Bodine Longbow's family has learnt to live with tragedy. A quarter of a century earlier Bodine's Aunt Alice disappeared without a trace. Nothing has softened the pain but life goes on and the family business (a ranch-style resort) certainly keeps them all busy. Bo is fully focussed as the resort's manager but distraction is on the horizon in the form of Callen Skinner. Local lad Callen comes home with a successful Hollywood film career on his CV and an eye for a certain Longbow lady. However, when a woman's body is found on resort land Callen is implicated. Is history repeating itself? Can Callen and Bo shake themselves free of a lawman's prejudice in order to discover the truth? The clock's ticking as Bo and Callen try to solve a mystery while putting themselves in the firing line and then Aunt Alice returns...
| Come Sundown by Nora Roberts | |
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| Category: Women's Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Ani Johnson
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| Summary: A struggle to prove no connection between a recurring tragedy and a returning local hero in this, a solid performance from the Queen of the Romantic Thriller. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 480 | Date: May 2017 |
| Publisher: Piatkus | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0349410906 | |
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American author and Queen of the romantic thriller Nora Roberts does it again as she introduces us to another potential couple with love and survival on their minds.
Bodine is the feisty, capable and highly efficient heroine who doesn't need a man. Callen is the handsome guy who wants to change that while having enough ambiguity in his past to make us wonder if he's all that we hope he is. Interspersed with their story are chapters that take us back the 25 years to Alice's kidnapping, revealing what really happened.
This is a formula that we Nora fans recognise. In fact in some ways it may remind us of The Obsession: the story of a serial murderer's daughter, her burgeoning romance and history repeating in between flashbacks. Although the different viewpoint in Come Sundown (niece of victim rather than daughter of perpetrator) and the fact we spend a lot of the novel unable to guess who did it is enough to make this story stand on its own qualities.
Here we have a family coping in various ways with something that's never been resolved. Bo is too young to remember the immediate aftermath but stories of Alice and sadness underlying her family's everyday life are there as an almost palpable presence.
The resort has become important as a way of channelling a negative occurrence into a positive distraction for Bo's parents' generation and a chance to prove herself for Bo. Therefore, when the body is discovered, it not only brings back the past but hits them in the area that has brought them a sense of stability in uncertain times.
Nora demonstrates her ability to pull surprises out of nowhere. As usual here she gives us one or two easy guesses as freebies feeding our complacency. This ensures that the bigger revelation hitters pack a lot more punch, building until we're chewing our finger nails by the end. Nora has the knack of using the prejudices and claustrophobia of small town America to build suspense leading us to some incredibly tense climactic chapters.
Come Sundown doesn't perhaps have the multi-layered depth of The Obsession but then we don't always fancy deep issues. Indeed, whether your reading accompaniment this summer is a beach or a log fire (writing this in England!), this is a treat of a book. If you want turn-off-the-world escapism that will speak to the heart as well as the nerve endings, then it's here.
(Thank you, Piatkus, for providing us with a copy for review.)
Further Reading: If this appeals, we also recommend the aforementioned The Obsession. If you're already a fan and so are looking for alternative crime fixes centering on a female lead, we also recommend An Unlikely Agent by Jane Menczer.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Come Sundown by Nora Roberts at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Come Sundown by Nora Roberts at Amazon.com.
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