"Scary as heck thriller where the villains are terrifying because they seem so nice" is basically my elevator pitch for this book.

I really like the stories where the villains are introduced early on, but wowie, there were parts of this book that had me gasping due to the tension.

The writing is crackling. The found family is familying. There is a Very Good Boy™

It's everything you want from a Nora Roberts book.

As always, thanks to the lovely folks at Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for putting this lovely in my hot little hands.

In Hidden Nature, Nora Roberts delivers a suspenseful and emotionally charged tale centered on resilience, mystery, and the quiet strength of survival. The story follows Sloan, a woman grappling with the aftermath of a traumatic experience, who finds herself drawn into the unsettling disappearance of several individuals—all connected by a chilling thread.

Roberts crafts a rich and immersive narrative, marked by her signature attention to detail. While the story’s depth occasionally slows the pacing, these layered elements ultimately serve to enrich the atmosphere and heighten the suspense. The intricacies of the plot keep readers engaged, gradually building toward a satisfying unraveling of the central mystery.

What makes Hidden Nature compelling is its balance of character-driven emotion and plot-driven intrigue. Sloan’s journey—from survivor to determined investigator—is both powerful and believable, grounding the more mysterious aspects of the story in genuine human experience. Roberts once again demonstrates her skill in blending romance, suspense, and psychological nuance into a gripping and memorable read.

I haven’t read this author before - I think she mainly writes romance ? Based on description and yes the cover , I expected some romance but more of a mystery thriller for the one . Instead it seems to be a mix bag of things . The injured cop ( pretty whiny considering she almost died ) and her very long and repetitive healing process ; lot off family stuff … Reno stuff ..:what she did today stuff .. day to day conversation .. l ; and a mystery which takes a long time to really get going …and a romance but they don’t even meet until about halfway in the book … and it’s not a short book at almost 450 pages .. it totally could have been edited down imo … For me it was an ok read - I like my mysteries a bit more focused the mystery and less on the lives of the characters . For others, this one prob works really well, it just really wasn’t for me

A romantic mystery with an interesting plot and colorful characters. Roberts has a talent for captivating an audience with detailed character development, so I was prepared for the slow build through the first half of the book getting to know the characters before the mystery unfolds in the latter half. Overall a solid story and satisfying conclusion.
Pub Date: May 27 2025

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review.
#NetGalley #HiddenNature

There is just something about most of Nora Roberts books I have read where the characters and setting hook me immediately with their always cool sounding jobs (in this one Sloan is a Natural Resources officer which I did not know was a thing but is so much fun!) and undefeatable spirit. They may get knocked down (or shot) but they pick themselves back up, and find their true love along the way. There is always just the right amount of thrilling, scary villain/not good people wreaking havoc and get the main character in their sights but love and strength and quick thinking and action save the day and everyone else (not the bad guys of course) has a happily ever after. And that is the case in this book. I loved it and didn't even realize how much time passed whenever I picked it up to read a chapter or two. Sloan and Nash are perfect for each other, there is other love happening, close family (at least with Sloan and Drea), finding new family (in the case of Nash and Theo), very interesting but also scary fanatic serial killers (disturbing but sadly also very plausible to happen in real life), some house renovations, an adorable dog or two and lots of time outside in the great wilderness advising and sometimes taking down a crazy ax wielder (along with Sloan at her job).

I will always happily look forward to any new book that Nora Roberts writes and add it to my shelves to read again and again. They are my comfort reads and I love getting lost in them! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read another winner of a book that has just the right amount of thrills, true love, and happy sweet endings that leave me with a warm feeling every time!

I think La Nora’s next book should be about serial killers who flip houses and not the cops who catch them.

There were two places in Hidden Nature where it felt like Nora Roberts was interested in what she was writing – the home renovation and the icky serial killers. Ok, there was a third area where she perked up – when she was writing about dogs. But, I think we all agree that the dogs and the serial killers should be kept separate. Her cop, Sloan, was possibly her most thinly written main character yet. And Sloan’s love interest was barely interesting. I don’t even remember his name and I read it like 5 minutes ago. I have been slogging through this book for a week and I give up. I hear it gets better in the last 40%, but I just don’t want to read it anymore. I think Nora Roberts is tired of writing about relationships. And fair, she’s been writing relationship books for decades.

Sloan is a Natural Resources cop (I guess this is like if the park rangers and postal inspectors had a baby). After busting people committing crimes in federal parks, she and her partner stop at a gas station where she walks into a robbery in progress and is shot twice. She dies and is resuscitated. This is the most interesting part of the book until the last 40%, which I didn’t read, so don’t hold me to it.

With the exception of the serial killing and the occasional criminal, everyone is reasonable and all conflicts are quickly resolved. Sloan’s family is loving and supportive. The two new men who move to the area slide easily into a niche and pick a sister to date.

The serial killers are very icky. I didn’t want to be in their heads, but they were also the most complex characters. And frankly, they were more weird and religious than complex. Clara is a white woman who is on a mission from god, and Sam, a black man, is her husband (?) who is the muscle.

It is still a Nora Roberts book, so easily readable and could be fun if you want to read about weird religious serial killers.

I received this as an advance reader copy. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.

Good character development and lots of mystery. Will they catch the bad guys before ending for all? There is romance (actually a couple of them!) and suspense. A standard Roberts’s theme, but as always feels fresh and new. It starts out with a bang (literally) and ends the same way. We meet Sloan after she was injured on the job. We follow her through her recovery and rehab. She becomes interested in some missing people cases and starts following them. Then comes Nash. Oh my. He wasn’t looking for anyone either. Their interactions were interesting. All of the characters in the story were well developed, which is something Roberts always does. You feel as if you know these people and they are your friends. Don’t want to spoil the outcome of the story, but it is definitely one that is worth reading. It will be one that I return to often to reread. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to give an honest review of this story.

Nora's latest has a fierce, determined heroine, a handsome hero charting his own course, wonderful family all around and a nasty, evil duo for the baddies. Quite an ensemble for this new romantic suspense. Lots to like, Sloan's struggle to overcome her shooting, the supportive family and I loved Nash and Sloan, even if, again, the romance was a little more than PG-13. Hot, sizzling, it wasn't. I long for one of Nora's older alpha-jerks. At least they had personality and could light up the page.

But there were several things not to like at all. Nora is a fan of disjointed sentences and colloquial phrases that I'm sure some twentysomething reads and goes huh? Then there is the suspense/mystery. Gripping and edge of your seat, not even close. The baddies get a lot of page space and being inside their heads was not a place I wanted to be. Not all religious people are insane. Not much to the mystery and the suspense ending was so quick it left me wondering why I read a 448-page book for that. 3 1/2-Stars

My thanks to the Publisher and Author for providing a complimentary digital Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this novel via NetGalley. This is my fair, honest and personal review. All opinions are mine alone and were not biased in any way.

I really enjoyed this book as I always do with Nora's romantic suspense books. I have to say I got about half way though one night and had to stop because I was getting stressed out about the villains in the book. Sloan Cooper has a near death experience after being shot in a botched robbery in a mini mart. Sloan is a member of the Natural Resources Police, an agency that I (and many characters in the book) had never heard of before this.
When she ends up back home and settling into a new job after she recovers, life goes on. She meets Nash, her new hunky neighbor who helps her renovate her little house. She also starts looking into a group of presumably unrelated disappearances that have more in common with her than she knows.
I felt the portrayal of a person who has gone through a terrifying experience, law officer or not, was realistic. I enjoyed the slow burn of the romance between Sloan and Nash and the fast and hot romance between their siblings! I even understood the twisted reasoning the villains had for what they did. All in all a good book that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Hidden Nature is more romance than romantic suspense. This story concentrates heavily on the lives of Sloan and Nash and their families. How Sloan recovers from the gunshot and moves forward in her life. Nash is also starting a new chapter of his own with the move to Heron’s Nest and starting a new business in a completely different field than his one in New York.

I love the conversations between Sloan and Nash even when they are about murder. They are blunt and honest with each other even when they don’t know what to say. They are flawed and they recognize it. The chemistry between them helps too 😅.

We get to hear both of their voices and also the killers. Sometimes crazy makes sense and it kind of does here. I get their thought process, but I don’t agree with their solution. The mystery part of Hidden Nature is good. Police work is rarely done in 60 minutes and it takes months for Sloan to compile information and find more dead/missing people. She fits it in between her regular full-time job, rehabbing her house, her family, and her new relationship with Nash. I now know so much about designing a house (chuckle).

Nora Roberts is always a must read for me and Hidden Nature proves why I kept reading her way way back when (I won’t say how long I have been reading her, but it’s been decades). It’s a great romance to end the spring with.

I have been a Nora Roberts fan for ages and this was a great book as it was different than her usual books.
The story started off with not 1 but 2 bangs and sped along from there. I enjoyed that Sloan went home to where she grew up( a resort that rents out cabins) after being shot so that we were able to see her great relationships with her parents and sister. The description of the area sounds absolutely beautiful and I was able to picture it. I enjoyed the relationship she and her sister had with the 2 guys that had a new construction business and were neighbors. Sloan's recovery sounded grueling but it was shown very nicely and how she was able to use what she learned later.
The thing that threw me off was the story about the 2 religious people that were abducting people. I quickly saw how that was going to play into the story but to me it made the rest of the story choppy. I couldn't put it down and was so happy to have both the book and audiobook so that I could listen when in the care.

If you enjoy Nora Roberts mysteries you will enjoy this one.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the book and audiobook arcs.

Right from the first page, I was drawn into this book by characters that immediately captured my interest. The author masterfully combines a captivating romance with intrigue and suspense. The main characters, Sloan and Nash, are both at a crossroad in their lives and intent on making a new start for very different reasons. Sloan is a dedicated officer of the law, nearly dies when she walks into a convenience store during a robbery in progress and is shot. This incident is the catalyst to some major changes in her life. She returns to her home town of Heron’s Rest to recover in her childhood home with her parents making sure she heeds doctor’s orders. For the very independent Sloan who is used to being the protector and caretaker for others, accepting help is difficult.

As she starts her journey of recovery, Sloan becomes aware of an intriguing missing persons case. She asks the local Police Chief, a family friend, about it and decides to do some investigating of own. Physically she might need time to recover and gain strength, but mentally she is running on all cylinders and using all of her intuition and investigative skills to help solve the case. Her skills do not go unnoticed by other law enforcement professionals and she gets an intriguing job offer that will mean staying in her home town close to her family. Accepting the job leads her to buy her own home, a bungalow that needs some renovation. She never expects to fall for the new guy in town who will be doing the renovations with his brother.

Used to a privileged life as part of a wealthy family, Nash and his brother are leaving careers they never wanted for themselves and have stopped conforming to the demands of their ultra critical and demanding parents. They are making a new start and establishing their own home and business in Heron’s Rest. They will taking on handy man jobs, small and large renovations and partnering with a local business that rents and maintains multiple rental properties, a business owned by Sloan’s family. Neither brother was actively looking for romance, but Sloan and her sister soon capture their attention. Nash’s brother is smitten with Sloan’s sister, while Nash becomes friends with Sloan while he helps renovate the bungalow she bought next to his own property.

Sloan and Nash have an immediate connection, but both try to deny their attraction and growing feelings for each other. Nash’s business connection with her father and the already very serious relationship between their siblings could be affected if things between him and Sloan get messy. That caution soon goes by the wayside as both find they can’t ignore the intense pull between them. As the heat rises between them so does the danger to Sloan as the becomes a target of the deranged couple who are behind the rash of missing persons cases. Soon, Sloan will need all her skills and the help of those close to her to elude and capture the couple set on completing their righteous mission.

This riveting book has my full, wholehearted recommendation.

I really enjoyed this book once the story really got going. The beginning was a little hard for me to get through though. Still a 5 star read! Nora Roberts is so creative!

Tri-state disappearances for the sake of a "mission"😩

I was not already a big follower of Nora Roberts prior to reading Hidden Nature. The mix of suspense following the seemingly unconnected sudden disappearances of residents of the area where Western Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia meet and the romance were the main draw for me; Sloan's determination to find the missing made for a good investigation storyline and the climax was a really exciting and suspenseful one. These poor victims and their families really got to me. Saved from death and appreciating every extra day they got and then some killers convinced of the rightness of their "mission" looking to take it all away?! I couldn't figure how Sloan and her law enforcement colleagues could stop Clara and Sam and liked how the author developed the couple's downfall.

Sloan and Nash were sympathetic, well-developed leads, and the secondary characters had interesting plotlines of their own. Everyone gets a nice slice of character development, even for some of the characters targeted by Clara and Sam. The romance here is not really graphic and that I also liked.

On the down side for me, the story is too long and the constant detailed descriptions of renovation work contributed a lot to that.

Would I read more by the author? Most likely.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for sharing a complimentary advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest opinion.

Review shared on 5/19/25 on Waterstones, Goodreads, Bookbub, and with Barnes & Noble and BAM. To be shared with kobo and Google Play upon publication.

I really enjoyed this book. All of the characters were great. I feel like the names of the characters fit them perfectly. I found that at times it was little slow (don't want to give any spoilers). I almost thought that it was going to end on cliffhanger when I was 94% in. Overall, entertaining and I wouldn't mind reading another book with Sloan and Nash.

Nora Roberts is a very prolific author with well over 200 books written. She predominately writes romances under her name and police procedurals under her J.D. Robb pen name. Many of her books are part of a series. Every spring she publishes a standalone suspense novel. Even though her books are hit and miss with me, her yearly suspense novels are always one of my favorite books of the year. This year's book - Hidden Nature will definitely make my top 20 books of 2025 list.

Sloan Cooper always knew that she wanted to be a Natural Resources police officer. Her parents were supportive but disappointed that she didn't stay in the family business of providing events and rentals for visitors to their beautiful Maryland lake. As the book begins, Sloan and her partner are returning after taking down three men who were preying on hikers. They stopped at a convenience store and Sloan unknowingly walked into the store in the middle of a robbery. She was shot and in very serious condition. Her heart stopped when she got to the hospital and she was shocked back to life. When she finally got out of the hospital, she had a long recovery ahead so she moved out of her apartment and back into her parent's home.
She was bored being out of action and intrigued by a recent news article about a woman who disappeared on a trip to the grocery store. What was strange to Sloan is that her car was left in the parking lot of the busy store. She began to do some research to find out if there were similar abductions in her area and finds cases spread across three states. The only problem is that they were different location, different ages and there didn't seem to be any commonality between them. When she gets a promotion in her area, she decides to buy a fixer upper house. The local handyman has just moved from his job as in NYC to the area to fix up his own house and when she starts to work with him on ideas for her house there are sparks between them despite the fact that neither of them wants a relationship with anyone! The further she goes with her investigation, the more her own life is in jeopardy. Will she solve the cases before the 'bad guys' take her out?

I found it interesting that there were a lot of chapters from the point of view of the killers where the readers learn about their lives and the reasons for this killing spree. Neither of them had any remorse and felt like they were doing a favor for the people they killed.

This book was a real page turner for me and I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish it. Nora Roberts once again brings her readers a suspenseful story with some of the cruelest killers I've read in a long time. There's also a slow burn romance with a guy who seems perfect for Sloane, family care and love and a lot about decorating and re-doing houses. This was a book that I will remember long after I finished reading it.

This one, this one just did for me. The mystery, watching Sloan our Natural Resources Officer put the pieces together you know she was made for this. I say creepy psycho when you read this, I think you will understand why. The family stirred my heart. When Sloan and Nash (who used to be in finance and he's now a contractor who moved to the small town of Herons Nest) meet up, getting to know each other, the relationship provided moments of romance and when there was intimacy it was sensual and not explicit which is a win in my book. This one! Thank you so much for the advanced copy. I freely share my honest thoughts and opinions. #HiddenNature #NoraRoberts #St.MartinsPress #NetGalley

After loving Nora Roberts' gripping standalone novels Identity and Legacy, I had high hopes for Hidden Nature. Unfortunately, this book was a letdown. It starts as a promising crime thriller but quickly pivots into a Hallmark-movie-style romance. Even past the 40% mark, the story felt flat and failed to recapture the suspense I expected.

Compared to her other standalones, Hidden Nature was boring and not worth finishing. One star DNF.

I was invited to read a DRC from St. Martin's Press through NetGalley. This review is my own and reflects my honest opinions.

Before starting this one, I hadn’t read a Nora Roberts book in years. A few pages in, I was wondering why that was. I enjoyed this story from start to finish. Sloan is easy to root for, as she works so hard to get her mind & body back on track. Perfect character development in the lead & side characters to make them interesting & believable. Honestly, even the creepiest characters are interesting.
The suspense builds fairly quickly, but the romance takes a bit more time. The romance seems a natural part of the story, & it doesn’t take away or overpower the suspense. I appreciated getting to know the characters, all while wondering how & when Sloan’s eventual clash w/the killers would play out.
Thanks to the author & publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy via NetGalley. Now I’m off to find the Nora Roberts titles I haven’t read yet.

A little bit of romance, a little bit thriller, and a bit of mulystery makes Nora Roberts new book worth reading. After being shot and brought back to life, Sloan moves back home and joins a new unit of the NRP. In her spare time, she discovers several missing person cases have a common thread and starts to dig deeper. the middle is a bit slow going but if you get bored just skip ahead to Last few chapters. Also not sure why the sister's story was a part of the book