"Hidden Riches" by Nora Roberts

"Hidden Riches" by Nora Roberts
1995, Jove Books
ISBN: 0-515-11606-8

"Hidden Riches" by Nora Roberts is a combination mystery and romance. The heroine, Isadora is from a family steeped in theater. In fact, she was a credible actress herself until she left the stage to pursue her dream of owning her own store. She sells collectables. They are expensive and they are kitsch too. But, somehow she finds something for everyone except a lasting relationship for herself.

Into her life comes a grumpy man, Jed, a former policeman. Former because he'd been traumatized when his sister had been blown to smithereens by a bad guy. He's still a cop at heart, but he can't trust himself to do the right thing.

This story is Isadora and Jed coming to love each other and through the horror and mystery of a crime grow past their blocks to a place where they can love each other and where Jed returns to the job he does best of being a policeman.

This is a very nice story. Nora Roberts is a master storyteller. I did enjoy this.

“One for the Money”, by Janet Evanovich

“One for the Money”, by Janet Evanovich

1994, Charles Scribner's Sons

ISBN: 0-684-19639-5

Finally, finally I got to read, "One for the Money" by Janet Evanovich. She didn’t let me down. See, I’ve gotten hooked on the series. This is Stephanie Plum, once a lackluster buyer of underware for a local department store, laid off and without funds any longer. She is forced to start pawning all of her furniture and major appliances as she looks for work. Someone suggests she touch up her cousin Vinnie for a job as a bailbonds person. And, that’s how it started.

Involved through the years as she grew up in Trenton, New Jersey with Joe Morelli, now a cop on the run, he becomes her first assignment. She’s still got feelings for him. He convinces her he is not a bad guy and gets her to agree to help him. In exchange for her being able to get the bounty (she could never catch him…he’s going to let her turn him in) she will help him to clear his name.

It’s scary. It’s hilarious. My husband walked past the bathroom last night (my favorite place in the house to read) and said, “What’s all that laughing going on?” You won’t be able to put it down.

I have wanted to read this first in the series ever since I got started. I think I’ve read close to six of them so far, but I kept having this hankering to see how it all began. I’ve had a hold on this book from my library for months and they finally came through. You won’t be disappointed. This is the book introducing all the major characters in the series, all the characters who continue throughout. This isn’t like what I did with my book where I killed off too many of them in the beginning and had to introduce more supporters to make the story move along. Well, hey, I was new at it.

Janet Evanovich is an absolute master story teller. She’s written a boatload of books, but it’s this series where I first began to read her and I’m telling you I just can’t stop. What will happen when I run out of Stephanie Plum books? I’ll start in on the other ones Janet has written or, being as how I’m getting old I can just read them over again. See, I forget a lot. I enjoy the heck out of them as I’m reading them, but I tend to be more forgetful now. Instead of that being a bad thing, I get to enjoy more books than ever.

“Seven Up” by Janet Evonovich

“Seven Up” by Janet Evonovich
2001, St. Martin’s Press
ISBN: 0-312-26584-0

“Seven Up” by Janet Evonovich is a Stephanie Plum novel. Stephanie Plum is a bounty hunter. You know the tv shows, “Dog” and “Bounty Hunter Girls”? Right. This is better. Those are G rated. This one is R. Plus, it’s funnier than hell.

Stephanie is on the job trying to bring Eddie DeChooch in because he didn’t go to court. He’s got to be in his 80’s. He can’t see. He can’t pee. He can’t get an erection. He eludes her throughout the book. Every time she gets this close to having him in cuffs he leaves. It gets embarrassing, except I laughed so hard reading this book.

Grandma Mazur gets kidnapped by Eddie. At first she thought it might be some sort of kinky sex game until she realized that she’d been kidnapped. Stephanie rescues her grandmother and then gets kidnapped herself. Dougie and Mooner, stoned throughout the book, get kidnapped. Everybody gets kidnapped.

I know when I pick a Stephanie Plum book up from the library I’m going to be enjoying myself. It’s a sense of anticipation I used to get when I bought a fifth of rum. Weird. I used to drink. I stopped drinking 8 years ago. But, I remember what it was like. Fine. Rum and coke. Yup. I can’t do that anymore, but I can read and I dearly love to read this fine series of books. I think Janet Evonovich has written 13 for Stephanie. I’ve got a ways to go before I finish.

“High Noon” by Nora Roberts

“High Noon” by Nora Roberts
2007, GP Putnam’s Sons
ISNB: 978-0-399-15434-8

“High Noon” by Nora Roberts is one of those books you’ll start and won’t want to put down.

My husband likes watching shows like, “Cops” and “Body of Evidence” and other shows dealing with law enforcement. Being as how he’s king of the remote control we watch a lot of those shows in our house. I’ve come to like them too. If I could get him to read, “High Noon” I think he’d like this book.

“High Noon” by Nora Roberts is about Phoebe, a police negotiator in Atlanta who is very good at what she does. Her first experience was as a very young girl when her mother’s sometime boyfriend took the family hostage and was this close to killing them all. It was a terrifying experience and the man who served as the negotiator that night was the one who inspired her to follow that same career path as an adult.

Her life was pretty much complete with a daughter, her brother and his wife, her mother and their adopted into the family friend Ava. Their lives are complicated, though, because of the ties to the house they live in and Phoebe’s mother who has a gripping case of agoraphobia and cannot go past the front door of their home.

No man, though. In, "High Noon” Phoebe meets Duncan a man who’d won the lottery. What tugs this story along though is the threat of somebody stalking her and her family, hurting her and the story is finding out who that somebody is. You really don’t know until the end and it’s a page turner of a book to find out.

Nora Roberts has written more than 150 novels. She also writes under the pen name J.D. Robb. You can visit her website at http://www.noraroberts.com/