Wow, I didn't know what to expect going into this ARC. The story starts out beautifully with the kids being dropped off at their grandma's house for the summer for a bit of a vacation like they do every summer. However, things take a turn when the parents leave to head back home. I was shocked by the special skill the girl and her grandma share. I was intrigued by the twists, and it truly kept me interested throughout the story. Nora Roberts has a magical way with words to reel you in and keep you in a chokehold throughout the entire book. I absolutely loved this one!

I received this ARC from NetGalley and St. Martin's Press to read/review. All of the statements above are my true opinions after fully reading this book.

I have always loved a good Nora Roberts novel and the more I read the more I appreciate her skill in bringing a story to life.  A Nora Roberts book is truly a master class of the subtleties of writing bringing nuance and depth to characters while breathing life into the setting until you feel that you are a part of the lives of the main characters.  With nail biting suspense and moments so richly beautiful they’ll bring you to your knees, “Mind Games” will have you longing to be a part of Thea’s world.  

The story begins as twelve year old Thea and ten year old Rem are dropped off at Grammie’s place to spend two glorious weeks of the summer where they celebrate in the joys of being together again.  The idyllic annual holiday is shattered when Thea has nightmarish visions while sleeping of a vicious, cold, and calculating crime hundreds of miles away.  The result is life changing.  Despite everything, Thea, Rem, and Lucy persevere, carving out a life of joy and satisfaction over the years even as she battles to close the door on her gift before it’s too late.  “Mind Games” is a heart aching, gut wrenching psychological thriller with a side of romance that weaves a spell around you as you fall in love with the Kentucky Appalachians, Thea, Rem, Lucy, Ty, and Braydon.  Audio narrator January LaVoy was absolutely brilliant in her abilities to differentiate each of the characters and her narrative style. I alternated between the ebook and audio book, absolutely loving both.

Thank you @netgalley @stmartinspress @macmillan.audio and @norarobertsauthor for the advance digital review copy and audio review copy. Available on shelves May 21, 2024, preorder today so you don’t miss out on this fantastic book! 

#noraroberts #norarobertsmindgames #mindgames #netgalley #stmartinspress #macmillanaudio #femaleauthor #femalewriter #psychologicalthriller #romancebooks #thrillerwithasideofromance #netgalleyinfluencerprogram #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookgeek #booknerd #booksbooksbooks #bookphotography #psychologicalthriller #suspenseread #comingsoon

This is truly the most unique book I’ve ever read by Nora Roberts. I don’t know how she continues to do it, but I’m grateful for every new story. It should come as no surprise to anyone that this is a 5 star read for me - Nora Roberts is the Queen of romantic suspense!

For Thea and her brother Rem, the two weeks they spend every summer with Grammie is their favorite time. They love being with her and the many things they get to do. This year however, tragedy strikes that will change their lives forever.

Thea has the “sight” - she has always been able to see and feel things that can’t be explained. She is very private and protective of her gift. After the family tragedy, Thea saw and felt things that she will never forget. She also has a connection to the person responsible for the family tragedy that she didn’t ask for or didn’t want.

The story plays out as Thea and her family build lives that they love and are proud of. Their community is supportive of Thea’s gift as it runs in the women of her family. Enter her neighbor Ty and his son Bray, and Thea’s life continues to flourish.

But she still has the terrible connection to the man who changed her life, and we get to see how she takes back her power. The amazing cast of supporting characters play key roles in helping Thea build the future that she so wants for herself. I loved every one of them. Family is so important in this story, and I loved it.

There may be some trigger warnings for some readers. Check those out before you start.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Macmillan Audio for the wonderful opportunity to read and listen to this incredible book! Queen Nora Roberts is at the top of her game once again. Also, January LaVoy is a phenomenal narrator, and she is absolutely perfect for this book! This terrific read/listen releases on May 21st - pick it up for the perfect start to your summer reading!

I've always been a fan of Nora Roberts. If you want a book in the romance genre that will make you happy and satisfied, Nora Roberts is my go-to author. Mind Games is different than what I usually expect of Roberts. It's a coming of age, with a paranormal twist. The book focuses heavily on the character of Thea andher grandmother Lucy, with a kitchen witch type vibe which I am used to from Roberts. The characters are wonderful, and I really enjoyed reading about Thea and Lucy. The book was a little slow to start, but honestly I think that is because I was expecting the male hero to be introduced and as the book focused on Thea the child, I kept anticipating the introduction of her love interest and it never happened until much later in the book, so I didn't allow myself to settle into the early parts of the story. Overall, it was a lovely read to get me through a relaxing vacay. The characters were lovely. The story was compelling. The only issue I had was with the villian who was a bit stereotypical bad guy. If you're a fan of Nora Roberts this is a bit different but you should love it. Video review posted on Tiktok and included in links.

As they do each June, the Foxes have driven the winding roads of Appalachia to drop off their children for a two-week stay at their grandmother’s. Here, twelve-year-old Thea can run free and breathe in the smells of pine and fresh bread and Grammie’s handmade candles. But as her parents head back to suburban Virginia, they have no idea they’re about to cross paths with a ticking time bomb. Back in Kentucky, Thea and her grandmother Lucy both awaken from the same nightmare. And though the two have never discussed the special kind of sight they share, they know as soon as their tearful eyes meet that something terrible has happened.

Nora Roberts is one of my new favorite authors. I love how deep her characters are, how well-done the themes and the writing are. Her plot is always complicated and fascinating, drawing you in and pulling you along. This was a beautiful and heart wrenching tale of life and death. Not only that, but of living. Beautiful!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced digital reader's copy (ARC) in exchange for an honest review!

I still remember the first book that I ever read by Nora Roberts. It was Carolina Moon and I remember how I fell into the world she created in that story. I was young, single, hard working mom of two small kids under the age of 5 and a coworker said, if you like to read you should read something by Nora Roberts. I did like to read, but who has time with small children? So I went to our public library and decided to take a gander and finding myself checking out with Carolina Moon. It has been a major love of reading since.

Then could you only imagine to get approved to read her new book coming out May 21st? Plus to top it off, the book is based in Kentucky! I was over the moon and back again. Now, the book is based in the hills of Eastern Kentucky and I'm from Western Kentucky, but a lot of her characters had personalities and sayings that I know very closely! Don't forget about the scenery! Eastern Kentucky is beautiful!

Nora Roberts knows how to write a suspenseful story and throws a little romance building into it while sprinkling in a little fantasy element. Mind Games is just that-a mind game. It's a book I read within 2 days!

Thank you @norarobertsauthor , @stmartinspress , and @netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy!

This is the first Nora Roberts novel I've ever read, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I enjoyed the main characters, the Appalachian community feel, the farm life, and the hunky rock star love interest. However, I also feel like this book went on and on and on....there were several conversations, or descriptions of activities that honestly generated some unintentional eye rolling. I do enjoy longer more descriptive stories, as they help you feel more emotionally invested, but at times this one felt like a huge run-on sentence.

MIND GAMES is another excellent standalone thriller by Nora Roberts. It has it all: great family, great friends, a wonderful new romance and a killer who can find his way into the main characters mind.

Thea Fox and her brother Rem really enjoy spending two weeks with their Grammie in Redbud Hollow. They can feed the chickens, milk the cow, and just enjoy spending time with their Grammie. Their parents enjoy the time to just be a couple while the kids are gone too. But a jealous killer has the couple in his sights.

Thea and her grandmother both wake up during the night because they have seen the killer enter the house and kill the couple. Unfortunately, the killer who has the same sort of psychic gift as Thea has seen her too. Thea's gift allows her to offer police detectives the information they need to track the killer Ray Riggs too.

Ray Riggs will be spending the rest of his life in prison but that doesn't mean that he won't keep barging in on Thea's life. She needs to learn to block him out and live her life. She grows, makes friends, becomes a game designer, and falls in love with the rock star she had a crush on when she was a teen. But Ray Riggs is always there in the background trying to spoil her life.

Excellent story. I especially loved the strong family ties and the way they all choose to make their best lives after an unspeakable tragedy.

Nora Roberts has a gift for writing strong, loving, families and friendships. In this novel, a woman and her granddaughter share the gift of second sight.

Thea’s gift helps the police catch and convict her parents’ murderer. But it also formed a mind-bond with that killer, and eventually Thea must learn to sever that bond if she wants to live in peace.

Recommended. #MindGames #NetGalley #SaltMarshAuthorSeries

Thea Fox is twelve years old and as they do each summer, the family has driven to her maternal grandmother’s house in Virginia. Thea loves it here. She can be free, running to her heart's content.

But her joy soon turns to grief. Thea and her grandmother have a gift. Although it feels more like a curse now. They can both see what happens to her parents and even though her gift helps put away the person responsible, it comes with an awful connection to a killer.

What a twisty and fresh story this is!

NetGalley/ St. Martin’s Press May 21, 2024

this is a story about Thea and her brother, they travel to spend summers with their grandparents every summer. this summer their parents ae murdered by a seral killer. i enjoyed the story but it might not be for everyone.

This was a very interesting book. Nora has done it again, she has you hang on the edge. It was very sad to start off with the murder of the parents and Thea watching it through her dream.

There's a reason this gifted storyteller is on bookshelves in 90% of homes, and this story is a perfect example as to why. With hints of her JD Robb writing style, this saga is an immersive experience and will have you living and breathing in the lives of these characters.

Thea and Ren look forward to their visit to Grammie Lucy's each summer in Redbud Hollow, KY. But their two weeks take a turn when Thea and Grammie Lucy wake up one night after sharing an awful dream that proves true. Thanks to her psychic abilities, Thea helps put the man who dispatched her parents behind bars for life. Unfortunately, her parents' assailant has the same ability and follows Thea as she carries on with her life.

This was a quick read for me, finishing it in one evening because I couldn’t put it down. In the midst of the grief and sorrow are a thrilling, suspenseful read surrounded by home and heart. No matter your preferred genre, this one is sure to please every reader.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the chance to read an ARC of Mind game by Nora Roberts. Mind games is a stand alone title, and while it wasn't her usual romantic-suspense, I found myself enthralled in the story of Thea, a twelve year old who sees her parents murdered in her mind. I love stories that have a paranormal theme and strong female main characters and this one had both. We see Thea grow up and become a strong woman and a fantastic video game designer. If you love RPGs, you may want to pick this one up to read as they play an important part in the story.

Wow, what a story from the amazing Nora Roberts. I have to admit, as much as I enjoyed this book, I considered subtracting a point because it starts with a double murder, and a child traumatized by “seeing” the loss of her parents. However, the story is so beautifully written, the scenery of Appalachian Kentucky so lovingly described, and the characters so well written, I just had to go for the full rating.

What did I love? The setting as mentioned, and the characters, of course. The cadence of Grammie’s way of speaking is gentle and soothing, and I especially appreciated her being a country wise woman with modern ways. I loved that the characters had modern day (and timely) careers. I loved that the homes imaged in the story were so well done, they were almost like secondary characters in the story..

Though I haven’t read all of Nora Roberts’ books, I don’t believe she’s written any others quite like this.

I like Nora Robert’s writing but I found this disturbing. In a world riddled with violence, specifically gun violence, this is not something I choose to read.

Thea and her brother Rem spend two weeks every summer in Appalachia with their grandmother Lucy, something they look forward to every year. But this year, Thea and her grandmother awaken with the terrible knowledge that Thea’s parents have been murdered. Only Thea experiences her parent’s murder through the eyes and thoughts of the murderer. This ability has been passed down through the women in Lucy’s family, but the sight is very strong in Thea.

Thea’s ability results in the capture and imprisonment of the killer, but it turns out the killer also has some psychic abilities and soon he is in Thea’s mind and she struggles to block him. It also brings her to the attention of two detectives who question how she knows so much about her parent’s murder; they are suspicious and believe Thea or her grandmother planned the murders. Thea quickly tells them things she should not know, and they realize she has these special abilities.

I have never cried so much as I did for the first part of this novel, it was just so painful with Thea having to relive her parent’s murder and other things the murderer has done and wants to do. She spends 15 years battling mentally with him, as they play mind games. I liked Lucy’s lifestyle, with the livestock, gardening, and using ingredients from her farm to make soaps and candles. Thea and Rem grow up with chores and a strong work ethic. They also watch their grandmother help people in need with her herbal remedies and with her gift of sight. By the end of the book everything fell into place with a HEA for Thea.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC of Mind Games; this is my honest review.

I am not sure how Ms. Roberts continues to come up with different ways to entertain us, but she does. This story is not so much a mystery. It is more a tale of good triumphing over evil and in such an interesting way. Thea Fox and her brother Rem visit their maternal grandmother every summer in the hills of Kentucky, the highlight of their summer. The year Thea is 12 and her brother ten, their parents are murdered while they are with Grammie, they are physically ok, fortunately or unfortunately, Thea has inherited the gift of sight passed from generation to generation of women in her family. She saw her parents murder as if she were there, and it is her description and insights that lead to the arrest of their killer. There is only one problem. He has the same gift of insight and knows who is responsible for his imprisonment. He knows how to connect with her, he knows how to cause her problems, and he's determined to play Mind Games. This is definitely a game of good and evil you will want to follow! Thanks to #NetGalley and #StMartinsPress for the opportunity to read and review. All opinions are my own.

Mind Games, a three-part saga that did not quite deliver for me.

2.5 stars for this one but have rounded up to 3. I have read some great books by Nora, however, this one I really struggled to get through.

Let me start with the good. There are some beautiful messages in the story, like the difference between being wealthy and but being truly rich, can come from being surrounded with strong friendships and love and sense of community. To be your authentic self, follow your dreams to find true happiness, even if it goes against what those in your life think you should be, or act.

The story is again split into three parts as we have come to expect from the Nora Roberts novels. Our leading lady has a gift, the ability to read people, to see things. If you are not into stories that touch on that type of genre, then this would not be for you.

The style of writing in terms of the way the characters speak or have their thoughts is very much what you would find in the later books of the JD Robb, In Death Series and while I have read all of those books, that style I associate with those characters and was not sure if really fit with these characters, their location, feel of the story.

The main drawback for me was that I feel the story meandered and was drawn out. While I loved the characters, it is difficult to cover such a long period of time (16yrs) easily, and there were sections of story followed by quick summations of a week, a season or to whip you through several years. There were sections where it delved into the main characters work which rather than draw me in, had me wondering how it would be relevant, is it adding anything to the story. It was also repetitive in places, in particular, the final showdown/ending, rather than being engaged and on the edge of my seat wondering how it would all go I was skimming thinking, know all this, a little anticlimactic for me.

As this was an uncorrected advanced reader copy, there were a few errors in it that I am sure would have been picked up and corrected.

I haven’t read a Nora Roberts book in years so I was happy to dip back in. This book is about Thea, a woman who has the gift of psychic powers. When she is 12, her parents are brutally murdered by a spree killer, Riggs. Riggs also happens to have the gift of psychic powers and the two are connected throughout his many years of incarceration. Riggs torments Thea throughout her life, has she built a successful career as a video game designer. Thea finally had enough, creates a final solution to end her years of anguish from Riggs. Love story also interspersed.

For me, this book was just too slow. There’s a lot of action in the beginning and some at the end, but the rest of the book is just day-to-day activities. I wish it was a little more suspenseful.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press and Nora Roberts for the ARC.