Rising Tides by Nora Roberts

Rising Tides by Nora Roberts 1998 A Jove Book

[image error]This is the second book in a three-book series by Roberts. The trilogy focuses on three brothers adopted by Ray and Stella Quinn. Each of them came from abusive homes. Before Ray dies in a single-car crash with a telephone pole, he had plans to adopt another troubled youth, Seth, 10. The brothers, Cameron, Phillip, and Ethan join forces to provide Seth a home.

In the first book Cameron falls in love with Seth’s case worker, Anna, and they marry. In the second book Ethan reveals that he has been in love with Grace most of his life, but believes his abuse by his mother has tainted him and his blood and he shouldn’t marry or have children.

Grace has always been in love with Ethan but settled for another man, who fathered her daughter Aubrey and left her. Ethan and Grace fall in love, but Ethan nearly destroys it by refusing to marry her. Her anger helps her resolve issues with her father and confront Ethan. Anna helps guide Ethan to the truth.

Roberts uses Anna and her experience as a caseworker to explain the guilt and shame abused children carry with them into adulthood. Ethan never gets counseling, but his father appears to him as a ghost and gives him advice.

It’s a romance so the trauma of sex abuse is handled quickly. Roberts doesn’t shy away from using a dark backstory to explain behavior. Abuse and sexual assault are a running theme in her Eve Dallas detective series.

This book adds to the problem of Gloria, Seth’s mother, who wants money from the three brothers or she’ll take Seth back. She already sold him to Ray Quinn and may have blackmailed him for more money, which he paid. None of the questions about Ray, Gloria, or Seth was answered in the first or second book, so they better be answered in the third.

More book reviews at http://www.authorfreeman.worpress.com