Book review: Hidden Nature by Nora Roberts

Several things struck me when I read Hidden Nature by Nora Roberts… firstly, how much I enjoy romantic suspense. I claim I hate romance novels but it was the romance element here I loved the most. Perhaps I enjoy romance but don’t want it shoved down my throat… I’m not sure. But [romantic suspense] is something Nora Roberts does very well.

She also is brilliant at creating and reflecting family relationships. In her novels they’re often extremely close, which Sloan’s family is here – supporting her after she’s shot on duty. Or, like Noah—big city finance guy-turned small town handyman—whose parents are toxic.

Natural Resources police officer, Sloan Cooper, and her partner had just taken down three men preying on hikers in the Western Maryland mountains. Driving back, she pulled in at a convenience store—and walked right into a robbery in progress. One gunshot from a jittery thief was about to change her world.

After being shocked back to life on the operating table, she has a long recovery ahead, so she moves back to her parents’ peaceful house in Heron’s Rest. As for the boyfriend who dumped her via text while she was in the hospital, good riddance.

She may be down, but she’s not out. So when a woman vanishes, leaving her car behind in a supermarket parking lot, Sloan searches online for similar cases. She finds them, spread across three states. Men and women, old and young—the missing seem to have nothing in common. And the abductions keep happening.

Luckily, the new man in her life shares her passion for solving this mystery. But it will take every ounce of endurance to get to the dark heart of this bizarre case—and she's willing to risk her life again if that's what it takes to stop the horror.

It’s pretty obvious where this is going but I enjoyed the romance between Sloan’s sister and Noah’s brother – both likeable support characters but I loved the warmth with which Roberts imbues in Sloan and Noah’s relationship and the wider fro-mance (made-up word referencing the relationship between Sloan’s entire family and Noah and his brother).

I was less enamoured with the suspense side of things and felt a little more backstory to the two perpetrators would have been handy. I wasn’t sure of the genesis of their psychopathy so I struggled a little with that element.

I should also mention I’m booked in for a cardioversion to get my heart back into sinus rhythm after 4 weeks of atrial fibrillation, so reading about people being targeted because they’ve been revived (and Sloan being zapped back to life!!!) was a little freaky.

However I really enjoyed this and, though it’s long, I read it in a sitting cos I didn’t want to stop. It feels like it’s been a while between romantic suspense novels (and Nora Roberts) so I need to rectify that.

Hidden Nature by Nora Roberts was published by Little Brown Book Group.

I received an electronic copy of this book for review purposes.