Audiobook Review: The Obsession by Nora Roberts

The Obsession
Author: Nora Roberts
Narrator: Shannon McManus
Publication: Brilliance Audio (April 12, 2016)
Length: 14 hours and 19 minutes

Description: The riveting novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Liar.

“She stood in the deep, dark woods, breath shallow and cold prickling over her skin despite the hot, heavy air. She took a step back, then two, as the urge to run fell over her.”

Naomi Bowes lost her innocence the night she followed her father into the woods. In freeing the girl trapped in the root cellar, Naomi revealed the horrible extent of her father’s crimes and made him infamous. No matter how close she gets to happiness, she can’t outrun the sins of Thomas David Bowes.

Now a successful photographer living under the name Naomi Carson, she has found a place that calls to her, a rambling old house in need of repair, thousands of miles away from everything she’s ever known. Naomi wants to embrace the solitude, but the kindly residents of Sunrise Cove keep forcing her to open up - especially the determined Xander Keaton.

Naomi can feel her defenses failing, and knows that the connection her new life offers is something she’s always secretly craved. But the sins of her father can become an obsession, and, as she’s learned time and again, her past is never more than a nightmare away.

My Thoughts: This was an excellent romantic suspense story by best-selling Nora Roberts. 

Eleven-year-old Naomi Bowes, in hopes of discovering a birthday present, follows her father into the woods and discovers a woman that he is holding hostage in an underground root cellar. She rescues her and takes her to the sheriff. Her father is arrested and outed as a serial killer.

Naomi, her young brother Mason, and her mother are swept up by her mother's brother and taken to live with him and his husband in Washington, D.C. The kids change their name and try to put their past behind them. Their mother can't and makes secret visits to her incarcerated husband and cooperates with him and the authors he's chosen to write a book about him which also leads to a movie. When her father throws her mother over for another woman who has been writing to him, she commits suicide leaving the now 16-year-old Naomi to find her. 

Noami becomes a professional photographer and travels, never staying in one place for long. That is, until she comes to the Oregon coast and finds a house that calls to her. She also finds a stray dog in need of someone to love. And she finds the local garage owner and garage band musician who isn't willing to let her keep traveling. 

But someone is murdering young women in town in a way very reminiscent of the way her father killed women, and Naomi decides it is time to make her stand and not leave the home and man who have captured her heart. 

This story was filled with both romance and suspense. It is also about finding love and building a home and community of friends. I loved it. 

I bought this one February 15, 2021. You can buy your copy here.