For both Zane and Darby, their small town roots hold a terrible secret. Now, decades later, they've come together to build a new life. But will the past set them free or pull them under?
Zane Bigelow grew up in a beautiful, perfectly kept house in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Strangers―and even Zane’s own aunt across the lake―see his parents as a successful surgeon and his stylish wife, making appearances at their children’s ballet recitals and baseball games. Only Zane and his sister know the truth, until one brutal night finally reveals cracks in the facade, and Zane escapes for college without a thought of looking back...
Years later, Zane returns to his hometown determined to reconnect with the place and people that mean so much to him, despite the painful memories. As he resumes life in the colorful town, he meets a gifted landscape artist named Darby, who is on the run from ghosts of her own.
Together they will have to teach each other what it means to face the past, and stand up for the ones they love.
My Review:
Rating: 4.5/5 stars.
Firstly, I'd like to thank Tandem Collective UK, Nora Roberts and Little Book Cafe for gifting my a copy of this book for an honest review! I really enjoyed this read along.
I have to give a huge trigger warning for this book because it contains a huge amount of physical and emotional abuse. I do think the topic is dealt with respect and a wide number of different viewpoints. Abuse towards women, men, children etc.
With all that being said I really enjoyed this book. It is in its essence a thriller and does definitely 'thrill'. There are four parts to this book and the first part left me shaking in shock because the writing was so well done that it was a very real and scary beginning. Reading other reviews some people didn't like how it kind of switched between romance and thriller but this is what I loved about this book. Nora Roberts, being the amazing and successful author that she is, has taken two genres and put them in one book. We were lulled into a false sense of security with the lovely romance between Darby and Zane. The next second we are thrown right back into a thrilling part of the book and I feel that it worked really well.
I would say that there were so many characters introduced in the second part of the book that I had to keep stopping to remind myself of who everyone was. At first the multiply narration really confused me as there was no clear change, it just happened. Once I got into the book though I got used to it and enjoyed seeing the book from so many different characters viewpoints. I would have given this book 5 stars but there was a 'joke' made about suicide which is really not funny.
This is my third book by Nora Roberts and I can see why she is so huge! I will be reading more of her books in the future.
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