The random number generator picked this book off my TBR and I was willing to give it a try, even though I'm pretty sure I got it off the clearance book rack back in the days when that was the only kind of hardcover I could afford and I still liked reading romances in general and Nora Roberts in particular.

Then I saw OB's review and decided I'd be better off throwing it in the library donation box rather than even trying to read it.

So, not read, not rated, tossed it. I'll run the random generator again and see what it picks for me next.

Read by Kimberly Farr
Romantic Suspense
I enjoy Nora Roberts but sometimes the books are just plain smut hidden in a suspenseful novel.
A girl moves back home, bad things happen, girl gets the guy.
There is suspense for thrill seekers.

*Took long to read it as I got from the library and it expired before I was one then a month later I got it back to finish. Hate when that happens. ( )

This was so long and tedious. Also there's barely any romance and what there is you quickly forget about it when it comes to reading about the group sex, rapes, murders, and animals being killed. Heck we even get a scene of a man being beaten to death which actually turned my stomach. I don't think the main characters or secondary characters were very developed. And there's a topic of racism introduced and dropped quickly which was odd. The ending was a total nonstarter. I can see if Roberts had wrote a sequel to this, but since she didn't, this book has an odd and menacing ending.

Clare Kimball is a sculptor living in New York. Even though she is on the cusp of making a name for herself she still feels unsettled by her father's death years earlier. Coming home she found him dead of what looked to be an apparent suicide. And a dream she had as a child which comes back to her now and again haunts her. When her mother remarries and goes on her honeymoon, Clare decides to return to her former home in Emmitsboro, Maryland. She thinks she can stay there and work on new pieces and maybe come to terms other her father's death and her anger towards her mother for moving on.

So Clare sucks. She has a best friend named Angie, who runs an art gallery with her husband Jean-Paul. Apparently she has no other friends though her twin brother Blair makes random appearances. She also is divorced though you don't hear much about her first marriage. You quickly find out that Clare is angry/upset about her mother and her moving on. She feels stuck and thinks returning to a town she hasn't lived in in about a decade is definitely the answer. When she returns she runs into Cameron (Cam) Rafferty. Cam has also returned to the hometown after being a cop in DC. He's now the new sheriff and is dealing with a lot of bad memories due to his mother and his stepfather.

Obviously theses two are romantically interested in each other. But Roberts breaks that up with allowing readers POV of a young woman being raped and murdered and then a young teen boy who is apparently into Satanism and is obsessed with Clare.

Clare hides what she starts to discover about her father's interest in the occult. And Cam gets into it with his stepfather and locks him up. When the man is found naked and beaten to death more things come to light in the supposed sleepy rural town.

I honestly felt like this was two stories meshed into one. Either Roberts should have had Clare investigating once she realized some truths about her father. Or Cam should have been the focus with him trying to reconcile with his mother. Instead neither characters are center stage in this book. I felt more for Cam especially when there's a reveal about how his father died and I hated that I don't think he was told during the course of the story. I did want him and his mother reconciled but sadly that doesn't happen.

Either way Clare does her sculptures and then all of a sudden gets emeshed in a case when a young woman she accidentally hits with her car that was running from men in the woods. Though she still wants to hide any thoughts about her father. Her brother and then Angie and Jean-Paul are in Emmitsboro trying to keep and eye on Clare. It honestly doesn't make any sense why anyone is afraid of Clare's return. She doesn't go around asking questions or anything related to her father. Whatever.

Can I say that these Satanists are stupid? Who goes around abducting and murdering people thinking they will get away with it? And these seem like 80s TV movie versions of Satanists. I wish Roberts had introduced more information on how these dumb men were even lured to do things like this. Roberts tries to with the ending, but it was so out of left field I rolled my eyes.

The setting of this small town didn't feel like Maryland to me. It felt more Midwest to me. With the talk of the smallness of the town and barely any stores or shops and small farms I had a hard time with that.

As I said above, the ending left things open ended and was a weird note to end this book on. I don't recommend this. ( )

Love Nora Roberts in general, but this was not her best work. The story, though dark, was engrossing. However the characters and the friendships and relationships between them - usually such a strength for Roberts - were very weak. For example Angie and Jean Paul, Claire's art dealer/friends have the potential to be interesting, but they barely register. The biggest problem was that Claire, the main character, was an unlikeable idiot. By the time the satanic cult got hold of her at the end I was not even sorry for her, just glad that handsome sheriff Cam could come and rescue the dumb bitch and put us all out of our misery. There WAS a neat little twist at the end - which was probably obvious but I didn't guess it - so I give it an extra star for that.
( )

did not read. did not like it.