Veena’s review of Hidden Nature by Nora Roberts
Romantic Suspense published by St Martin’s Press 27 May 25
Her partner would want to stop for snacks at a gas station where a robbery is in progress. Sloan is shot in the chest but manages to pull through. Put on a mandatory leave of absence, she goes back home to her parents and begins to work on her rehabilitation, both physically and mentally.
In order to keep her up her mental health and keep her investigative skills sharp, she begins to look into unsolved mysteries near her home. What she finds is chilling.
Her investigation leads to a job offer which will keep her near her parents, a new romance given that her ex-boyfriend took one look at her in the hospital and baled – by text no less. Nash Littlefield is a poor little rich boy, wall street genius who has moved to Sloane’s neck of the woods, starting the Fix It Brothers, a new business that deals with restoring and repairing homes.
As Nash and his brother are restoring his house, they also engage with Sloane to help her restore her newly purchased home, even as the romance develops, not just between Nash and Sloane but also between Nash’s brother and Sloane’s sister. Sloane’s family is absolutely super. Anyone would wish for a loving close-knit family like that, but especially Nash and his brother, who come from a completely dysfunctional home. It’s like catnip to them.
In the meantime, Sloane’s investigation leads her to put together random disappearances under different jurisdictions to support a serial killer theory. The killers, who are known to the readers, are so very chilling and bizarre in their goals and strategy. It’s going to get much closer to home before it can be put to bed.
I absolutely love these standalone romantic suspense stories that the author writes once a year.
Grade: A
Summary:
Natural Resources police officer, Sloan Cooper, and her partner had just taken down three men preying on hikers in the Western Maryland mountains. Driving back, she pulled in at a convenience store—and walked right into a robbery in progress. One gunshot from a jittery thief was about to change her world.
After being shocked back to life on the operating table, she has a long recovery ahead, so she moves back to her parents’ peaceful house in Heron’s Rest. As for the boyfriend who dumped her via text while she was in the hospital, good riddance.
She may be down, but she’s not out. So when a woman vanishes, leaving her car behind in a supermarket parking lot, Sloan searches online for similar cases. She finds them, spread across three states. Men and women, old and young—the missing seem to have nothing in common. And the abductions keep happening.
Luckily, the new man in her life shares her passion for solving this mystery. But it will take every ounce of endurance to get to the dark heart of this bizarre case—and she’s willing to risk her life again if that’s what it takes to stop the horror.
