Naomi Bowes lost her innocence the night she followed her father into the woods. In freeing the girl trapped in the root cellar, Naomi revealed the horrible extent of her father’s crimes and made him infamous.
Now a successful photographer living under the name Naomi Carson, she has found a place that calls to her, thousands of miles away from everything she’s ever known. Naomi wants to embrace the solitude, but the residents of Sunrise Cove keep forcing her to open up—especially the determined Xander Keaton.
Naomi can feel her defenses failing, and knows that the connection her new life offers is something she’s always secretly craved. But as she’s learned time and again, her past is never more than a nightmare away.
I don’t care how many times I’ve said it; Nora Roberts will always be one of my absolute favorite authors. She never fails to make me laugh. Or lose myself in her books to the point where someone has to scream to get my attention. Sit up in bed clutching the book because the suspense is killing me. Occasionally cry. Her newest romance/ mystery novel was no exception.
First I’ll start with the characters. Naomi was such an interesting, independent woman who’d overcome so much, especially when she was a child. Even as an adult she still had nightmares and difficulty trusting people, but she never let it control her life. She was so determined to get past the trauma and betrayal of discovering her father was a serial killer that she constantly pushed through her fear in order to have a normal life. I seriously admired her for that.
I loved Xander. He was a surprisingly complex character. At the beginning I didn’t like him that much but as I learned more and more about him my opinion changed completely. Partly (mostly) because he turned out to be a complete bookworm. He cared so much for the people around him and was such a steady presence that he made a perfect match for Naomi.
Normally, I don’t care that much about where a book is set. It never seems that important to me as long as I can picture what’s immediately around the characters. However I was pleasantly surprised to find this one was set on the coast of Washington. Since I plan to move there later this year, I found myself more interested in the setting than usual and it added a little something to my reading experience that I don’t usually have.
Once again Nora Roberts managed to blend romance and suspense perfectly to make a book I absolutely loved. If you like romance or mystery, you should definitely read this book. Especially if you’re like me and too much suspense will keep you up at night, this book fell very nicely in the middle.
Let me know what you think in the comments. As always, thanks for reading.
-Antonia
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