The Obsession by Nora Roberts

The riveting new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Liar.

👎🏻

Book Description:

“She stood in the deep, dark woods, breath shallow and cold prickling over her skin despite the hot, heavy air. She took a step back, then two, as the urge to run fell over her.” 

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. No matter how close she gets to happiness, she can’t outrun the sins of Thomas David Bowes.

Now a successful photographer living under the name Naomi Carson, she has found a place that calls to her, a rambling old house in need of repair, thousands of miles away from everything she’s ever known. Naomi wants to embrace the solitude, but the kindly 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 the sins of her father can become an obsession, and, as she’s learned time and again, her past is never more than a nightmare away."

REVIEW:ONE STAR

This book is so much like The Witness that I wonder if Ms Roberts is just using a template and filling in a few (very few) new details.  This book starts off with and interesting premise, though a little clichéd. 

A young girl follows her father through the woods on a moonless night expecting to find a hidden treat for her Birthday and finds something completely horrible instead.  Naturally this colors her life from then on.  Now other women in Naomi’s new neighborhood are falling victim to the same thing.  Is there a serial killer on the loose?  Or a stalker?

Sounds good, right?  Well this book would have been if ¾ of it hadn’t been taken up with DIY details on the new ‘old’ house she bought.  It would have been better without the endless repetitious details on repairing this house and let us not forget the details on the meals she cooked for the new man in her life. Let us also not forget that this man is so dislikable, he is almost to the point of being caricature of the Alpha male in werewolf books!

The dialogue is tedious and written in a very odd style.   When I read, I want to ‘hear’ inflection and emotion in the characters’ voices.  In this book, nobody (and I do mean nobody) had any inflection, emotion, no tone of voice.  They are talking about murder but could have been talking about the price of milk for all the emotion that was put into the dialogue.

Then there is the problem with this book being written in what I call -text speak.  It seems like extraneous words and punctuation are left out.  There is an over use of commas instead of inserting a simple ‘and’ where appropriate.  We have sentences like these:

“That got your attention. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I have to keep pressure on it.” Xander fixed his mouth on hers. “I have to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

Or this doozy:

“She took Harry’s hand as Xander carried her.  “When did you come? How did you get here so fast?” “Private jet. We’ve got connections…”

All in all, I feel sorry for all the readers who paid the asking price for this book.  I’m lucky that I got it during a sale and only paid 5 bucks or I would have had to have returned it and gotten my money back.

I feel so ashamed for Ms Roberts. Then I must wonder, did she even write this tripe or did someone else do the honors?