The Last Honest Woman (The O'Hurleys, #1) by Nora Roberts

Dylan Crosby is writing a book on Abby O'Hurley's late husband and he knows she's keeping secrets. He's bound and determined to ferret out every last one. Including why the widow of a man who was fabulously wealthy is out mucking stalls and cleaning houses.
Married young, Abby's marriage wasn't perfect but Abby consents to talk to Dylan because she needs money. Her boys are growing up fast and her farm needs work. But she has some secrets she doesn't ever want to see the light of day.
Of course, this is a romance so they'll fall in love but the development of the characters and the story-line are pretty good, especially considering this series started as a 90s Harlequin romance series.

Three stars
Followed by Dance to the Piper
This book came out May 1988
Listened to this book on Audible Escape
Opinions are my own

Dance to the Piper by Nora Roberts

Maddy O'Hurley is a recently broken out Broadway star. She left her last play in the middle of a very successful run because she felt she had given all she could. Now in rehearsals for a new play, this sparkling actress is surprised to meet her new angel (play backer) when he interrupts a mugging.
Reed Valentine isn't sure what to make of this intriguing woman. She's nothing like the society women that he's used to dating, but he's strongly drawn to her.
The push-and-pull of both their emotions and their relationship is a lovely story that I've enjoyed reading over and over again.

Four stars
Follows The Last Honest Woman
Followed by Skin Deep
This book came out July 1988
Listened on Audible Escape
Opinions are my own

The Hollow by Nora Roberts

Layla Darnell isn't sure what she's doing in Hawkins Hollow. One day, she just felt the urge to leave her life at a boutique in New York City and travel to rural Pennsylvania to a town where she's having horrible nightmares, seeing horrible things, and falling for Fox O'Dell, one of the three men responsible for releasing an ancient evil that had been captured three hundred years ago but was let back into the world when three ten-year-old boys swore a blood oath.
Now Layla is working for Fox and working with him and the other two boys (now men) to put the evil away for good. She has also made friends with two other women and they all seem to be tied in with combating the Big Bad as well.
Good addition to the series. Not my favorite Nora paranormal series (hello, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/series/40843-three-sisters-island">Three Sisters Island</a>) but an okay read.

Three and a half stars
Follows Blood Brothers
Followed by The Pagan Stone
This book came out May 6th, 2008
Opinions are my own

Blood Brothers by Nora Roberts

Cal, Gage, and Fox went on a camping trip when they were 10-years-old and, while becoming blood brothers as children will do, they accidentally unleashed a centuries old demon who had been trapped by one of the ancestors for centuries. Ever since that day, there have been seven days on every seventh year (7/1-7/7) when evil is unleashed on Hawkins Hollow, their hometown.

Quinn Black is a researcher in the paranormal. She's written many newspaper articles as well as a well-received book and now she wants to concentrate on the Seven. What is it about this place that makes the inhabitants go nuts? And what is it about Cal that draws her so deeply? She's happy with her life of travel and exploration but Cal is all about home. And, of course, there's no guarantee that they'll be alive past July... but they're both wiling to take a chance.
Quinn and Cal don't get as much of a story in this book because it is the first in the series and everyone is being introduced and set up but still worth a re-read.

Three and a half stars
Followed by The Hollow
This book came out November 27th, 2007
Opinions are my own

Playing the Odds by Nora Roberts

Having worked as a dealer in a cruise casino, Serena MacGregor is ready to take the next step in her life. She doesn't count on being thrown off course by a handsome passenger, Justin Blade. She's not sure she's interested but he is... 80's romance forceful about it. 

When one of Justin's investors suggests this cruise, he doesn't think anything of it. But when he figures out that the woman he's lusting after is the man's daughter, he's more bemused than anything else.

It is dated and I'm not sure that today's readers will enjoy it as much as those of us that have the nostalgia factor added in. 

Three stars
This book came out March 2, 1985
Followed by Tempting Fate

Borrowed as ebook from Libby
Opinions are my own

Reread March 2023

Tempting Fate by Nora Roberts

Caine MacGregor has yet to be impressed by Diana Blade. She's the sister of the man who is about to marry Caine's sister but she sure doesn't act like it. Gorgeous, but cold, she acts nothing like anyone he's ever known.
Diana is nervous. She hasn't seen her brother since they were children. The aunt who raised her has her convinced that he is close to the devil himself. Not that her aunt was the best but Diana is still cautious, everyone in her life has left. And she knows Caine's reputation. Just a few years behind him at law school, she knows the swath he cut through not only the classes but the female students. But she's moving to be closer to her brother as she opens up her own law office and Caine has the space. But the more he gets to know Diana, the deeper he finds that she hides her feelings and he'll have to work to get her to admit that she might have feelings too.

Four Stars
This book came out May 1st, 1985

Follows Playing the Odds

Followed by All the Possibilities
Book borrowed from Library
Opinions are my own

Under Currents by Nora Roberts

Major trigger warnings for both spousal and child abuse.
Like many of Roberts' non-series contemporaries, this one opens slowly and then quickly ramps as Emily Bigelow admires her home and thinks about what a great life she has. We quickly learn that this is HER version of great. For her kids, not so much.
In the first seven chapters, we get great character sketches of each of the four people in her family as well as some of the people who will be players in the later story.
Chapter 8 opens with Darby McCray deciding to move to Lakeside after her mother's death. She is ready to start her landscaping business in a new place and this one fits her specifications. This coincides with Zane Walker's (the Bigelows' son) return. He's now a lawyer, apparently a good one since he buys a huge house and is ready for Darby to install spme pretty extensive landscaping.
The two kind of slide into a relationship based in mutual admiration (physical and mental) as well as an understanding of each other's histories. And the course of true love never can run smooth and we learn that it is good thing that both Darby and Zane are smart, neither try to play detective, and that Darby has that black belt in kung fu.
I liked this book a lot. Darby was her own heroine a lot of the time but Zane got to help as well, a true team. There were a couple of little things that I didn't love, the swiftness of the romance, so many villains, and then the lack of a talk about protection and how to stay healthy which Roberts has been able to skillfully add to other of her books.

Four stars
This book comes out July 9th
ARC kindly provided by MacMillan and Edelweiss
Opinions are my own

Mind Over Matter by Nora Roberts

This book was originally published in 1994 and I should have suspected that I had read it before but the description on NetGalley didn't sound familiar. Once I started reading the story, I did remember more. While it feels a wee bit dated, this book actually isn't too bad for being 23 years old. Hero David Brady is a little alpha-male-ish but it's not any worse than some of the more recent books I've read. He's a big-shot documentarian (think Ken Burns) who is doing a show on psychics.
AJ Fields is the agent for one of those psychics, Clarissa. But she's reluctant to put Clarissa to yet another battery of tests. And she's even more reluctant to explore the draw she's feeling for David. But we get to see the two of them fall in love, figure out their relationship, and find their HEA.

The ebook comes out July 17
Three and a half stars

Come Sundown by Nora Roberts

Bodine Longbow runs the resort side of her family's land, the Bodine Ranch. Her father and brothers run the ranch side while her mother seems to run them all. Bodine's life is interrupted by the return of one of her brother's old friends, Callen Skinner, who had been in Hollywood training stunt horses. It's also interrupted by the body of a dead woman and Bodine and Cal are the ones who discover her.
Bodine's story is intercut with that of her aunt, Alice. It seems Alice was always sort of a rebel. She ran away on the day of Bo's mother's wedding. Alice was on her way back to the Bodine Ranch when she was kidnapped and kept in a basement. We see both the lives of Bo and Alice; as Bo falls in love and as Alice slowly loses herself.
This book reminds me of a classic Nora Roberts and I think most of her faithful readers will really enjoy this book. It was one of the better books I've read set in Montana but it kept reminding me of so many of Nora Roberts' other books. A faithful Roberts reader, this book immediately hit me as a mix of Montana Sky and The Obsession; as soon as the villain was introduced, I knew who it was.I was disappointed that there were so many B-plots that took away from the main story. It seemed a bit patchwork. At least the heroine got to save herself this time.

Three and a half stars
This book comes out May 30

Bay of Sighs by Nora Roberts

Ohmigosh. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was really worried about this book. The first book in the series was a pale replica of earlier Roberts trilogies and Annika quite frankly annoyed the hell out of me. To read a whole book about her? Well, there was more story than characterization in this book so the story of Annika and Sawyer falling more in love was there, but there was also a lot of movement in the overarching story of finding the three stars.
Annika is a mermaid who just got land legs in the last story. Because she revealed that she's a mermaid, she only has those legs for another three months. Just enough time for her to fall in love with the time/space traveler, Sawyer King.
Sawyer is cautious with Annika. Though he is wildly attracted to her, he knows that she is innocent in the ways of humans (even if she does have a penchant for taking her clothes off). And to work through all of this sex stuff while fighting an evil goddess who is now recruiting humans? It's a balancing act that they're all going to have to work at.
I mentioned that the first book in the series as a replica of other Roberts trilogies, the three stars, the character named 'King' who could be a king, and the idea of an evil queen. So, this still feels like a retread but with little new bits thrown in. And, while Annika wasn't as annoying as I thought she would be, she was still annoying. This was better than the first book though and I'm very much looking forward to the third book in this series.

This book comes out June 14
Three and a half stars

Obsession by Nora Roberts

Oh man. Oh man, oh man, oh man. This. Is. An AWESOME book. I had a couple of issues (no use of condoms, and other spoiler-ish reasons) but this really is a four-and-a-half-star book for me. Even two days later.
When she was twelve, Naomi Bowers followed her father out to the woods and discovered a horrible secret. Setting the girl free led to her father's imprisonment and her own notoriety, something that affects her again and again in the story. (I also wish we had seen more of Ashley but that may have over-bloated the book).
She ends up becoming a photographer and traveling around the world but, for reasons she doesn't entirely understand, she's just bought a house. A huge house. A huge dilapidated house. A house that needs a lot of work. And it's a place for her to start putting down roots. Even meeting a great guy.
Xander Keaton (Buffy fans, unite!) owns a garage in Sunrise Cove. He's not school-educated but he loves books. And it's through his love that we get passages dedicated to the love of reading. Happy sigh. Oh. And he's in a band. A smokin' hot band.
The problem being that, of course, Naomi tends to wall off her own heart because of her past and Xander can't help chipping away at it. Also, there's a serial murderer who has started killing in their town. Small detail.
I just re-read Blue Smoke and can see a LOT Of parallels with this story, but I liked this one so much more. There is less time in the past and more on the present. I also liked Xander so much better.
Roberts fans will be in love. People new to Roberts will love this book as well.

Dark Witch by Nora Roberts

Iona Sheehan has just arrived in Ireland. She knows that she's special, that her family has powers.

Image linked from Goodreads

She is to be the third, the witch that will help to put away and ancient Big Bad for good.
The Big Bad is delighted that she is there. He sees her as the weak chain in the chain that could take him down. Of course, Iona is tested.
At the same time, she falls into lust with her new boss, the owner of a local stables, Boyle McGrath and has to juggle her burgeoning powers with the feelings that she has starting for this rough man.
Perhaps it's not fair to judge Nora Robers against herself, but this is just not one of her most stellar books. It doesn't have as much depth as some of her other books and just seems to skim along. The bad dude isn't as well developed and neither are her characters. Of course, she is introducing six people and all of their backgrounds and that can be hard to do but I feel like we learned about them all on a superficial level and didn't really get to know our hero and heroine or their relationship.
So far, not as good as the Sisters Island trilogy but I am always willing to keep an open mind.