Title: The Liar
Author: Nora Roberts
Format: Hardback
Year Published: 2015
Yes, yet another Nora Roberts novel! (They’re a guilty pleasure, what can I say?)
So, The Liar is the newest offering from Roberts, which explains why it took me a month to get it in from the library. Shelby has been recently widowed and has discovered that her husband isn’t at all who she thought he was. She retreats home to Tennessee, taking her daughter to her family, and settles in, trying to overcome the debt her husband has left her in and ignoring all the mysteries of his past, all the while slowly falling in love with a new man.
Unfortunately, her husband’s past isn’t done with her. Starting with a PI who follows her from Philadelphia to Tennessee, more trouble follows as one of her husband’s ‘associates’ tells her what he was really involved, and then ends up dead. Slowly, the tangled web of lies that her husband built start to fall, and Shelby learns the truth.
So the big plot twist of the story (revealed in the last thirty pages), I called by the end of the first chapter. Some of this may be because I’ve read/watched a lot of detective stories, but this one felt *so* obvious I couldn’t believe that it never even came up as a possibly with the characters. So that felt a little less true-to-life.
I liked Shelby, and I liked Griff (her new love interest) but Roberts has started making her heroes a bit *too* perfect (I know – what else can I expect in a romance novel). Griff is always perfect – he knows when to push and when to step back; he knows how to win over not only Shelby but her daughter, and it all adds up to a rather boring specimen, to be honest.
As usual, Roberts’ skill with interesting characters is showcased in the side-characters – with Shelby’s best friend and her new beau; with Shelby’s mother and grandmother; with the girl who’s hated Shelby since they were girls and her actions once Shelby returns home.
Nothing spectacular, but nothing horrible either. 3/5 stars.
Objects in Motion 