasionally I find them not so great. This one falls somewhere in between. The story is good, the characters fleshed out, if a little too good to be true. But where was the conflict? Well, it was all in Laurel's head and once Del figured it out, he fixed it. The End. OK, it was a sweet, romantic end, but... I guess I was in the mood for more than 2 minutes of angst. It smacked of Emma and Jack's story - a sort of made-up conflict that didn't really make you wonder if they could resolve it. While I was thinking, "is that it??", it was already resolved.

Angela Dawe has officially made my Rising Star Narrator list - she seems to be a very busy voice actor, with 39 listings on Audible.com, all released in the last year. I sense her readings will become better and better as she gets more experience and her voice matures, too. Yay! Truly, a narrator can make or break the audio book, almost without regard for the quality of the story itself! More Angela Dawe!



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Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts ****

I listened to this fairly recent release on audio, finishing it up just a minute ago. It's the second in the bride series - a series of 4 friends who grew up together playing weddings and as adults run a wedding service: a place to have a wedding, and each woman has a specialty. Plus they all live on the property (I don't know if I could take that much togetherness!!)

At first I thought the narrator's voice seemed too young, but after a while she grew on me, and I actually think her reading, her voices, her acting - it was all very good. In fact, she might be one of the better narrators I've heard.

This story features Emma, the florist. She loves flowers and romance - and she's always chipper and upbeat and loves everyone and everything. Somehow she manages to date these great guys who just don't inspire her, so she fixes them up with other women and ditches them.

And Jack - he's the best friend of Del, the older brother of Parker, one of the women of Vows. All of them have been friends forever. When we first see Jack in this story, it's clear he's had a thing for Emma for years, but figures she's like a sister to Del - and I guess in Romanceville, there's some code about not dating your best friend's sister. Maybe in real life too, but I dunno about that.

Jack and Emma have a WOW moment - you know, sparks shooting out when they get close - they almost kiss - bada bing, bada boom, like that. Then, later, they have another - and decide to act on it.

Next thing ya know, here they were just FRIENDS and now they're FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS. Unfortunately, Emma's not a just-benefits kinda girl - she's got her heart set on a happily-ever-after, and when she sparks with Jack, life won't be the same unless he returns the feelings. Unfortunately, Jack's not a long-term-with-future kinda guy either. In fact, he's sorta territorial about his bachelor-ness. But hey, they go into it with eyes wide open, even making a promise that NO MATTER WHAT THEY WILL ALWAYS BE FRIENDS.

Boy - you'd think you could write the book yourself now, except you'd be foolish to try to compete with master wordmeister La Nora! She manages to capture the mood, the lingo, the fun, the drama - she's really got it all when it comes to bringing a story to life with words. She channels her inner-guy, belches and all, so that you find yourself there, in the room, watching it all unfold in front of you.

So - that's the story - they walk slowly towards saying those three little words, but Jack hesitates once too often, and sweet, soft-spoken Emma decides she's worth more - and cuts it off. Then La Nora makes Jack grovel, hard. (Even though, to be honest, Emma was a little out of line...)

It was funny sometimes, and realistic AND romantic, and I enjoyed it. I also decided I do like this narrator after all - 4 stars.

Vision in White by Nora Roberts ***...???

I did - I listened to this on audio a while back, but I'll be damned if I can remember how I felt about it. I think I liked it - maybe even 4 stars - but for the life of me I can't remember, and can't find any place where I usually make note of my star-rating that I've listed it.

It's the first in the Bride quartet - 4 girls play-act at weddings, and now that they're adults, they are all partners in a wedding planning business. There's Parker, the rich girl whose parents died and left her and her brother Del the "estate" where they now all live and work. There's Laurel, the master chef/baker. There's Emma, the fabulous florist. And there's Mac, the photographer - and this book's heroine. Del's the Big Brother and he has a best friend Jack but they're bit players in the story. Carter's our man.

I can read the blurbs and remember parts of the story, and now that I've listened to book 2, Bed of Roses, I remember the characters. Carter's a geeky professor who is besotted practically when he meets Mac, and she's scared of relationships but not averse to some hot and sweaty sex of the one or two night stand variety. But when Carter makes the L-word declaration - well, Mac has to step back and reevaluate. She's got a bad role model - her parents divorced, her father started a new family and her whacko mother is ruining her life.

Uh, there was no doubt a conflict, the women surrounded their friend, and now Carter and Mac are going to get their HEA.

I guess I'll call it a 3 - liked it - since I really don't remember.

Rising Tides by Nora Roberts *****

First reviewed July 2008 when I read it - I have now listened to it on audio book as well!

ORIGINAL REVIEW

I have now finished the trilogy and love them all, although Sea Swept is still my favorite. Maybe it was Cam's personality, or maybe it was the freshness and newness of just meeting all the characters, but that one grabbed me and ran with it and left me breathless and smiling and - but not quite happy because it does leave the mystery open!

Ethan has been secretly in love with local girl Grace for years. I had a hard time figuring out the Quinn brothers' ages - I guess they were all about the same age? But he was about 7-8 years older than Grace, and first noticed her when she was only 14 and still officially jailbait. That, coupled with his fear that he was bad blood, has kept him from acting on the relationship even though Grace is now 23, divorced and has the cutest baby ever to grace the pages of a novel. That Nora - she writes men, she writes women - she even writes toddlers to perfection.

Grace is trying to make ends meet - all the time. As a single mom, it's tough. It's tougher still when you have parents nearby that you feel didn't lend their support when you needed it, so you refuse to ask again. Growing up, Grace wanted to be a dancer, but when push came to shove and it was time to go to NYC and give it a try, Daddy put his foot down. After years of dance lessons, he felt it was time for her to get realistic and stop dreaming. I never did get a feel of whether she actually had the talent and motivation to make it - that part is sorta skipped over. But when Daddy cut the dance funding, she was going to do it on her own - but met the baby's father and married him instead when she got pregnant. Speaking of skipped - that's what the baby's father did before the baby was even born.

Ethan was pretty much an asshole to Grace a lot of the times - more than seemed judicious, more than seemed necessary and more than I liked. He was protective, but he didn't seem to want to discuss it with her, he just made wild and crazy ultimatums and accusations about her jobs and her life. So what if she worked in a bar, so what if she flaunted her body a little to get better tips - that's how it's done. It seemed a little weird to me that he kept offering to pay for things, like getting her car fixed and such, when they had no relationship other than she was the Quinn housekeeper and they were friends.

Meanwhile, the story of Seth continues and we learn more about his upbringing and get more tantalizing clues about his mother.

Ethan has to think he's dreaming when Ray Quinn appears to him as he did to Cam - eventually Ethan accepts Ray's presence and guidance, which I found to be a great addition to all 3 books. Ethan's main hurdle is overcoming his fear of himself - he has spent all these years thinking he was genetically off and couldn't have a relationship for fear of exposing his bad side or passing on his bad seed. He needed to look around, wake up and smell the goddam coffee!! Lucky for him, Grace was a kind of take-charge girl who pushed him to figure it all out.

While it wasn't quite as good for me as Sea Swept, it's still a 5-star keeper. Now I have to find Seth's story - and see what secret he'd been hiding from us!

High Noon by Nora Roberts ****

Nora Roberts does stories with beta heroes and kickass heroines better than just about every romance writer, and High Noon is one! Phoebe MacNamara is a police hostage negotiator - a career she sought out after having spent some years as a child fearing her abusive alcoholic step-father, and then being held hostage by him. The negotiator in that hostage situation, Dave, is now her boss and a beloved mentor that she views as the closest thing she's had as a father figure.

Duncan Swift, the beta hero guy, is a multi-millionaire - he got that way from winning the lottery! He now owns a lot of properties and businesses - and one of his employees is talked out of jumping off the roof by Phoebe. He decides he wants to get to know more about this spitfire woman!

As they get to know each other, the reader learns about Phoebe's highly dysfunctional family - her agoraphobic mother, her deceased aunt Bess who left her house to Phoebe with some weird twists that make it impossible for Phoebe to live anywhere else (she hates this house). Plus, there's someone tormenting Phoebe - leaving dead animals on her doorstep. Could it be that misogynist cop Phoebe suspended from the force, or is there someone even more twisted out to sabotage Phoebe's career, her family, maybe even her life? Duncan is there for her - he stands behind her, supporting her decisions (with only a couple of well-written arguments during the course of their courtship over what his position is).

The suspense is well done, and there's some seriously gory moments - if you have a weak stomach for reading suspense and murder, you might want to stay away from High Noon. There are references to the movie High Noon - the suspect calls himself Cooper (Gary Cooper) and the final showdown happens at noon, plus he whistles the theme song as he watches Phoebe from afar.

Susan Ericksen is a good narrator - she manages to create good character voices (ok, her Carly voice was kinda whiny) and keep the story moving forward with a lot of excitement and interest. All in all, it was a solid 4 star listen.

Sea Swept by Nora Roberts *****

I wrote this review 7/12/08 when I read it. I've now listened to it on audio and have some additional notes at the end.

Oh that Nora! She is good!! This is the first in a 3 or 4 book series (started out as 3 but I'm thinking there's a 4th now?) about the Quinn brothers - Cam, Phillip and Ethan - all adopted as troubled adolescents by Ray and Stella Quinn.

The hero of Sea Swept is the oldest, Cam. He's a guy who likes things fast. Fast women, fast cars, fast boats. He left home and has been traveling the world in the company of all things fast - not spending much time with his now widowed father in their small hometown in Maryland on the coast. When we meet Cam, he's just won some boat race and is in the midst of getting a hot French model into his bed when he gets the news that Ray has had a car accident and isn't going to make it. He drops that model fast and heads homeward.

The mystery of the series centers on Ray and his newest foster kid, Seth. There's rumors around - that Seth is Ray's biological child from a dalliance with a student while Stella was still alive. To top it off, Ray has paid the child's mother large sums of money, and in his car is a blackmail letter from her demanding more. Ray drove the car into a telephone pole for no apparent reason - other than maybe suicide. On his deathbed, he gets a promise from each of the grown sons to take care of Seth.

The heroine is Anna Spinelli - she must be a Gemini, because during the day she's a buttoned up social worker who's been assigned to the Quinn case, but during the evening she's a hot-blooded Italian babe. She also has a troubled past which led her to social work. She and Cam have instant chemistry - and I like Anna because she doesn't beat around the bush or try to hide her attraction. She lets Cam know she's interested too - but Seth comes first.

This book practically drips testosterone from the pages, Cam is such an Alpha. But he's hiding his marshmallow core from everyone but Anna - she sees him develop a relationship with Seth that's protective and supportive and understanding, when Cam himself isn't even aware of it. And she falls head over heels for him, until she decides she will never break through his tough-guy shell. He'll always be a rambling man and she's just another of his hot conquests, and she pulls back.

Roberts writes funny, hot, drama, mystery - you want it, she gives it to you in spades. I haven't read a ton of her work (who could keep up? The woman is prolific!) but I haven't yet found her to be repetitive or boring, criticisms I've seen in Romance forums and blogs.

The mystery of Ray's death isn't solved in this book so I'm now halfway through Rising Tides, Ethan's story. I haven't yet figured Ethan out - he's a tougher nut to crack than Cam, but I'll report back.

This is an AAR Top 100, so I'm checking it off my challenge list. 5 stars for me.

----- end of original review -----

I got this as a download audio book from the library in May 2009. The narrator is good. And I have a slightly different take on Anna Spinelli this time - she's a manipulating, nervy bitch!! I felt like Cam was as open as he needed to be with her, and she jumped all over Cam for what I think was NOT a good reason!! But I still enjoyed the book and will be listening to the others as well. It fits the Spring 2009 Challenge as a book from one of the first romance authors I read, and also fits the Serial Readers Challenge 2009.

Black Rose by Nora Roberts ***

This is the 2nd in the In The Garden trilogy, about 3 women in different stages of their lives. The first dealt with Stella, a young widow with 2 boys, who moved to Tennessee and got a job with Roz, the owner of the nursery, In The Garden.

This one is Roz's story. In the first installment, she hired Mitch Carnegie, a genealogist, to help her discover the identity of the house ghost, the "Harper Bride" who haunted the mansion she inherited. The ghost seems to like children, and hate men. Of course, as the reader, I knew who it was from the prologues of each book - the mistress of an ancestor who bore him a son. The son was stolen from her, and she was told it was a stillborn girl - and although I don't know yet how she died, she haunts the house to warn women away from men.

The other women (Stella and Hayley) refer to Mitch in such terms as Dr. Studly - a tribute to his hunkiness of course! Isn't it always fun to have an academic hero, a sort of beta/alpha mix who knows when to step forward and offer to smash someone in the nose, and when to step back and let Roz deal with her own problems?

Her main problem is a con artist ex-husband who keeps popping up, trying to ruin her life. The ghost, even though she gets more violent as time goes by, is a minor diversion in comparison. So Mitch and Roz, yes, fall in love and battle the ghost and the demon ex-husband before getting their HEA. And we get whispers of Hayley's HEA when Harper starts having lustful thoughts about her... But that's the next book.

3 stars, Serial Readers Challenge and... something in the Spring 2009 Challenge, can't decide which. Parker the dog didn't warrant a Notable Pet tag, but even Dr Studly refers to himself as besotted early on, so I'll tag it as Besotted Hero.

It's a pleasant enough story - I would say 3 stars meaning "average" as opposed to "mediocre" - I wouldn't go out on a limb and highly recommend it, but I enjoyed the story enough.

Birthright by Nora Roberts *****

Ahhh, now this is why I read romance! This was a great story, full of suspense, full of wonderful characters, and a joy to read. When La Nora is on, she is really really good!!

The story centers around an archeologist brought in when a developer unearths multi-thousand year old bones while building homes in a new neighborhood. The local historical society, working against the builder and the development, hires the archeology team, and Dr. Callie Dunbrook is one of the best in her field. Her ex-husband Jake is also one of the tops - and although their divorce was anything but amicable, her boss brings him on anyway.

There's another story here as well - one family in the area had their infant daughter stolen from them, and the girl was never found. Her older brother, Doug, has lived with the guilt and the breakup of his parents' marriage, and coped as an adult by traveling - staying on the road as part of his job. When he's in town, he stays in the apartment over his grandfather's used book store.

Lana is the local lawyer - a young widow with a son, she moved there after her husband was killed, to start her life over. Lana's also involved with the historical society, and has done a lot of background work on keeping the developer from continuing his work.

When Callie's face shows up on the news, talking about the antiquities and bones being unearthed in town, Doug's mother thinks she recognizes her - that she might be the stolen daughter.

So, while the archeological team is digging up the past - measured in thousands of years - Callie is working on her own past. Was she adopted? Was she the stolen child? Who was behind it, and are they still in business. Blood tests prove the inevitable: yes, she is the biological daughter and sister of the Cullens. And another part of her past, her relationship with Jake, is also analyzed and measured, as both go over the mistakes of the past and deal with their continuing attraction.

Meanwhile, Lana puts the move on Doug - in a big way. She has to convince him to ask her out, more than once, because he's not much into relationships - at least, not at first. It doesn't take him long to realize he's falling in love with her and with her son as well.

The third romance in the book is between Doug and Callie's mother and father, who divorced years ago but are brought together when they realize Callie is their lost daughter Jessica.

But someone doesn't want them uncovering the past - not the old bones and not the whereabouts and identity of those involved in the child-stealing ring either. So that leads to some threats, some vandalism - and 2 murders.

All in all, I really enjoyed reading this story, and I kinda wasn't expecting to! There was just enough suspense, and so much about all the characters, to make it a real page-turner. Not only was I interested in the suspenseful whodunit part, but I liked watching Doug make a 180 degree turn in his feelings, and the Cullens trying to resolve their differences, as well as Callie and Jake struggling to find a balance in their lives. I didn't guess whodunit before it was revealed - and the ending had a fun surprise in it too.

5 stars!

Blue Dahlia by Nora Roberts ****

I went back and forth between a 3 star and a 4 star rating for Blue Dahlia. This is the first of the In The Garden trilogy, featuring 3 women who work at the In The Garden nursery in Tennessee. This story features Stella - a young widow with 2 young sons who moves to Tennessee after her husband's death to be near her father and step-mother. She gets a job working for Roz Harper, In The Garden's owner, and living at the Harper estate where the nursery is located.

The Harpers have lived on this property for generations, and there's a rumor that a ghost haunts its halls, as all good Southern mansions should have. Apparently this ghost prefers children and reveals herself mostly to them, and is fairly benign, so the story goes.

Logan is the nursery's landscape designer - a surly fellow who lives nearby. Roz and Logan have a sort of understanding - they each let the other do their jobs with little to no interference. The job that Stella's been hired to do is Manager - she's a left-brain spreadsheet wonk who also loves plants, so it's her dream job, and Logan's nightmare. She nags him for invoices, for inventory reports, for plans - you'd think that would drive him nuts. Of course it does.

Here's, ironically, what got me about this story. There was so much potential conflict - Roz, the hard-headed woman business owner, Logan the loner artist, the ghost, a woman with 2 young kids - oh, and a pregnant distant relative with an unknown background who shows up unannounced. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there was a teeny touch of conflict, but mostly Roz loved Stella, let her do what she wanted and loved Stella's kids just as much. Everyone loved what's-her-name, the preggers cousin; everyone even loved Logan. Ok, Logan and Stella struck a few sparks outside the chemistry. But there was chemistry too.

And Stella, Miss Straight-forward, figured out right off the bat she was gonna do it with Logan, so she just invited herself over one afternoon to get it over with. How romantic is that?

So what we had was this sweet story about a young widow finding love again, with a ghost who wanted to protect Stella's boys, a good business woman with a talented, loving son who lived nearby and a perfectly respectible pregnant cousin who gave birth at the end. Yawn. Apparently one book will be about Cousin and Loving Son, and the other about Roz and the university professor who does genealogy on the side, the guy hired to get the background on the ghost.

I enjoyed the story - NR is a superb story teller - but it wasn't very, ummmm, interesting. Does that even make sense? I mean, she threw in a bad mother (Stella's) but countered it with the wonderful step-mother. There's potential for Cousin since she never quite got around to telling the baby's father about her pregnancy - well, it was because he was dating someone else so why upset them? Roz has an ex-husband who might want to do her harm, since she caught him with his hand in the till and his dick in another woman before she booted him out. So maybe the next 2 stories will be more interesting. I guess the ghost's background hasn't yet been revealed (at least, to the characters - the reader meets her in the prologue) so there's potential there.

But it fits my Serial Readers Challenge, and it fits the A To Z title challenge! So all is not wasted. There's a dog too but, sadly, the dog wasn't interesting enough for Notable Pet rating.

Midnight Bayou by Nora Roberts ****

I listened to this as an audio download from audible.com - and stretched it out over several days. The story is a contemporary/paranormal - there's ghosts and reincarnation. The audio book is read by 2 narrators - a woman reads the story from the perspective of the couple in the 19th century, and a man reads the contemporary POV. Both were ok - although I felt the woman's "Cajun" or bayou accent was more Hispanic, and the man's Cajun/bayou accent was sorta Irish... I'm prejudiced, having lived in south Louisiana, I guess.

Declan Fitzgerald is a Boston lawyer who fell in love with an old mansion on either the river or the bayou near New Orleans, Manet Hall. (I was a little unclear on the location - not in New Orleans but apparently really close.) He jilts his Bostonian fiancee 3 weeks before their wedding, leaves his big wealthy Irish family and his law career behind and moves to New Orleans to restore the old beauty.

Right away, he discovers the house is haunted. His buddy Remy and Remy's fiancee Effie come to visit, and even a skeptical Effie sees things which convince her things are not right at Manet Hall.

In 1899 or so (can't reference the book for the dates...), the Manet family consists of Mama Manet and her twin sons Lucien and Julien. Julien is Mama's favorite - and he's the evil twin. Lucien, The Good Twin, falls in love with a servant, probably Cajun but I don't think they called it that back then so she is referred to as "from the bayou" - uhm, can't recall her name and since it's in audio, can't page back to find it.... Lucien and the Cajun girl marry, but she is never accepted by Mama Manet and she is coveted by the evil Julien. While Lucien is out of town on business, Julien rapes then murders the girl in an alcoholic fog. Mama walks in on them and decides to cover up the murder, tossing the girl in the bayou and making it look like she ran away, leaving their infant daughter behind. Lucien and Julien both die soon after (I'll let you read it to see how that happens) and the infant Marie Rose is given to the girl's family to raise.

In the present, Declan meets the granddaughter of his neighbor - Angelina Simone, who, not coincidentally, is the great granddaughter of Marie Rose. Angelina runs a bar in town, and Declan falls in love with her as he did with the house, right off the bat. That could be because the 2 of them are reincarnated or are channeling the spirits of the house - I'll let you decide.

Declan decides to get to the bottom of the ghost issue so that the spirits can be released and he can live there with no more spirit problems - and he decides that Angelina is his woman, meant to be the mistress of Manet Hall. She's not at all convinced, and needs a lot of TLC and such to win over.

I liked this story a lot, although the narration wasn't quite as good as I could have wished for. The ghost elements and the historical story were interspersed with some humorous moments and a lot of realistic house-renovation moments. I liked Declan's determination - to renovate the home his way, both following the style of the time and including some of his own tastes; as well as to make Angelina see the light about their relationship. The paranormal elements didn't overwhelm the overall story, which was good too.

So I gave it 4 stars - "really liked it".

Hot Ice by Nora Roberts ***

I took a really long time to listen to this audio book because, well, it just wasn't that compelling a listen, even with Anna Fields as the narrator.

Whitney is an ice-cream company heiress driving home from the airport after a trip to France when Doug, a professional thief, jumps in her car asking for help escaping the Bad Guys. The Bad Guys are trying to grab him and the 200-year-old letters he carries which are reputed to guide them to jewels once owned by Marie Antoinette, the unfortunate French queen who lost her head to a guillotine. Doug had stolen the letters for Really Bad Guy Dimitri, but learned Dimitri was double-crossing him, so he's making his getaway, and planning to find the jewels himself.

Doug has a reputation as a really good thief but he's known for just spending his take and then moving on to the next job - he's never really been fixed for life. This job will be his last - the Big One - the one that ends his thieving days and sets him up to be what he's always wanted to be: a chef/restaunteur. Whitney's reputation is bored trust-fund baby, and this little lark is just what she needs to liven up her life a little. Unfortunately for Doug, he needs her to bankroll his journey, so he reluctantly agrees to take her as a partner - the money-carrying partner.

I'm not sure if it's Anna Fields' narration (which I usually love) or just the tone of the book, but frankly Whitney is annoying as hell. I kept thinking if I heard her call him Douglas one more time, I was gonna go through the earphones and smack her. Doug wasn't much more likable - and frankly, I never really felt their chemistry, and apparently neither did they, because they were together for quite a while before giving into the inevitable... well, it just didn't seem very inevitable but eventually they did give in and Do It. Yawn.

I'm not sure if I've read any more cartoony Bad Guys than Remo and Barnes and Dimitri - again, could it have been Fields' voices for them, or is that just how they come across in dialog regardless of the reader? I kept trying to imagine them actually keeping just 2 steps behind Doug and Whitney, dressed in suits and ties in the Madagascar jungles. (Huh?)

Oh, the plot, right - D and W hot foot it to Madagascar where the 200-year-old letter/diary says the loot is buried. These remarkable letters - the originals, mind you - take a licking and keep on ticking. They get submerged in water, taken out and refolded and handled and kept in the back jeans pockets. Wow, they musta used some really good paper back then. And although they point vaguely to where the jewels are buried, it takes some remarkable coincidences and incredibly intuitive detective work to locate them, and a twist I saw a mile or 10 away to rescue Doug and Whitney from the Bad Guys in the end.

OK, I enjoyed it enough to finish it, so it rated 3 stars, but it wasn't anything special and maybe doesn't even rate an Audible.com credit, even with one of my favorite authors and one of my favorite narrators.

Falling For Rachel by Nora Roberts ****

This is the 2nd story in the Stanislaski book I got, and I read it last week while on vacation in Egypt. EEEk. I can't recall the plot but I did note that I gave it 4 stars. I'll have to go back to the blurb and maybe flip through the book to remind myself... Let's see, Rachel's the youngest, and... Shoot I can't even remember who the hero was!

This is why I blog my reviews - can't remember sh*t after about 24 hours!!

Taming Natasha by Nora Roberts ****

I actually got this in a 2-fer book with Falling for Rachel, to be my "book with a name in the title" category in the Fall Reading Challenge. I should be sticking to my TBR pile for these challenges!! I could possibly have used Passion by Lisa Valdez since the character's name is Passion; or I could have used Without A Trace, NR, which I had on audio book (Trace being the hero's name) - but no, I had to get another book!!

I took the book with me on vacation to Egypt. When does one have time to read on a vacation?? Well, there was the plane - I listened to an audio book. Layovers in airports - we found a Yotel in Amsterdam, and rented a room for the day to try to catch up on sleep. In the hotel while recuperating from being dragged all over Cairo by the guide - yep, started there. And finished on the Nile cruise, on the top deck while floating upstream past ancient ruins and new people living as their ancient ancestors did. Managed to take a couple of photos from there as well, between chapters. All in all, I listened to 5 audio books and read 2 books, if you count this one book as 2, on the 11-day trip.

This series is a 4-booker, with 2 sisters (Rachel/Natasha) and 2 brothers whose names escape me at the moment. The compilation put the sisters together even though their books are 1 and 3 in the series.

Natasha is living in a small town in West Virginia as a successful toy store owner who once dreamed of being a professional ballet dancer. She gave up that dream after a life-changing event, revealed in the end, which affects her ability to trust men. Her Ukrainian parents live in Brooklyn or maybe it was the Bronx - very loud, very close, very working class. They escaped from whatever was happening in Russia/Soviet Union to America when Natasha was 6, and she didn't learn to speak English til she was 8. It was even later when she learned to read and write it. She doesn't exactly have an accent, but a sort of speech pattern that apparently degrades when she is excited (angry, provoked, whatever) into revealing her Ukrainian background.

Our beloved beta hero is Dr. Spencer Kimball. He's a music professor/composer who is having composer block - no Navy SEAL or former cop-turned-operative here, just a mild-mannered musician looking for a good life. He's also a widower with a darling 6 year old daughter - they've just moved to the charming West Virginia small town where he will teach music at the local college. It's not really that relevant that his dead wife was a bitch who was going to leave him with the kid when she was killed in an accident. (I think - it has been a few days and several thousand miles since I read it.) I think it introduces potential trust issues for him and the kid. However, the kid loves Natasha from the first minute since she runs this cool toy store. He loves Natasha from the first minute because he's attracted to her.

Basically, Spence pursues Natasha relentlessly - but she has trust issues from a relationship-gone-bad during her professional dance career. Initially she assumes he's married since he has a kid, and so she hates him for coming on to her on their first meeting. The story has a fairly pure romance plot - no suspense, nobody's trying to kill anybody and that first misunderstanding is corrected quickly, so we don't spend too much time getting that explanation out. He wants her; she wants distance because she can't trust men. The only obstacles they have to overcome are within their own minds - can they each learn to trust and love again?

So even though my review is sorta flippant, I liked the story and give it 4 stars. I'm suffering from jet lag from my trip to Egypt and I think this review reflects that! I'm practically falling over from fatigue - maybe I'll wait to gather my thoughts on Falling for Rachel before writing that review. (I just re-read my trip journal to see if I mentioned it, and my notes say "I can't recall the plot fot it" but gave it 4 stars as well - go figure.)

I do plan to read the others in the series, although having just read the plot for Considering Kate at AAR, it sounds suspiciously like a rehash of the plot for Taming Natasha, complete with her being a dancer and also assuming the hero's still married becaues he has a kid and therefore being offended when he flirts with her. I just realized there are actually 6 (or more?) stories in the Stanislaski series - the 2 brothers get their books (books 2 and 4) and then 2 of the next generation get a book each. I have a ways to go!

Without A Trace by Nora Roberts **

Finally I finished the series, and found Trace's story to be just as bad as Chantel's. It's the last of the O'Hurley series, book 4. Books 1-3 are each about 1 of the O'Hurley fraternal triplets, 3 girls who were raised by vaudevillians and performed in shows from early ages. Each went her own way - 1 to Broadway to star in a musical, 1 to Hollywood to become a major movie star, 1 married young and rich to a race car driver who died after a few years (the time frames in that story confused me a lot, trying to figure out how long he was in his son's lives based on what things were said about their relationship with the man, and how long he'd been dead and all that).

Trace is the older brother of the triplets, and he never wanted to be on stage - he wanted to travel, to see the world. His father wanted everyone to stay in the family show forever, so Trace had to steal away in the night with a couple hundred bucks Mom gave him to get away from them. Why later we are lead to believe he broke Mom's heart when it was she who convinced him to run, I dunno.

Now Trace is An Operative With An International Agency. For 12 years he's been secretly sneaking into various countries and performing nefarious deeds in the name of patriotism. He now fluently speaks several languages, to the point he can pass, for instance, as a Frenchman, and he has various covers he can use in lots of countries to get what he needs to fulfill his mission (should he choose to accept it). (Sorry, I have trouble with that fluency thing mainly because it's pretty hard to be fluent enough to pass as native after learning the language as an adult.) He is off-duty and on vacation in Mexico when a young Irish woman comes to him to beg him to help her free her hostage brother and niece, kidnapped by terrorists. Seems brother, heroine and their dad were working on a Serum to protect people from the effects of nuclear radiation, which in the wrong hands could precipitate the End Of The World As We Know It.

Uh, just a slight spoiler, the brother and the niece get freed. But meanwhile, we get a dose of that really incredible plot point: the heroine, who has no training at all in covert operations, gun usage, any sort of self-defense, insists on accompanying the hero to every single meeting and on every foray he makes into finding the hostages. Oh, right, yeah, that would be me - let me slow you down and get in your way even though I have no experience and you are a trained operative. I'd so be slapping her if I were him. In addition to her brother being held hostage as a stress-point for the heroine, she also believes her father liked brother best, so there are commitment issues on her side. On Trace's side, the commitment issues are about not having a home. I'm not sure why she doesn't believe him - he really didn't have a home, since he grew up on the road.

Because of the mediocre narration and stretched-beyond-the-limit credibility thing for me, I'm going with 2 measly stars.

Skin Deep by Nora Roberts **

This is the third book in the O'Hurley series, and I'm afraid it just gets worse and worse for me. I hated Chantel - I hated the narrator's voice for her (Ok, here's the positive - she kept the exact same voice for Chantel throughout all 4 books, so at least she was consistent.)

This one was sort of a suspense plot - there's a crazy stalker in Chantel's life that we got a hint of in 1 or both of the previous books. Of course, we mustn't share this info with the police or our family because they'd worry or something. And Chantel's a major movie star - so, not sure why not to involve the police, but there you are. Chantel finally shares the secret with her agent, who hires his friend Quinn as bodyguard/security. Quinn's an asshole from the word go - he was relentlessly sexist and called her some nickname from the word go (was it Angel? can't recall now) that was annoying. Maybe it was only annoying in the narrator's asshole voice she gave him. So, I hated his voice too. Not sure why I read the whole thing, to be honest.

I was surprised by the unveiling of the stalker's identity, although I did not fall for the one she tries to make you believe it is in a classic suspense re-direction attempt that failed for me. I did not feel the chemistry there between her and Quinn, and I felt the way they got together was completely contrived and unbelievable.

Bad narration or bad story? Maybe some of both, but I'm going with 2 stars - not up to my standards even for mediocre.

Dance To The Piper by Nora Roberts ***

This is the 2nd in the O'Hurley series of 4, the triplets and their older brother Trace. I read this one and the last 2 (listened to them I mean) on my trip to Egypt, and didn't write anything in my trip journal about them - I just remember that they were all pretty mediocre.

This one is Maddie's story. Maddie is the happy triplet - everything is good and nice and pleasant and cheerful in her life. One thing positive I can say for this narrator, ok - two - her Maddie voice does show that optimism, and two, she is consistent in all 4 books with her character voices.

The problem is, she's just not that good an actor - (the narrator I mean) so her readings are not very credible. Maybe I wouldn't have liked the stories any better if I read them, but now I'll never know.

Maddie meets hero Reed Valentine when she spills the contents of her dance bag on the New York sidewalk after leaving the rehearsal hall of the musical in which she is starring. Reed is the son of the founder of Valentine Records and he is currently in charge since Dad retired. Reed is stuffy, rich, and completely put off by Maddie's scatter-brained approach to life. Wait, later we learn he wanted to boff her from that first meeting, so maybe he wasn't as put off as he indicates in his POV narration.

So the story is all about her falling for him and him trying not to fall for her. She keeps putting herself in his way - her offstage persona just is so different from the women he thinks he's attracted to, while her onstage persona (hello, stripper) knocks his socks off. Blah blah blah, she's so totally optimistic she just keeps after him til he finally acknowledges his Issue: his mother was a two-timing bitch who broke his father's heart, so he can't commit to a relationship. It's not really a spoiler because NR sorta lays that issue out early on, if you're paying attention.

Mediocre, 3 stars. Blah. It paled in comparison to Judith Ivory's The Indiscretion which I listened to right before it. But it was better than the next 2 in the series...

The Last Honest Woman by Nora Roberts ***

I have all 4 of the O'Hurley family books as audio books on my iPod, and since I had to make a trip to town, decided to start with this one, the first in the series. I live really far from town so I was able to finish it in one day (about 6 hours).

There are 3 triplets, Chantal or Chantelle (not sure, since it's audio), Maddie or Mattie and Abby, and the 4th book is about their older brother Trace. The O'Hurley parents are old vaudevillians*, traipsing about the country singing and dancing in whatever venue they can. The kids all grew up as part of the act, and now Maddie's a Broadway star, Chantal's a movie star, and Abby's a... SAHM. (for the uninitiated that means Stay At Home Mom) Go figure.

This is Abby's book - apparently at age 18, during a show in Florida, Abby met Chuck, a famous Grand Prix driver. They had a whirlwind romance and got married, had 2 kids, then he was killed in a race. Since he was so famous and so infamous, a publisher has hired famous/infamous biographer Dylan Crosby to write his authorized biography. So what do biographers do? They move in the home of the widow for weeks and weeks and ask a lot of obnoxious questions while taping interviews.

Ok, tiny credibility slip #1 for me. Maybe they do, what do I know? It just seemed sorta, I dunno, cozy. And being a romance novel, I knew where that would lead.

Abby is making do on her Virginia farm where she plans to breed and sell horses. The rumors have it Chuck was a philanderer/adulterer/drug abuser, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and raised by his over-protective and over-bearing mother. The young bride spent the first few months of their marriage traveling with Chuck, but got pregnant and then lived with Mother until buying the farm

Ok, it was Chuck who bought the farm (heh heh, couldn't resist the silly pun).

Dylan has already done a lot of research, and Abby's story is apparently the last piece he needs. And dammit, he wants the TRUTH!

Uh, but while she's telling the truth, she's just not telling all. His preconceived notions about her come from the tabloid stories and photos - Abby in white mink, Abby on the town in Monte Carlo. So, where are her servants and staff? The expensive luxuries? What is it about this cozy, homey farmhouse, messy with kids' toys, that tugs at Dylan's ... heart? He's convinced she's a lying bitch - so why is he so attracted to her?

Slowly, the truths come out - meanwhile, he's gotten very attached to these 2 loving, trusting little boys and their wary, not-trusting mom.

I had a couple of issues (beyond some mild credibility things) with this audio book. First, the narrator - she was ok, but breathy, like she was whispering loudly in my ear. Well, Abby's voice was breathy, and her narration was breathy - but Dylan's and the children's voices were strong. I wanted to say STOP WHISPERING AT ME. I prefer all scenes, even SEX scenes, to be read straight-forward, not as if we were at a golf game listening to on-the-scene commentary.

Second - omigawd - the ending thing that brought it to a head. I just muttered and shook my head. I won't give it away, but to me it was so out-of-left field and I had so many questions (exactly how did the kid get up there, anyway?). I was ready for them to get together and didn't need a weird accident to do it.

I also need to check the publication date, cuz I'm having a hard time with the hero smoking in her house. I don't always have issues with characters smoking (sometimes the author even makes it attractive, normal or even necessary), but in the beginning one of the kids remarks about it being a dirty habit. Dylan never even asks Abby if it's ok if he smokes in her house where she has 2 young children. She even has trouble finding something to act as an ashtray - hello? Hint? Second hand smoke? It wasn't like NR used smoking as a plot device, unlike another book I read recently where the hero could see only the heroine's red-tipped cigarette glowing in the dark (whichI found very effective). But that didn't ruin the story for me, it was just a niggling incident.

So while it hovered on a 4 star read at times, it dropped neatly into 3 at the ending, for Average or even Mediocre. Dang. It didn't even fit any of my challenges, I just got it on sale for 1 credit for all 4 stories...

*about that "old vaudevillians" statement - since I'm 53 and the parents are about my age, it may seem odd to call them old. I mean old vaudevillians, not old in age. After all, how long has it been since anyone even was a vaudevillian?? Apparently the book was published in 1988, so someone 50 in 1988 was born in 1938... Maybe there was still vaudevillians then. Entertainment act. Whatever. I just felt the need to explain since it seemed a little weird for me to call them old.

The Reef by Nora Roberts *****

How does she do it? Where do all these stories come from? I'm not sure I could ever catch up with reading everything by Nora Roberts!

Ok - I don't always love them, but I don't think I've disliked one yet. However, I did love this one!

The Reef is a contemporary story - our heroine Tate starts out a 19-year-old college student, spending her summer vacation with her parents looking for buried treasure in the sea. Her father started diving as a hobby and got hooked, and she naturally got hooked with him. Her major is marine archeology, and she plans to one day have a museum of all the wonderful treasure she and dad uncover.

The hero Matthew starts the book a little earlier, at age 16, when he, his dad and his Uncle Buck (yep) are diving professionally with the villain, Silas VanDyke. It's no secret he's the villain, especially after he kills Matthew's dad but manages to make it look like a tragic diving accident.

The other character in the book is Angelique and her curse on a necklace in the 16th century. After Angelique is burned at the stake, the necklace moves from person to person, each of whom meets an untimely death. In the 18th century, the last person to have it goes missing under the sea and takes it with him - but who, and where, is part of the mystery.

Matthew and Buck meet up with Tate and the parents in the waters of the Caribbean. The parents and Uncle Buck get along so well, they decide to join forces as partners even though Matthew, age 25 now, and Tate at age 19 seem to do nothing but fight. Oh of course, that's code for foreplay - and eventually they get to turn the tension to something a little more romantic. They discover an 18th c. shipwreck and untold treasure, and are all waiting with baited breath to find the necklace. Unfortunately, there's an accident and some piracy - involving VanDyke - and the 2 split up, left with nothing from the relationship or the shipwreck.

Tate goes on to finish her degree, get a Master's and work in the field; Matthew has to support Buck and does whatever it takes. Then, 8 years after they first met, Tate's father makes a discovery that puts them back on track to find Angelique's Curse. Too bad VanDyke has been keeping tabs on them all, all along...

It was suspenseful to the point that I almost skimmed to get away from the evil villain, even knowing I would miss a clue if I didn't pay attention. NR managed to make me feel what the characters were feeling - the love between Tate's parents, the protectiveness of Buck towards Matthew, the love that develops between Tate and Matthew and the forces, mostly pride, that kept them apart. And the evilness of VanDyke - ick!! EEEssh. There was even a touch of paranormal - the necklace calling to Tate, and making her dream about it - but just a teensy, credible touch. All wrapped up in a wonderful story that really did have me turning the pages and rushing ahead trying to figure out how it would all play out. There wasn't any hiding who the bad guy was, but what would he do? Would they find the necklace?

I'm not gonna spoil it and tell you whether or not the necklace was ever found, but it is a romance, so I can tell you Matthew and Tate find their HEA in the blue blue Caribbean sea, which was very satisfying. Loved it! 5 stars.

Tribute by Nora Roberts ****

This is a fairly new release but I managed to snag a used half price copy at Hastings this week, so I indulged even though I prefer to wait til they get under $5. It'll get me a credit at PBS no doubt, as well.

I liked it! The dialogue is fast and true and a little sarcastic and witty. The hero is a great guy - I'm guessing we can classify Ford as a beta hero - slightly nerdy but also slightly hunky, he's a well known graphic novelist who lives across the street from the house where former Big Hollywood Star Janet Hardy lived and died, which her granddaughter Cilla is now remodeling. He's the boy next door, and while he works out and has a nice body, he won't go anywhere near a power tool. And he has a marvelous dog, Spock.

Cilla's a former child star currently living off residuals and making her way in the world flipping houses (as in, buying, rehabbing and selling for a profit). But this house, which she bought from her mother, is the only thing in her world that smacks of family and stability, so she's thinking she might just make it her permanent base. And she's doing a lot of the work herself personally - as in using power tools.

I pictured Judy Garland as a sort of model for grandmother Janet Hardy, because it was obvious that a lot of people still thought very highly of this now-deceased famous actor/singer. People were selling memorablia on eBay and such for someone who had committed suicide (or maybe it was an accidental overdose) 30 years ago. Part of her tragic story involved her son dying in a car accident that killed one friend and left another paraplegic. There are still some folks bitter about this accident, since the star's son was driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

In fact, someone is apparently still so bitter that Cilla's house and even herself become the target of someone twisted, someone who starts with vandalism and then moves on to attempted murder. But who?

It's a suspense/mystery/thriller with romance, and I liked the whole package. Cilla gets to know her father, who divorced her mother when Cilla was still a toddler and now lives with his current wife and daughter in this same town. She also gets to know the other families - Ford's very normal parents and grandparents, the families of the local construction workers she hires to help her rehab - and she develops, slowly, her own sense of family around her. Her relationship with Ford builds slowly and realistically.

There's a lot of humor in Ford's work - he leaves drawings around for her that feature her as a super hero. I wondered a little at the enormous amount of "dating" the work has in it, though. Having just finished a 1984 work by LaVyrle Spencer that really seems dated now, I wonder how someone will read this story in 20 years, since there are lots and lots of current references - HGTV tv shows, current jargon, branding - will any of that make sense in 20 years??

So - I liked Ford and I liked Cilla. I liked the depiction of family as stability. I had read a review that already tipped me off that when the Villain was revealed it would be surprising, so I spend a lot of time making wild guesses (her half-sister?? Ford's grandfather??) and since I considered every single character wasn't quite as surprised as the reviewer. I thought Ford's proposal was oh-so-romantic and very in character.

Here's where it didn't make it to 5 stars - I enjoyed reading it but it really didn't make me ... feel anything. I wasn't moved to tears or to laughter, I didn't really get scared. I enjoyed it and now I'm done. For 5 stars I need the characters to get under my skin and I need to feel what they felt.

YMMV. 4 stars.

Born In Shame by Nora Roberts *****

The last of the Born In trilogy, Born In Shame is the story of the third Concannon sister - a half sister to Maggie and Brianna, Shannon. Her mother Amanda had a brief affair with their father when the girls were still babies, and although she told Tom she was pregnant in a letter, she never asked him to make a choice - she went off, leaving no trail to follow, met another man, married and raised Shannon as his daughter - in America.

Shannon lost both parents within a year - and on her death bed, her mother reveals the truth about her biological father.

I finished the book yesterday and since I was working, picked up another book to pass the time (and finished it last night) - the result being, I feel I'm having a hard time writing this review. I loved Born In Shame almost as much as Born In Ice, and I think I will need to re-read Born In Fire soon to see why it did not affect me as much.

Shannon's mother was being pursued by the sisters in the second book, and the private detective hired to find Amanda arrives after her funeral. Shannon is heart-broken, both by the revelation of her true parentage and by her mother's passing, and in her grief she feels only anger at the news that her half-sisters are looking for her. She doesn't want to have anything to do with them.

I feel like I'm giving an inordinate amount of attention to this part, when what the story is about is her actually going to Ireland and finding family and love. But it takes her time to acknowledge all this - and it's wrapped up in her life in New York, her life as a commercial artist, with a boyfriend who is also a co-worker, with an apartment, a life - such as it is. When she returns to her job after the funeral, she looks around and feels that what she had, what she depended on, seems to have been based on a lie - that who she really is is not who she thought she was, and her world has tipped on its axis.

Going to Ireland, at the request of Brianna, does not right her world. Although she is drawn to Ireland - for reasons beyond the curiosity of who her sisters are, where her mother found love - it's new to her, and so different from what she is accustomed to. She's very much a stranger in a strange land here. And she has dreams at night that further confuse her.

Somehow her upheaval struck a note with me, and her reactions seemed so real. While she is almost more like Maggie in her demeanor, I liked her more than I liked Maggie in her book. Where Maggie's tempermental outbursts just seemed childish and reactionary, Shannon's seemed to come from her confusion and her grief and her world upheaval.

We met Murphy Muldoon in the first book: he's a neighbor and has always felt like a brother to Maggie and Brianna. He's there when they need him, for chores and help, and they are there for him, but none have felt more than brotherly love one for the other. When he meets Shannon, however, he's struck dumb - literally. He can only stare, tongue twisted, and she thinks perhaps he's slow witted. It takes her much longer to feel Cupid's arrow - and longer still to acknowledge it.

Murphy's not at all slow witted, as we already know from the first two books. He's a farmer and he's also a gifted musician - and he's a damn romantic too! He's determined to have Shannon - well, if you are sensitive to this sort of thing, it's almost to the point of stalking. OK, not exactly stalking - but he's damned determined, and isn't planning to take no for an answer. However, when his POV is revealed we see him as vulnerable and often hurt by Shannon's rejections, despite his outward confidence. She not only rejects him, she mocks him - he's serious about courting her, and she's a 20th century New York woman who can't believe his type even exists.

It seems Shannon and Murphy are brought together by Fate, having been lovers in a past life that is in both their dreams. Their past relationship ended badly - he left her, with the idea of returning, but left her nonetheless because he had other matters that took precedence. He was killed in battle and never returned. And now, in the present, it's her life in NY that is taking precedence. She can only see, with blinders, that her time in Ireland is temporary, that her life in NY is what she is destined to complete, no matter what her feelings for Murphy are.

It's the same type of conflict that Brianna and Gray faced in Born In Ice - he had another life, and his stay was intended to be temporary. But in Shannon's case, it wasn't just Murphy to which she was drawn - it was family, and her talent as an artist, both factors in showing Shannon that she had reached a crossroad, and that traveling on in the same direction she started was not her only option in life. The tighter her ties to Ireland became, however, the more confused she got because she couldn't open her blinders on her mind enough to realize that she held her future in her own hands, and she had the power to take any road, to realize any life path.

Her stubbornness to look around, to wake up and smell the Irish coffee, was the main obstacle. And in her stubbornness, she broke Murphy's heart a thousand times - and it was his sweet heart and gentleness that broke mine while reading this story.

OK, spoiler spoiler, she stays - it is a Nora Roberts romance after all, and we knew - didnt' we? - that she would give Shannon and Murphy a HEA. But the getting to it, the ride, the journey - it was wonderful and awful and heart wrenching and romantic and of course, I cried like a baby.

5 stars - a wonderful if bumpy ride, a quest for self and happiness and family and love, all found.