The Obsession by Nora Roberts

My Grandma passed The Obsession by Nora Roberts on to me last month while we were at my cousin’s wedding. She had read it on her journey to South Carolina and passed it along to me for my journey home. It is the kind of book that you definitely can’t put down. I finished it relatively quickly, but life including sickness and a frantic work schedule have put me behind on my blog.

Naomi Bowes is excited for her birthday. Seeing her father slip out to the woods, she follows him thinking that he is going to work on putting together a bicycle, which is what she really wants for her birthday. What she finds instead is a horror show and the fact that her father is nothing that he seems. Naomi spends her life trying to run from his evil, but finally decides to set down roots in a seaside community in a ramshackle big old house that she decides to fix up.

Naomi meets every woman’s dream, a handsome rugged mechanic with a large library in his house that also happens to play in a band on the weekends. Xander is a sensitive man who has never fallen in love the way he has with Naomi. Will these two commitment phobes be able to find love and commitment with each other? When bodies of women start showing up in her community, Naomi has to face her fears and her past. What will the community and Xander think of her once they know who she really is?

To me the star of this book was Tag the dog that Xander and Naomi meet and adopt. A mongrel dog that was left by someone on the side of the road, he falls in love with Naomi and will protect her no matter what. Friendly to all unless he knows you are full of evil intent, he is the best of dogs. He reminded me a lot of my dog Jack.

Obsession had a great hook with the tale of terror in the first chapter and then became a more standard love story during the rest of the book. I did like the mystery of who the copycat killer was, including seeing into the mind of the murderer. This book was hard to put down. The only problem I had with it was that I felt the mystery was resolved a little too quickly at the end. I had figured out who the killer was, but I did still want to see how he would be caught and what would happen to all of my favorite characters.

Book Source: Given to me by my Grandma and passed on to her from my Aunt Sue. I need to pass it along now!