Sandy M’s review of Nightwork by Nora Roberts
Contemporary Romance published by St. Martin’s Press 24 May 22

It still amazes me at the plots Nora Roberts conjures with each of her books, after all her years of writing. They are always fresh and different. That being said, it’s her characters who draw me in every time so that I can’t wait to see what happens to them throughout her stories. In this case it’s Harry Booth, whose early life and love for his family, who kept me up late night, despite the fact I wanted to slow down my reading so his story would last longer.

To survive during the years his mother was will, Harry begins his nightwork, stealing what he can when he can just to pay the medical bills, the utilities, and put a bit of food on the table. The fact he comes to enjoy his illegal forays doesn’t’ curtail his activities even as he gets older. He doesn’t take indiscriminately – he has a code he lives by and that code becomes a way of life as he ages and continues his “job.” All goes as well as can be expected when it comes to his mother’s illness for another few years, and then it’s just him and his aunt left, going their separate ways and promising to get together every so often. Then a bit of trouble comes Harry’s way when he helps a new-found associate on a big job – the biggest of his career – and the client ends up being a very huge thorn in Harry’s side.

That thorn festers and becomes a problem just when Harry is beginning to see a true life ahead. Everything, however, goes sideways and he gives in to the pressure to keep those he loves safe. Years later when he finds another niche for himself – yes, all the while keeping up with his nightwork – when his life again takes a turn toward happy, that same threatening thorn rears its ugly head yet again. But this time Harry is prepared and his plan for revenge against the enemy who harbors greed and power is about to pay. And all with new players in the game, all who love Harry, including the reader, and you can only hope everything goes well so that happily ever after really will be true for every one of them.

I don’t care what anyone anywhere says, Nora Roberts is the best in Romancelandia, whether it’s suspense, paranormal, or rewriting the phonebook. She’s a master at giving readers characters they will love and cheer for, no matter what. Harry Booth is now my favorite character she’s ever written – and that’s saying something since he now unseats the Quinn brothers of her Chesapeake Bay series, whose books are the first of Nora’s I read years and years ago. This story also rates up there for me with Whiskey Beach, Come Sundown, and Shelter in Place, just a few of my favorites over the last several years.

Don’t miss this book!

Grade: A+

Summary:

Greed. Desire. Obsession. Revenge . . . It’s all in a night’s work.

Harry Booth started stealing at nine to keep a roof over his ailing mother’s head, slipping into luxurious, empty homes at night to find items he could trade for precious cash. When his mother finally succumbed to cancer, he left Chicago—but kept up his nightwork, developing into a master thief with a code of honor and an expertise in not attracting attention or getting attached.

Until he meets Miranda Emerson, and the powerful bond between them upends all his rules. But along the way, Booth has made some dangerous associations, including the ruthless Carter LaPorte, who sees Booth as a tool he controls for his own profit. Knowing LaPorte will leverage any personal connection, Booth abandons Miranda for her own safety—cruelly, with no explanation—and disappears.

But the bond between Miranda and Booth is too strong, pulling them inexorably back together. Now Booth must face LaPorte, to truly free himself and Miranda once and for all.

No excerpt available.