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Some people look forward to time spent doing nothing—while others just aren’t capable of taking it easy. And when an injured police officer finds herself forced to step away from her job in Hidden Nature by Nora Roberts, she finds herself digging into a case that could put her into new danger.
The story finds Natural Resources officer Sloan Cooper returning to her parents’ home in the peaceful small town of Heron’s Rest after she interrupted a convenience store robbery and was shot and nearly killed by a gunshot from the thief. Sloan struggles to take things slow—to follow her doctor’s orders for her recovery—but slow walks and a new crocheting hobby aren’t enough to keep her occupied. So when a local woman goes missing from the grocery story parking lot, Sloan begins her own investigation—which leads her to uncover other cases that could be related.
While Sloan fights to get her life back—all the while searching for answers to this series of disappearances—a couple searches for their next victim. There’s definitely a lot going on in this novel: Sloan’s recovery process and her move back to her hometown, the renovations to her new house, her sister’s whirlwind romance with the new handyman in town, Sloan’s budding romance with his brother, and her unofficial investigation into a growing number of disappearances. And while the storyline involving the abductions is suspenseful—and also disturbing—it sometimes feels like just a small subplot.
The author focuses much of her attention on developing the personal side of Sloan’s story—her relationship with her family, her plans for her new house, and the new man in her life—that the investigation sometimes seems like an afterthought in this story of an injured officer’s struggle to get her life back. And, sometimes, when the story shifts to follow the couple and their crimes, readers will find themselves frustrated with the characters, wishing that the author would just get back to the more interesting parts of the story. It could have been a tense and suspenseful part of Sloan’s story—but it takes so long for that part to build that readers may not feel especially invested in it.
With its mix of recovery, romance, and investigation, Hidden Nature is definitely a jam-packed novel, filled with drama and suspense. But the thrills get lost in the family drama—and the lengthy buildup and the unbalanced storytelling can make for a frustrating read.
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