Sloane Cooper is a Natural Resources officer for the Maryland Office of Natural Resources. She and her partner, Joel, take down three poachers and they are feeling pretty good about life. Until Sloane steps into a convenience store and gets shot in the chest. She is in a coma for days and has to return home to western Maryland to recuperate. Home is Heron's Rest, where her family owns a popular resort. She is determined to recover and return to her job so she gets pulled into a mystery when a women in a nearby town disappears without a trace. Nick Sweetwater and his brother, Theo, have moved to Heron's Rest to escape the life their parents carefully mapped out for them: Nick was a financial whiz on Wall Street and Theo just passed the bar exam. But neither of them wanted that life. Nick wants to build things and Theo wants to be with him since their family really doesn't exist. Theo and Sloane's sister, Drea, fall in love at first sight. Nick and Sloane take a little longer and there is danger along the way because Sloane is just the type of target the kidnappers are looking for. One of the delightful things I enjoy about Nora Roberts' writing is her ability to create real characters who could be your next door neighbor. These are not people who exist only in the glitz and glamor of high society. Always highly recommended; I have never read a bad book by Nora Roberts.

I loved this book from start to finish!! I have some notes on the factuality surrounding the two hospitals in Morgantown, as I am a native and could not leave it be, in the “notes to the publisher” section. But my word!! I’m elated that Ms Roberts chose to write about where I am from, and the beauty of the area. The story has all the right plot hooks and romance I’ve come to expect from a Nora Roberts book, and this one was a pleasure to read like her stories always are. Thank you for the opportunity to read this advance copy!!! I’m so excited to read one set where I will always consider home.

Oh my, Nora Roberts has done it again. Just when I think she can't possibly create characters that I would love as much as others, she does!

Sloan works as a Natural Resources Officer in Maryland. After capturing a trio of criminals, Sloan and her partner stopped for gas and drinks. She interrupts a robbery and is shot, causing her to have to be resuscitated multiple times. Returning home to recover from the gunshot, Sloan gets bored and finds a case to investigate on her own time. A woman disappears the day before Thanksgiving, leaving her car in the grocery store parking lot. Something about this case strikes a chord in Sloan.

Nash Littlefield is a former Wall Street worker, who leaves New York to become a general contractor in the mountains of Maryland (same town as Sloan). He worked with Habitat for Humanity all through college and enjoyed working with his hands. Now he becomes fascinated with Sloan.

Now this can not be classified as a mystery as we the readers know who did it, especially since we get their perspective and movements. But this makes me think of a mashup between Brynne Weaver's Butcher & Blackbird (but not as funny) and Rebecca Zanetti's Laurel Snow with Nora Roberts's normal style.

I enjoyed this one very much, especially the side characters like Theo and Drea, along with the dogs, Mop and Tic.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC.

Sloan Cooper is shot and survives due to extreme medical measures. In her recovery she moves back in with her parents in Heron's Rest. During her recovery a missing person case she hears about on the news catches her interest. With permission from her police leadership she investigates. This is more than a story about a woman healing from a traumatic injury, more than story about the missing person case, more than a love story. It is all of those things but it is also a story about families, pursuing new dreams and small towns.

A big thank you to #NetGalley and St. Martins Press for reigniting my love of Nora Roberts books.

Hidden Nature should not be a hidden secret. It is an excellent romance/thriller/family drama of a book. With excellent character profiles; including Sloan, her partner in NRP, and the Fix It brothers Nora Roberts has written a great book that has inspired me to pick up
More of her work.

A good suspenseful read that keeps you turning the pages to see how the story ends. A high quality story Ms Roberts is wonderful at providing!

Another amazing story by one of the very best! Nora pulls you in from the very beginning and weaves you into the lives of these characters. I truly loved watching them get their happy ending. Another 5+ rating from me!

It’s amazing to me how authors come up with their stories and Hidden Nature is no exception. Ms. Roberts has created a thrilling roller coaster of a fiction novel with elements of mystery, romance, family relationships and a little horror all the way up to the final chapter! Sloan is a Natural Resource Officer who returns to her home town to recover from a recent injury. When a promotion is offered to have her remain in the area, she is excited for the opportunity and because of her investigative abilities, she gets involved in a case outside her jurisdiction. From there, the story takes off. Five stars for a book I could not put down until the last page was complete.

Nora Roberts does it again! She wrote a novel that flows effortlessly. It has just the right amount of romance, mystery, family drama and home renovations. I would love to read a complete series on Sloan, Nash and Heron’s Rest.

“Hidden Nature” by Nora Roberts is a suspenseful small town mystery with a dark thread. A female police officer finds herself stumbling upon a robbery in progress and is nearly killed. She finds herself facing a long and difficult recovery and moves back home where her loving parents can assist her. At the same time a local young woman is mysteriously abducted and our heroine can’t help herself from looking into the clues.
As with all of this authors books there is romance. Two brothers move to town and open a home contracting business and immediately become involved with the family and assist with the investigation into multiple missing victims. The storyline follows the trail to identify the victims and catch the gruesome serial killers who are revealed at the beginning of the novel.
This book was a little long and I felt many pages of the descriptions of home remodeling could have been edited out. It really did stop me from becoming fully engaged in this romantic thriller.
3.5 Stars rounded up to 4 because I know others will truly enjoy this book.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this book by Roberts and finished it in two sittings. It was so engaging that you didn’t want to put it down. You jump right into the action from page one and continue until the end of the book with plenty of twists and turns thrown in. Roberts does a great job of developing her characters throughout the story and making them so believable. I loved the interactions and the romance that bloom between Nash and Sloan and Theo and Drea throughout the book. What is so fascinating is that Roberts gives you Sloan’s point of view from recovering from being shot, her new job, and then helping with a missing person case. Then she throws in the Killer’s point of view and their belief that they are helping these people. Pick up a copy and sit back and enjoy. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved this book.
It had so much going on and I was strapped into my seat and going along for the ride!

When Sloan gets injured on the job, she returns to her families home to recover, in the beautiful Heron’s Rest mountain lake?

We watch her progress, her way back to herself slowly and rebuild her life.

Meanwhile, the Littlefield Brothers, two brothers from New York moved into a dilapidated house down the road and start up a business, and a few romances, lol

Add in multiple abductions, several people who just vanished and Sloan is on the case.

I loved it all, the setting, the characters, the mystery and the romance!
This will forever go down as one of my favorite books by this author!

Natural Resources police officer Sloan Cooper and partner stop at a convenience store after a take down and she is shot when entering the store. After being brought back to life she returns home to recover. When a woman disappears without a trace Sloan searches for other cases and discovers there are other cases. They have nothing in common it seems but Sloan is determined to find the common denominator. Is she risking her own life?


Thats to Nora Roberts and St. Martin’s Press

solan cooper is a police officer who is shot during a robbery, after just solving a case. she goes to her parents to recuperate. she decides to research a case about missing people.

As usual, Nora Roberts puts together a wonderful world with compelling characters. Great female MC – strong without being overbearing. Absolutely devoured it. I so wish this was a series so I could stay involved with the characters. A must-read.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of Nora Roberts’ Hidden Nature!

This book was a solid 3.5 stars for me, rounded down. I loved Sloan and her family, as well as Theo and Nash. The plot was unique and an interesting story line, but I felt that some of it dragged with unnecessarily elongated descriptives, especially at the beginning. The dialogue between the “bad guys” drove me crazy, but fit the narrative of who they were and what they were doing.

I would label this a romantic suspense, but not in the sense that there is a mystery to solve, because everything is laid out pretty quickly - just that you don’t know how everything will play out in the end. The synopsis made the book sound much more like a police procedural than it was. This wasn’t a bad thing, just unexpected.

Also, if Heron’s Rest were a real place, I’d want to go there!

As a HUGE fan of Nora Roberts I was so excited to get this book

The concept is really great.

The execution....this book is about 100 pages too long.

I do not need to know that much about home improvement, and this book is overloaded with it, and it overshadowed the main plot of the story to me.

I put it down a few times, and could only read a little at a time

Nora Roberts has written another thrilling and fun beach read which keeps the reader on their toes, trying to figure out the next step in a set of mysterious deaths with seemingly no interlocking connection.

Nora Roberts is the queen of writing! I absolutely love her and every book she writes. Her characters pull at my heart strings, and stay in my memory rent-free. This book was no exception, and I cannot wait to read the next one. The stories and the towns have my whole heart. I love the extra mystery element And all the side characters that bring the story to life. Five stars.⭐️

Not going to lie this one was fairly predictable and it's seems like a lot of her newer books are like. Didn't hate it but also didn't love it. I hated guessing what the characters were going to do before they did