Nightwork

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The only part in this book that I genuinely loved was the one which had Harry's mother. That's really the only point where I empathized with Harry, which is also why I felt entirely too much and cried like a baby. I wasn’t expecting to like this book as much as I did — NR’s last few have been a disappointment for me, and the last stand-alone book of hers I truly enjoyed and have reread numerous times was 2012’s ‘The Witness.’ href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/L1BLQAAAA2a/products/55c01898-08ca-406d-97ca-976e1c054a7a/metadata La Porte didn’t feel like the dangerous villain of the story that he was meant to be. Their first meeting and conflict wasn’t intense enough for me to feel like Booth needed to fear La Porte and live his life in hiding. I just didn’t feel the danger or urgency. When Booth was forced to do a job I thought there would be more time spent on the heist and having to leave his life behind but it was breezed through. Harry Booth started stealing at nine to keep a roof over his ailing mother's head, slipping into luxurious, empty homes at night to find items he could trade for precious cash. When his mother finally succumbed to cancer, he left Chicago--but kept up his nightwork.

The fact that the lead male commits crimes might be difficult for some readers to accept easily. But Harry Booth is not your usual down and dirty thief. I know – I know -- you’re thinking that a crime is a crime and should not go unpunished. But it’s fiction! And it’s Nora Roberts!! And the writing is marvelous!!! And the story equally so!!!! We grow up with Booth and watch his talents as a thief evolve until he actually gets a rep (a good one) amongst the underground and attracts the attention of a man, LaPorte, who begins to think of Booth as much of a possession as the art and baubles he hires Booth to steal. But Booth has no plans to be anyone's possession. I also loved the Red Goddess of the story. Megs, Dauphine, Sebastian... I loved the theatre kids both in college and at the high school. The bad guy LaPorte was an absolute idiot. NR can and has built extremely twisted villains, but sometimes, like The Witness with Russian mafia, these villains seem straight out of PatheticVille. If I have to hear about how scary and mean and cold a person is, I need to see my main character overcome problems and challenges on the way to best the bad guy. But there is absolutely none of that, which is ridiculous.I enjoyed this story, quite a bit, as it meandered through Harry’s life from childhood through his adult maturation. His travels took me from coast to coast in the US, to Europe and other continents. I was never bored because he was interesting and, if I’m honest, I’m a die-hard fan of Roberts’ storytelling style. While this is categorized as romantic suspense, it reads more like contemporary fiction with romantic and suspense elements. It’s my only criticism, though I’m happy regardless of the label. 4.5 stars My only criticisms are that her writing style is changing to ‘more telling, less showing’ (with fragmented, choppy sentences rather than paragraphs) and Harry/Booth was too perfect. He’s clearly a blend of Nora’s many memorable male characters, but he most strongly resembled Luke Callahan from her early book ‘Honest Illusions’ (another favorite of mine), while Miranda, with her doting father and red hair, was a Roxanne expy; even Sebastien was too similar to LeClerc. The side characters were an afterthought, but I enjoyed Mags (who reminded me a lot of Mavis, from the In Death series) and Dauphine (who, again, was reminiscent of the female lead, Lena, in NR’s early book ‘Midnight Bayou’). NIGHTWORK by Nora Roberts is a unique romantic suspense with a young hero who grows up to becomes a gentleman thief with his own set of rules and moral code. This is a standalone that that is mainly told from the viewpoint of the hero. At the climax of this story, a misanthropic and judgmental Tennessean grandmother pleads with an antinomian serial killer – the Misfit – for her life. She appeals to his sense of decency but the Misfit is concerned with a higher form of goodness than charity, and a lower form of evil than murder. With her last breath the grandmother blesses the Misfit unawares: “You’re one of my babies,” she says. “You’re one of my own children.” After the grandmother’s death, he muses that “she would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life.” O’Connor described the Misfit as a “prophet gone wrong”. For just one divine minute, through communion with the Misfit, the grandmother is transported out of her homespun hypocrisy and into a universe of grace.

LaPorte was easy to hate, but in later portions of the book, he was less dimensional as a character, as where his henchmen. I think it's time for Roberts to just write a straight up mystery and forget about the romance side of things. You can feel her itching to do it. This is supposedly romantic suspense, but it's so light on that it feels like a misnomer to categorize it as such. It doesn't help that we follow a character (Harry Booth) that is so morally grey you have to wonder why Roberts has him as our "hero." Harry Booth started stealing at nine to keep a roof over his ailing mother’s head, slipping into luxurious, empty homes at night to find items he could trade for precious cash. When his mother finally succumbed to cancer, he left Chicago—but kept up his nightwork.Harry Booth started stealing at nine to keep a roof over his ailing mother’s head, slipping into luxurious, empty homes at night to find items he could trade for precious cash. When his mother finally succumbed to cancer, he left Chicago—but kept up his nightwork, developing into a master thief with a code of honor and an expertise in not attracting attention—or getting attached.

FYI, I almost DNFed this thing four times. It was painful to get through. The flow was so bad. I did start to skim towards the halfway point because I found myself not caring a whit about what was going on. What an exceptional read!! Nightwork by Nora Roberts is a standalone novel with an excellent range of characters – just as Ms Roberts always writes. Mags was wonderful, and the love she had for her nephew stood out. The people we meet on the way through Harry’s journey play a great part, some good, some not so good – just as they’re meant to be. I thoroughly enjoyed this stunning romantic suspense novel – such a pleasurable read - and have no hesitation in recommending it highly. Harry winds his leisurely way, as Silas Booth, to New Orleans, learning, always learning, discovering new things, making good friends and continuing to pay his way with a little nightwork. When a fence put him in touch with an accomplished thief, he ends up stealing a Turner sunset. The client insists on meeting him, but Silas is wary of the offer this privileged but greedy man makes.New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts introduces an unforgettable thief in a new novel of suspense, greed, love, and survival... This story starts out with an unusual main character for a Roberts story. A guy. A kid really and we are with him as he tells his story and grows. He educates himself in ways we cannot believe. He loves hard and works hard. He protects what and who he loves always. He continues to learn and grow.