Overall

Every time I reread a new Nora Roberts release, I always go back and start reading some of her older work. I just finished Under Currents which I sort of liked but didn’t love. It reminded me of The Obsession without the payoff or follow through. So I returned and reread The Obsession, including the first two parts which I usually skip — the backstory of Naomi before she shows up in the Cove, basically. It’s the same way I skip the first part of The Witness and start the book when Brooks shows up.

It’s not because either of these parts are not well-written or important to the story, but when I reread romance novels, I’m usually more interested in rereading the romance part of it and in these stories — the romance doesn’t start until the hero and heroine are on the same page.

I like The Obsession, but it’s not my favorite of these kinds of books (that’s The Witness, literally my favorite NR book). I think the set up is really interesting — the daughter of a serial killer grows up and is stalked by someone who is copying her father’s crimes. The narrative follow through is decent (everything connects and there’s thematic resonance). I even like the supporting cast a lot.

I read a lot of reviews when this came out and saw some readers complaining about the excess of home restoration detail you get in this book. This is incredibly common in Nora Roberts’ novels. In the In the Garden trilogy and the recent Under Currents, we spent a lot of time with landscaping. In Birthright, we learned about archaeology. In The Witness, there was computer programming. The Inn Boonsboro trilogy was also heavy on construction and the local businesses (though that was partially an advertisement, heh).

It never drives me out of the story, to be honest, because I understand why it’s being written this way. It’s made very clear in the narrative that since the day Naomi graduated college, she’s been on the road. She’s moved around a lot. She arrived at the Cove, saw this house, and bought it. And this is the first home she’s had since her childhood.

So every time we stop to talk about Kevin and the work he’s doing or Lelo and the landscaping — it’s part of the construction of Naomi’s new life and the home she wants. The life she’s building. The life she’s not so quick to run away from when her past follows her there. It’s part of Naomi’s identity, and I’m okay with it. It works for me, but I can understand why it wouldn’t work for other readers.

The central narrative conflict is good and I like the resolution of the mystery. I like the romance, even if Xander isn’t really the most interesting of heroes. He’s fine—there’s nothing wrong with him. But there’s also nothing wrong with him, if that makes sense. He’s just someone who’s incredibly patient with Naomi but doesn’t seem to have any vulnerability of his own. He’s kind of a flat character in that I’m only interested in because I want Naomi to be happy.

This is one of those books that makes me very sad that Nora Roberts doesn’t write connected books in her hardback releases because I love Mason Carson, and I desperately want his HEA. He’s probably my second favorite character and I’m a bit sad we’ll never get more of him.

I like this book. It has almost everything I go to Nora Roberts for, with the exception of a truly dynamic second lead.

Spoilers

The last few releases of Nora Roberts have seen a bit of sacrificing the character and romance for the overall plot. I’d like to blame it on the fact that we spend about seven chapters or so with Naomi by herself, finding her father’s victims and then her mother’s suicide, but that’s really not much of an excuse. The Witness had about the same amount of space for Abigail and we still had an entire subplot with Brooks — in fact, we had two. Both of which fed into Abigail’s overall plot and the romance but still existed as separate subplots with well developed minor characters. Brooks was his own character and we spent a lot of scenes fully developing his life and issues.

We don’t spend more than a few scenes with Xander without Naomi and not a single one has him in his own storyline, his own subplot, living his own life. Everything about Xander feeds back into Naomi. He doesn’t exist outside of her. That’s the part that pulls me back from really loving this book as a typical romance. As a suspense thriller, it’s fine but not memorable. What Nora Roberts excels at is combining a really great mystery/suspense with a well-developed romance and, for me, it’s that second part that’s lacking.

It’s still a really good book I’ve reread a few times, but it’ll never make my favorites list.