Sunday, May 22, 2016

The Obsession

One night changes everything in The Obsession by Nora Roberts (The Liar), a romantic suspense novel about how the past haunts a woman trying to reinvent her life beyond a series of horrific, notorious sex crimes committed by her father.

The book opens with a horrifying scene: Naomi Bowes, an innocent 12-year-old from West Virginia, awakens on a stormy summer night, unable to sleep. When she sees shadows in the woods and spies her father, she secretly follows him to a grisly crime scene: a girl--bound, tortured and raped--trapped in a root cellar. After her father departs, Naomi rescues the injured girl and brings her to safety only to discover that her overbearing father, a church deacon, is actually a demented serial killer. Naomi becomes instrumental in her father being sent to prison for life.

Seventeen years later, Naomi lives in Sunrise Cove, a peaceful, tight-knit community in Washington State, and has reinvented herself as Naomi Carson. She is a successful fine art photographer who thinks she's finally found a place to call home, though she is a loner who suffers trust issues and chronic nightmares. She buys and begins a major renovation on a 10-bedroom house, makes friends, adopts a dog and even falls in love. But when a series of brutal killings plague the area, Naomi's past is suddenly resurrected--as are her fears.

This spellbinding, well-constructed story plunges deep into the nature of obsessions—the damaged soul and psyche of a haunted woman; Naomi's brother, an FBI agent desperate to understand his imprisoned father's twisted modus operandi; and a vicious serial killer intent to strike again. Roberts creates a strong, determined protagonist with whom readers can identify and empathize.


The Obsession by Nora Roberts
Berkley, $28.00 Hardcover, 9780399175169, 464 pp
Publication Date: April 12, 2016
To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (4/22/16), link HERE