Author: Nora Roberts
Narrator: January LaVoy
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Genre: Mystery/Thrillers
Format: Audiobook ARC
Date of Publication: May 25, 2021
No. of Pages: 434
My rating: 4 Stars
DESCRIPTION:
The #1 New York Times bestselling author presents a new novel of a mother and a daughter, of ambition and romance, and of a traumatic past reawakened by a terrifying threat…
Adrian Rizzo was seven when she met her father for the first time. That was the day he nearly killed her—before her mother, Lina, stepped in.
Soon after, Adrian was dropped off at her grandparents’ house in Maryland, where she spent a long summer drinking lemonade, playing with dogs, making a new best friend—and developing the stirrings of a crush on her friend’s ten-year-old brother. Lina, meanwhile, traveled the country promoting her fitness brand and turning it into a billion-dollar business. There was no point in dwelling on the past.
A decade later, Adrian has created her own line of yoga and workout videos, following in Lina’s footsteps but intent on maintaining creative control. And she’s just as cool-headed and ambitious as her mother. They aren’t close, but they’re cordial—as long as neither crosses the other.
But while Lina dismisses the death threats that Adrian starts getting as a routine part of her daughter’s growing celebrity, Adrian can’t help but find the vicious rhymes unsettling. Year after year, they keep arriving—the postmarks changing, but the menacing tone the same. They continue after she returns to Maryland and becomes reacquainted with Raylan, her childhood crush, all grown up and as gorgeously green-eyed as ever. Sometimes it even seems like the terrifying messages are indeed routine, like nothing will come of them. Until the murders start, and the escalation begins…
MY THOUGHTS:
Adrian Rizzo's father was in a fit of rage and he nearly killed her. Only seven at the time, she was so excited to meet him. Well, she did meet him, but it nearly cost her life. Fortunately, her mother stepped in. Adrian then spent that summer in Maryland with her grandparents, and she had a wonderful time. Her mother Lina traveled all over the world, growing her fitness brand.
The apple did not fall far from the tree, because ten years later, Adrian developed her own line of products in the world of fitness. Life has it's challenges for Adrian, however, as she is soon frightened by a series of threatening texts. Is it because she has become a celebrity in the world of fitness, or could it be something else entirely? Meanwhile, Adrian's grandmother passes away and Adrian returns to Maryaland, and she runs into Raylan, a man a few years older than her and someone she had a crush on when she visited that long-ago summer.
Does Adrian's past or her present success in her field have anything to do with the threats she is getting? Furthermore, Raylan has his own drama. They are kindred spirits and the story shifts to an engaging romantic suspense, with all the elements.
Many thanks to St. Martin's Press and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Nora Roberts was born in Silver Spring, Maryland, the youngest of five children. After a school career that included some time in Catholic school and the discipline of nuns, she married young and settled in Keedysville, Maryland.
She worked briefly as a legal secretary. “I could type fast but couldn’t spell, I was the worst legal secretary ever,” she says now. After her sons were born she stayed home and tried every craft that came along. A blizzard in February 1979 forced her hand to try another creative outlet. She was snowed in with a three and six year old with no kindergarten respite in sight and a dwindling supply of chocolate.
Born into a family of readers, Nora had never known a time that she wasn’t reading or making up stories. During the now-famous blizzard, she pulled out a pencil and notebook and began to write down one of those stories. It was there that a career was born. Several manuscripts and rejections later, her first book, Irish Thoroughbred, was published by Silhouette in 1981.
Nora met her second husband, Bruce Wilder, when she hired him to build bookshelves. They were married in July 1985. Since that time, they’ve expanded their home, traveled the world and opened a bookstore together
Through the years, Nora has always been surrounded by men. Not only was she the youngest in her family, but she was also the only girl. She has raised two sons. Having spent her life surrounded by men, Ms. Roberts has a fairly good view of the workings of the male mind, which is a constant delight to her readers. It was, she’s been quoted as saying, a choice between figuring men out or running away screaming.
Nora is a member of several writers groups and has won countless awards from her colleagues and the publishing industry. Recently The New Yorker called her “America’s favorite novelist.”
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