Book Review – The Liar

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.

Book Review – Closer to Home

Title: Closer to Home: Book One of the Herald Spy

Author:  Mercedes Lackey

Format: Hardback

Published: 2014

As a long-time fan of the Valdemar series, I hated to admit that I was disappointed in the last few offerings in the world (The Collegium Chronicles). However, when a book (or books) is full of filler, with an ending that was rushed and completely reeked of deus ex machina, I kind of have no choice. But since I have always been such a fan, despite that disappointment, I decided to check this book out from the library and was pleasantly surprised.

The story picks up where the Collegium Chronicles leave off, and relies upon previous knowledge from that series (especially at the beginning, as there is really very little introduction of the characters), but quickly heads into its own plot. The Collegium mystery arc has been resolved, which leaves room for a new arc to begin.

Mags and Amily are home, and starting to settle into their lives. Then Amily’s father is nearly killed, and Amily’s life is sent in a completely different direction. She is quickly swept up in the political intrigues of the highborn, while Mags is learning the steps of being the official Herald Spy.

While the Romeo and Juliet subplot felt a little trite at times (and at others made you want to shake all of the characters involved), it resolved in a (mostly) unexpected way. The ‘main plot’ of the book (which got much less screen time than the Romeo and Juliet plot) was mostly laying groundwork for the Herald Spy mystery arc, but what little we got was interesting and well-written.

The story holds together well and unlike its predecessor series, I did not walk away from the book feeling that I had read 200 pages of filler with 50 pages of action.

Though there were places that made me roll my eyes (just because your *mind* knows how to do something does not mean your *body* has the muscle memory to do so), and other places where I wished that there had been more of a focus on, Lackey’s writing covers many of the minor problems. Fans of Valdemar do not need to fear picking up this newest offering.

3/5 pages

***Crossposted to Book in the Bag