The Search

The Search is the latest book by Nora Roberts. It is a romantic suspense that will appeal to dog lovers.

Fiona Bristow lives on Orcas Island, part of the San Juan islands off of the coast of Washington. She lives with her three Labrador retrievers and trains dogs for a living.

She has lived on Orcas for almost eight years, ever since she escaped from a serial killer and he killed her fiancee for revenge. She went to Orcas to stay with her step mother and fell in love with the island.

Now her life is as she wants it. She has peace and quiet and her dogs for company. Until Simon Doyle brings his new puppy to be trained.

Aptly named, Jaws, is eating everything he can get his little, sharp teeth on and Simon is at his wits end. He just moved to Orcas and his mother got him a dog for company. Not only did he not want a dog, but Jaws is disrupting his work as a woodworker. Simon is less than thrilled to find out that dog training is actually dog and human training and that he cannot just drop the dog off until he is fixed.

As Simon, Jaws and Fiona get to know each other, a copycat killer is restarting the killings that the man Fiona escaped began. Now old feeling and fears are being brought up that she thought she had dealt with before. And it appears that the new killer will correct the mistake the first one made by letting Fiona get away.

Capturing the beauty of the Pacific Northwest and the love and energy of many dogs, Roberts has created a novel that readers of the genre will love.

Roberts, Nora. (2010). The Search. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Black Hills

Black Hills is the latest novel by Nora Roberts. Not surprisingly, it takes place in North Dakota.

Since the summer when Cooper Sullivan was eleven he considered his home to be in North Dakota with his grandparents. In spite of that, he grew up in New York. Each summer and break that he could, he went to the ranch in South Dakota.

On his first visit, along with meeting his grandparents for the first time, he met Lil. He and Lil became best friends. That first day they were together, playing baseball behind the barn, they came across a mountain lion.
Copper's reaction was fear; Lil's reaction was fascination.

Years later, Cooper retires from his career and moves to the ranch to help out his aging grandparents. Lil still lives next door. She has opened a wildlife refuge for big cats.

But not everyone thinks that the wildlife refuge is a good thing. Someone is stalking Lil, taunting her. If they don't find him, Lil will lose her life and Cooper will lose the only woman he has ever loved.

Though I am not a huge reader of Nora Roberts, her romantic suspense books can be quite fun to read. This one had the setting I was interested in reading at the time - a ranch in the Black Hills.

One sentence review: The eccentric group of characters who live in Lunacy, Alaska will not let Nate Burke lead the quiet, peaceful life he was hoping for when he took the job as chief of police 3,000 miles from his old life in Baltimore.

Roberts, Nora. (2009). Black Hills. New York: Putnam.

Northern Lights

Northern Lights by Nora Roberts is a detective mystery that takes place in Alaska.

Nate Burke was a Baltimore cop for 11 years. When his partner was killed in the line of duty his survivors guilt drove him out of the force. For a change of pace he applied for a job as the chief of police in Lunacy, Alaska.

Hoping for crimes no more serious that public drunkenness, Nate is in for a shock. When three climbers are stranded on No Name mountain they discover a body. Now strange events are happening all over Lunacy and Nate has to find out which of the Lunatics killed the Ice Man - while also dealing with everyday Alaska - moose, bears, weather, etc...

Roberts captures the feel and characters of Alaska in this mystery - the thrill of the land, the lunacy of people who would live in such harsh conditions, and the beauty of community in a small town where people have to rely on each other to survive.

Roberts, Nora. (2004). Northern Lights. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.