Review: TRIBUTES by Nora Roberts

My friend, Sheri, has been recommending Nora Roberts for some time because we're both heavily into crime fiction (sounds like some kind of fetish) and she said that Nora Roberts wrote crime fiction. However, I found Tribute eventually at my local W.H.Smiths under the Romance Section, so initially I wasn't too keen to read it, 'cos I'm not into romantic fiction.

However, I was pleasantly surprised when I started to read it. There are crimes involved but the emphasis is definitely on relationships.

The two main characters are Cilla McGowan, once a T.V. actress and now into renevating property. The property she's renovating in this novel is the farm house owned by her famous actress grand-mother, Janet Hardy, who died under mysterious circumstances.

And her closest neighbour is Ford Sawyer, who is a free-lance writer and illustrator, and very convienently unattached.

So, the focus is about how their relationship develops against a background of the unfurling of the mystery as to how Janet Hardy died and who is trying to stop Cilla from renevating the property.

I found myself drawn into the story pretty quickly because the two main characters are just 'darn attractive', plus the rest of the characters are interesting, too.

Plus, the descriptions of the farm house and its renovation were very enjoyable.

And Nora Roberts' writing style? Fully and extensively descriptive, is how I would sum it up, including the sex scenes (not that I'm interested in such things).

I shall certainly read another of her books.

She also writes under the name J. D. Robb, described as 'futuristic suspense'novels. Sounds promising.

Apparently, she's highly successful and prodigious, so I'll have plenty of tomes to enjoy.

Piatkus 2008
Read Nov/Dec 2009