Under Currents in Audiobook Junkies

May 22, 2020 ⊱✿⊰ Alicia ⊱✿⊰ rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2020-audiobooks, nora-roberts, re-read

So on my little break from Goodreads I found and fell in love with Nora Roberts, her standalone romantic suspense books are my favourite and I am yet to read one that I haven't loved.

Nora has a way with words, that's for sure! She drags me in and has me hanging on every word.

This book is no different, starting out with drama and showing us how that drama continues to affect the characters all the way through their lives. I enjoy the fact that she doesn't base her books around romance but is abl ...more

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Sep 05, 2019 SB*needs low angst books* rated it liked it

Shelves: romantic-suspense, contemporary-romance, likable-heroines, borrowed-from-library, nora-roberts, great-heroes-not-ott-alpha

Zane Bigelow and his sister Britt looks like they live the perfect life with parents Graham and Eliza. They live in the big house with their head of surgery doctor father and the mother that is a perfect socialite. Unfortunately, unknown to those close to them family even don't know what is really going on. One night when Zane is a teen the secrets come out in a huge and very scandalous way and the hell him and his sister live in is finally ended.

Zane and his sister end up living with their mot Zane Bigelow and his sister Britt looks like they live the perfect life with parents Graham and Eliza. They live in the big house with their head of surgery doctor father and the mother that is a perfect socialite. Unfortunately, unknown to those close to them family even don't know what is really going on. One night when Zane is a teen the secrets come out in a huge and very scandalous way and the hell him and his sister live in is finally ended.

Zane and his sister end up living with their mother's sister Emily and the man that helped put their parents away fall in love and get married. Their new life is nothing like their old one. Zane who wanted to be a baseball player unfortunately has his arm injured and now rethinks what he wants to do with his life. He decides on a lawyer and like everything else puts his all in. He moves away from home as an adult but now decides it's time to finally move home.

Darby McCray is a woman who had a landscaping business with her mother but since her death due to a hit and run feels the need for change. She also is only a couple years out of an abusive marriage that makes her want change too. So she moves to Lakeview and decides that if she likes it she will start over business and all there. She ends up staying at a cabin that Emily owns and makes her a deal to start his landscaping business. That is how Zane and Darby meet. Neither is looking for a relationship but that doesn't stop the friendship that turns into more. They both have lots of baggage. And as they are moving forward with each other and lives people from the present and past won't let that be easy.

I liked this more that I have a lot of recent Nora Roberts. I think my main issue was the plot with the parents was good at the beginning but it fell flat in the later part of the plot to me. Same with the other plot involving the very end. I thought it didn't really make sense personally or I felt it wasn't interesting and added nothing. So it fell a little flat for me in spots even as some parts were better. ...more

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Jul 11, 2019 Darcy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: romantic-suspense, 2019, audio-book, listened-to-at-work

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. While I love the author's JD Robb books, ones under her own name are hit or miss for me. This one, I'm happy to say was a big hit, which kind of surprised me. The first part, is a bit brutal to read, there is abuse and the way things were written it's like you were there (which could be a big trigger for some), but with the way things ended I found myself cheering because the good guys won and the bad guys paid the price.

The second part of the book really changed the tone when Darby showed up. Y ...more

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Nov 02, 2019 Kathy Martin rated it it was amazing

This is one Nora Roberts book that I was hesitant to read. I don't like stories about child abuse. I should have known that Nora Roberts could take a difficult subject and write a compelling story of love and survival.

Zane Bigelow and his sister Britta lived what looked like a perfect life. Their father was a successful surgeon; their mother on all the right committees. They lived in a beautiful house in a posh part of town. But their house hid many secrets. Their father had been beating his wi This is one Nora Roberts book that I was hesitant to read. I don't like stories about child abuse. I should have known that Nora Roberts could take a difficult subject and write a compelling story of love and survival.

Zane Bigelow and his sister Britta lived what looked like a perfect life. Their father was a successful surgeon; their mother on all the right committees. They lived in a beautiful house in a posh part of town. But their house hid many secrets. Their father had been beating his wife and son for years. Zane began keeping a diary of this abuse when he was a young teenager and his father's abuse broke his nose and caused a concussion that his father explained away as a bike accident or a ski accident depending on who he was telling the story too.

Zane wants very badly to get out but knows that his father has all the power, a pristine outer appearance, and powerful friends. He also has a complicit wife who likes the abuse she receives at her husband's hands and doesn't care about her children at all.

When Zane comes home from a school dance to see his father hitting his mother, he intervenes. His father pushes him down the stairs and breaks his arm and sprains his ankle. But worse of all he blames Zane for hitting him, hitting his wife, and hitting his little sister. He demands that Zane be arrested and sent to a juvenile detention center where he spends a horrible night until he is rescued by the actions of his little sister, his aunt, and a police detective who believes that it was his father who was to blame.

With his father and mother arrested, tried, and imprisoned, Zane and Britta have a chance at a new, better life with their aunt and loving grandparents.

Then the story jumps to the present day where Zane is a lawyer who is returning home and his father is finally getting ready to be paroled after eighteen years in prison. His mother had waited loyally for him after her own release from prison.

Then a new person comes to town. Darby McCray has her own history with violence. She managed to escape from her abusive husband who was convicted and imprisoned. She and her mother ran a successful landscaping business until her mother died in a hit-and-run accident. Darby sold up and needed to choose a new place to restart her life. She chooses the same town where Zane and his family live to begin her new business.

But both Zane and Darby are still of strong interest to their abusers and danger follows both of them home. I liked that both Darby and Zane were survivors who hadn't lost the ability to fall in love and trust. I also liked that neither of them was looking for a new relationship when they met.

As is common in Nora Roberts' books, there are a bunch of supporting characters who form a web of friendships and who are there for our hero and heroine. I loved Darby's personality. She's optimistic and seems to have a real gift for making friends. I liked Zane's resilience. I liked that the information about child abuse and domestic abuse were woven into the story but didn't dominate.

Fans of Nora Roberts won't want to miss this story with its memorable characters and suspense. ...more

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Dec 31, 2019 Vi ~ Inkvotary rated it really liked it

Shelves: hc, novel, i-o-a-c, english-orig, 2019-release-e, 2019-release-g, 2019-newreleasechallenge, 2019-nora

4,5 Stars
Zane is counting the years until he is free to go and leave his brutal parents. His father, a famous and successful surgent knows how to keep control over everything he sees as his own belongings. His children included. After an especially brutal hit from his father, Zane starts to write down everything that has ever happened to him and is still happening with the hope that one day he might be able to get justice the way he and his sister deserve it. After years of abuse one day, Zane h 4,5 Stars
Zane is counting the years until he is free to go and leave his brutal parents. His father, a famous and successful surgent knows how to keep control over everything he sees as his own belongings. His children included. After an especially brutal hit from his father, Zane starts to write down everything that has ever happened to him and is still happening with the hope that one day he might be able to get justice the way he and his sister deserve it. After years of abuse one day, Zane has had enough and hits back. Starting a process in which the famous façade his father was always keen to keep up is shattered in a second.

The story itself starts with the cruel and bloody daily life Zane and his sister Britt know can´t be normal. I was shocked when I read the first brutal scene, though it was written in a very sensitive way. The fact, that violence between a man and a woman was shown in a very blunt way gave me the chills. But when the author started to present her readers with scenes where out of nothing, Zane´s father starts to torture and batter his son, I was shaken and not sure if I wanted to continue reading.

I did. And it was totally worth it. Page after page Nora Roberts unfolds a story that thrilled me more and more. There is always a good part in such a novel, and the author delivers that in the most perfect way.

Her writing style is soft and intense but still with ease. You are always aware of the importance and cruelty of the things Zane´s father did to his family but you also get to see how Zane and his sister found a peaceful way and to keep going and what life they both build from the cruel and bloody past.

Zane and Britt seem to be defenseless, but they are not. Within hours of the last violent hit through their father, they find help in a place they would never have imagined possible. And it turns out, that no matter what their parents had intended to do to them, they´ve failed. Zane and Britt are strong, though they had just escaped a living nightmare.

I was totally impressed by how the two teenagers coped with everything that had happened to them. How they kept their strength and will to stay good and that there must be more in life for them than an abusive father and the richness they were born into.

Nora Roberts once again shows that she knows how to thrill and bond her readers. Yes, the topic is no fun and for sure not easy to write about. But the author shows with this book the highest level of style and elegance even though she writes about the cruelest behavior towards a child. And the way how she turns things around during the ongoing plot is not only very exciting but also very entertaining. Highly recommended. ...more

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Nov 09, 2020 Angela rated it really liked it

Man, what a wild ride! If this was fact instead of fiction, this book would go down in history as the worst summer to ever summer! Damn the conflict was just non-stop, but I'm glad the resolutions were there and that THEY MADE SENSE and that Zane & Darby finally got their Happy Ending 💛 ...more

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May 27, 2019 Kelly rated it really liked it

I received an ARC of this book. I LOVED this book so much! I think I felt every emotion reading this book, as most of Nora Roberts’ books! I highly recommend it, especially if you are a NR fan!

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Jul 27, 2019 Judy Hall rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2019-facebook-challenge, 2019-nora, nora-roberts

On the outside, Zane Bigelow's home looked like a dream, but it was really a nightmare. Then in one night of violence and terror, the secrets come out and Zane and his sister have a chance at a new life. Years later, after college and law school and time as a prosecutor, Zane returns to his small town to hang his shingle on main street.

At the same time, Darby chooses this same small town as the place where she might be able to start her life over, after the loss of her mother/business partner. D On the outside, Zane Bigelow's home looked like a dream, but it was really a nightmare. Then in one night of violence and terror, the secrets come out and Zane and his sister have a chance at a new life. Years later, after college and law school and time as a prosecutor, Zane returns to his small town to hang his shingle on main street.

At the same time, Darby chooses this same small town as the place where she might be able to start her life over, after the loss of her mother/business partner. Darby is no stranger herself to violence and she and Zane find common ground quickly. But it seems like someone isn't ready to let them have peace.

What I love about Nora Roberts recent books is that the romance is easy. Not "boom, we're in love and everything will be wonderful right away.", but easy because, whatever damage they may have dealt with, they are prepared to deal with it and recognize that relationships take work. In other words they are mature and they teach people that it is okay to talk and it is okay to ask to have your needs met.

But the story isn't talky. There is always drama, and even suspense, but it comes from outside the relationship.

This book, in particular, takes a moment to explore the toxic idea of passion where you have too have drama and violence. Where someone needs to dominate. The kind defined by the rape of Scarlett O'Hara, something too many people see as romantic, instead of violent.

I read that last paragraph and bumped this up to five stars because this is such an issue for me. So much romantic literature in that past has fed rape culture by saying that men should keep trying after no. That no doesn't always mean no. That, if you love her, she'll come around while you are taking what you want.

I think I put this in every review of her books, but I came to Nora Roberts late and when I read her back catalog, one of the things I love about her career is that she has been ahead of the curve when it comes to that dynamic. I still find old books where the man knows best or sex starts with anger or violence, but she seems to have moved away from it well before the industry even started looking at it.

So yes, I gave it 5 stars for its social commentary, but it's also a fantastic story with wonderful characters you can truly care about. ...more

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