River's End

 

By Nora Roberts

When Livvy was a little girl, she saw her father standing over the body of her mother, with a bloody pair of scissors in his hand. Her father was arrested and later found guilty of murder and sentenced to prison.

Some twenty years later, the father is being released from prison. He is dying and only has a few months left to live. He wants to reunite with his only child, Livvy, but in Livvy's mind he is the monster who murdered her mother.

Livvy's parents were successful Hollywood actors, wealthy and gorgeous. The dad began using drugs when his career began to decline while his beautiful wife's career was soaring. It caused a lot of tension and he was at times abusive. 

Naturally, the public is interested in the lives of two such Hollywood stars and successful true-crime author, Noah Brady, has been talking to the dad in view of publishing a book about the crime. His research takes him to River's End, the resort where Livvy has been living for twenty years with her maternal grandparents. She doesn't remember much of what happened that night, although she has suffered from nightmares about it. Noah makes a terrible mistake when he fails to reveal to Livvy why he has come to River's End looking for details about the murder. When she finds out, she is enraged and sends him packing, even though they initially hit it off. Then she finds out that her father is free from prison and now someone is trying to kill her. 

This was an OK story. Pretty typical murder mystery. Spoiler: the killer is someone who is barely mentioned in the story. I don't like it when writers do that. 

Review by Publishers Weekly.

Red Lily

By Nora Roberts

The third book in her In the Garden trilogy, a rather disappointing conclusion to what was a good story.
Hayley works for her cousin Roz in her garden center, which is part of the Roz's family estate. Hayley also lives with Roz in the mansion, which the ghost, know as the Harper Bride for the long white dress she wears, is haunting. The ghost is attracted to children, especially babies and has been known in the past to sing to them at night. But she doesn't like men and when Hayley starts up a relationship with Harper, Roz's son, the ghost becomes angry and dangerous, even taking possession of Hayley at times.
The family decides that the only way to get rid of the ghost is to figure out what happened to her. They know that she was the wronged mistress of a long dead ancestor and that she had a baby. They discover that the baby she had was taken from her by her lover and he passed the baby off has the child of his wife. This pushed the mistress over the edge and one night she came to the mansion, determined to be reunited with her infant son. But something terrible happened that night and Hayley and Harper need to find out what it was if they are ever to have any peace and security in their life together, as the ghost is violently opposed to their relationship.

Frankly, I was bored by this novel, the third in the series. I lost interest when it became clear that the author had decided to portray the mistress, the ghost, as greedy, cold and cruel. Roberts took away all the sympathy the reader felt for the ghost when she emphasized how vain, greedy, materialistic, and lewd the character was when alive. The ghost had good cause to hate her lover when he stole her baby, but Roberts makes sure we know that the woman hated men even before this event occurred, viewing men only as a means to acquiring all the good things she wanted in life. Roberts turned a sympathetic and mysterious character into just another stupid monster. Half way through the book, I just wanted it to be over.

Chesapeake Blue

By Nora Roberts

I was introduced to Nora Roberts just a few years ago when my Granny sent me Blue Dahlia, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Roberts either has worked in a greenhouse or she does excellent research because the greenhouse scenes come across as authentic. I then found out she also wrote under the name of J.D. Robb for in "In Death" series, which I have also enjoyed a lot, even though they can be pretty gruesome. Roberts is a skilled and prolific author and very good at what she does.
Chesapeake Blue is the fourth in her Chesapeake Bay Saga. It is the story of Seth Quinn, who has returned home from Italy a successful artist. He meets the new girl in town, Drusilla Banks, a girl who is running away from her wealthy background and trying to make it on her own. She has just opened a flower shop and she is definitely not looking for a man in her life. But Seth is intrigued by her and not put off put her skepticism. He talks Dru into posing for him as he undertakes a series of paintings featuring the woman he wants to make his own. But into this happy homecoming comes an unwelcome figure from Seth's past, having heard Seth is successful and wanting a piece of Seth's pie.

I enjoyed this novel despite the rather weak blackmail plot. The Quinn family is wonderful and the place they live is beautiful. It was well worth the time reading about this family.