Nora Robert's Books

Nora Roberts

 I’d read a few of Nora Robert’s earlier novels and didn’t care for them until I read Montana Sky, written in the mid-nineties. The characters were interesting and well-developed and the dialogue kept me reading. Three sisters, of the same father and different mothers, weren’t raised together and barely know one another. They must come together after their father’s death to save the ranch they have inherited. I didn’t see the ending twist. It made me want to go back and see where I missed it.

In Whiskey Beach, a man on the verge of divorce finds himself the prime suspect in his wife’s brutal murder. His reaction to the stresses and efforts to come back from them are believable and compelling. The woman he falls in love with has a personality full of quirks that make her stand out from the usual romantic heroine. Nora Robert’s characters are generally well-written and people you want to know more about. She has trouble writing believable bad guys who are more than one-dimensional.

I’m glad I didn’t read Chesapeake Blue after Montana Sky. I might not have continued to read her. This book is part of a series starring the secondary characters but stands alone without having read the others. The hero’s main conflict in this story didn’t ring as likely, which weakened the story.

I hadn’t realized Nora Roberts writes more fantasy novels besides her J. D. Robb series until I saw Stars of Fortune, the first novel in a planned The Guardians Trilogy. The beginning read as a bad children’s fairytale and was off-putting, but keep reading. It picks up considerably as the characters meet and talk. Roberts is gifted at dialogue and the good-guy characterizations, not as much with plot and the villains, but I like most of the books I’ve read. In this one, six people with varying gifts form a team to restore three stars to their rightful place and thereby keep the universe safe. Again, the villain isn’t as compelling.

The Liar has smart characters with more sweetness than many of Nora Robert’s books. A young woman with a four-year-old daughter must rebuild the bridges she burned after marrying a con artist who emotionally abuses her, dies, and leaves her with a mountain of debt. My only peeve—these smart characters never see the possibility of the obvious ending twist. The ending confrontation was too stereotypical to be satisfying. Otherwise, I liked the story and can see it continuing with all the secondary characters or not.

I look forward to reading more from this prolific writer. She gives me hope that writers don’t have to stick to one genre to be published or popular.

Nora Roberts as J. D Robb

Nora Roberts as J. D. Robb

Nora Roberts writes a series about a New York homicide lieutenant, starting in 1058 and currently in 2061, under the name of J. D. Robb. The series came out in 1995, a time when thrillers, murder mysteries, and such didn’t get much notice if written by women. The books are graphically violent and not for the squeamish. Eve Dallas, the main character, was allowed to be born solely to make money for her parents by selling her in prostitution when old enough. Her father repeatedly raped her until she stabbed him to death after he broke her arm when eight-years-old.

Found in an alley, she couldn’t remember those first eight years of her life, though nightmares plague her. On a case where a father stabs his young daughter to death and where she meets her future husband, Roarke, another abused child who survived to make himself someone worthwhile, she remembers the details and future books include her learning to deal with her past along with whatever murderer(s) each book showcases.

Fascinating Characters

Eve has a small circle of friends who evolve in the early books and stay throughout the series. Her interactions with them and her husband are what keep me reading. Her best friend was a former grifter who becomes a famous singing star. Eve’s protégée becomes her partner and a good friend. She has a father figure in the captain of the Electronics Division (computers) and other friends develop, interestingly, through her work contacts. The only ongoing characters Roarke brings in are his house manager and, less so, his administrative assistant. Later, he finds family in Ireland, who add conflict and pulls to the heartstrings.

The Villains

Nora Roberts has a gift for dialogue and making each character unique—except for the villains. Most of them are stereotypical—deranged with either overly entitled or horrific backgrounds. The plots don’t usually keep me turning the pages—I don’t really care who did it—I care about how the characters react, grow, and change.

Ghost Writers

The last four books have had no changes to speak of in the characters, though the last, Brotherhood in Death, gave a deeper look into one of the ongoing secondary characters, which was good, and had more sympathetic, human villains. I think at times Nora Roberts employs ghost writers for these books. There are voice changes—a difference in how the writing sounds and presents the story—and what is called continuity mistakes—one book said a button Roarke carries as a talisman came off Eve’s black coat when it was clearly stated in earlier books that it came from a gray suit.

Ms. Roberts writes two of these books a year plus all the other stories published under her name, which I’ll talk about in the next post. Sorry, I don’t care how efficient a person is, that’s impossible for one writer without sacrificing quality. I think this series started suffering from lack of attention, though I also see improvement in the last two books and hope it continues.      

Jury Duty is Fascinating

Jury Duty Fascinated Me

I have been called for jury duty a number of times but this last time, the end of March, was the first time I actually sat on a jury. It surprised me that we needed only six jurors and the one alternate. Every other time I went, over sixty people sat on hard church-like benches for most of the day until twelve were finally selected. It could take hours just to run through all the people who raised their hands when asked questions such as, “Do you know the defendant?” or “Have you ever been in a situation such as this case?”

This time, court officers ushered us into a small room with a long table and chairs in the center and other padded chairs around the walls. Less than twenty people signed in. I got to know the guy next to me—he was having sewer-system problems and wished he could have stayed home to answer any questions about where to put the plants the professionals had to remove to dig up the broken pipe. I felt for him.

We stayed in the room half an hour before being called into the court room and waited another thirty minutes to go through the people who raised their hands to the questions. Once they dismissed a few people, it left ten jurors. Not realizing they could manage with six, I thought we would be dismissed and they’d have to try for another jury the next day. No such luck, though to be honest I’m glad I didn’t miss this experience.

The Trial

The lawyers objected to a few jurors—the ones who raised their hands, no big surprise—and the judge explained that this was a criminal versus a civil trial and the prosecution had the burden of proof—meaning the defending lawyer didn’t have to prove a thing and the jury had to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the prosecution proved the defendant’s guilt. Then the seven of us remaining were shown into the jury deliberation room to wait until the court was ready to convene.

The trial itself, as the judge warned, was nothing like you see on TV shows. The lawyers hemmed and hawed and seemed ill-prepared, often begging the judge’s pardon as they took time to read their notes before continuing to question the witnesses.

Deliberation

Many of us returned to the deliberation room, our minds made up and sure everyone else would agree with us. We had to reach a unanimous decision and had two entrenched points of view, not whether the defendant was guilty, but whether the prosecution proved his case beyond a reasonable doubt, the definition of reasonable—one tends to think beyond a shadow of a doubt, which doesn’t apply—our main focus.

In listening to each other’s viewpoint, we became swayed to one side or another until only one remained at odds with the majority for a time. We eventually reached a consensus of opinion. The outcome isn’t important, except to the defendant of course. The process, the give-and-take of opinions and ideas, gave us a fascinating insider’s look into our justice system and how different that look can be from the outside by people not privy to the same facts or lack thereof that the jury receives. Not one of us regretted the time taken out of our busy lives to serve.

Patty Duke's Legacy

Patty Duke’s Legacy

On The View last week, in noting Patty Duke’s death, one of the co-hosts asked if her TV show of identical cousins was to take advantage of her bipolar syndrome, i.e., two separate parts of her personality. Shows ignorance of mental disorders is alive and well.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia, where sufferers often talk to themselves, seemed proof of separate personalities warring within one body. It is actually the person’s subconscious leaking through and planting thoughts and feelings into the conscious brain, which usually only surface in dreams and is why we need a certain amount of sleep for the subconscious to work through problems.

I lived with my grandparents when I first moved to MA from NJ. My uncle joined the household two years later. He had schizophrenia with paranoia. Very intelligent, interesting guy who worked nights in a cheese-curl factory. He did fairly well in job settings where he needn’t deal with many people. Hospitalized several times in his younger years and forced to take medication, his paranoia led him to believe the government or some other they intended to poison or control him.

Diagnosed in later years with diabetes, he believed it further proof of that allusive they colluding against him and ate candy, drank sugary soda, and wound up in a nursing home where they put him on an anti-psychotic. His last year was probably the happiest I’ve ever known him. He died in his sleep from diabetes’ complications. I miss him.

Bipolar Disorder

As in schizophrenia, there is a spectrum of symptoms in bipolar disorder, but again, having the disorder has nothing to do with separate personalities. It means you can run the gamut from depressed to hyper or manic in the space of minutes, even seconds—anger often a manifestation of the manic phase or grandiose schemes and plans. Not separate parts of the personality, they are the usual spectrum of human emotions run amok because of an imbalance in normal brain chemicals and therefore why it is considered a disorder.

No one asks for these congenital diseases or does anything to deserve having them, and all have a difficult time with diagnosis since the symptoms can indicate so many different diagnoses. Self-medication often arises before victims even realize the symptoms they seek to alleviate are part of a disorder. Addiction can be an additional stress to combat as they deal with the mental disease. They deserve nothing but compassion and a better medical system than the one currently leaving too many undiagnosed and untreated.