The last book on my reading list for this month was The Taming of the Shrew. I am just a little over halfway through it. Reading the non-illustrated version of this Shakespearean play has limited my reading speed; I can’t get through more than 5 pages in one sitting. So, The Taming of the Shrew review will be next month by then I’ll hopefully finish it. The Witness by Nora Roberts is another book that I read this month. I generally like Nora Robert’s works and that’s the reason I started reading this book.
The Witness is Elizabeth’s story. Elizabeth has a very strict and controlling mother. One day Elizabeth decides to rebel a little for a night. She dresses the way she wants, and drinks; she is letting loose for a night. She meets an intriguing Russian man at a nightclub who offers to take her to his Lake House. Her journey on the wild side seems to be going well till it doesn’t. This one night completely backfires on her. Twelve years later, one Abigail Lowry surfaces in the outskirts of a small town in the Ozarks. She is a freelance programmer with a big dog and a fancy security system for her protection. She keeps to herself. Abigail intrigues police Chief Brooks Gleason. He is sure she is hiding something or is in some sort of trouble.
The book starts off with a 16-year-old Elizabeth who rebels against her controlling mother. The first time she does something for herself it backfires on her in the worst way. Elizabeth is in hiding after witnessing a crime. When witness protection fails to shield her; she is left to her own devices. The timeline jumps 12 years in the future when we meet Abigail. Living on the outskirts of a small town, she works as a freelance programmer and keeps herself isolated. Her quirky nature and analytical mind catch the attention of Brooks Gleason, who is a police chief. He takes an interest in her. He feels she is in trouble but then they become romantically involved.
Their relationship is cute. They seem to match each other pretty well. The main issue for Abigail/Elizabeth is whether she can trust Brooks about her past. This starts to bother them a little as their relationship grows. The pace of the story keeps you hooked from the beginning. The addition of the crime thriller and mystery element was different than I expected which made it better. The characters are well-written and are slightly different, especially Elizabeth. In the beginning, Brooks keeps trying to dig into Abigail’s life because he believes she is in some trouble. At times, it does feel like he s pestering her a little bit. That is something that annoyed me a little bit. As they start dating and their relationship progresses I liked Brooks’s character more.
The way Elizabeth’s character is written is unique. She is quirky and super smart. Her approach and reactions to everything are very analytical in nature. She is not the one to get too emotional; she remains practical. It is refreshing and understandable considering how her life has been so far. It does make her a little less relatable as a character but it is a good sort of different. The romance between her and Brooks takes off a little too quickly. I liked the chemistry between these two and by the end it made sense.
Like I said before, I generally enjoy reading Nora Roberts’s works and this was no different. The plot slows down a bit in the middle but then picks up pace again. There isn’t any big showdown in the end as Elizabeth faces her final challenge. The climax of the story is subtle in its events which I didn’t expect. The Witness is more of Elizabeth’s journey than the thriller or suspense part of it.
The characters and the plot keep you interested throughout the novel. I breezed through this book over a weekend. It is not the best of Nora Roberts’s books that I have read but it is a good one-time read. Overall, I liked reading this story mainly due to the characters and the thriller element of it.
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Books and blues 