Review: The Obsession

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Naomi Bowes lost her innocence the night she followed her father into the woods. In freeing the girl trapped in the root cellar, Naomi revealed the horrible extent of her father’s crimes and made him infamous. No matter how close she gets to happiness, she can’t outrun the sins of Thomas David Bowes.

Now a successful photographer living under the name Naomi Carson, she has found a place that calls to her, a rambling old house in need of repair, thousands of miles away from everything she’s ever known. Naomi wants to embrace the solitude, but the kindly residents of Sunrise Cove keep forcing her to open up—especially the determined Xander Keaton.
Naomi can feel her defenses failing, and knows that the connection her new life offers is something she’s always secretly craved. But the sins of her father can become an obsession, and, as she’s learned time and again, her past is never more than a nightmare away.

Genre: romantic suspense

Publishing date: April 2016

Mature content: yes

Review: Finally! Finally I'm able to give one of Nora Roberts' latest books 5stars! I was starting to wonder if this new style of hers, with longer books, darker stories and a romance that is almost secondary to everything else, would ever really work. Well, in The Obsession, it works perfectly. 

I can't say it's an easy book to read. It's not. It starts as a pretty heavy psychological thriller, so realistic it's actually scary, then lights up a bit (so much that I was on the brink of getting bored), only to darken again. All in all, it's a pretty interesting game of light and shadows. The fact that all characters, even the bad, twisted ones, are wonderfully portrayed and realistic helps a lot. You are still bombarded with a lot of detail (that's why the book is so long), but as opposed to Nora's previous books, in The Obsession you actually come to realize that all details matter in the end. I never figure out who the killer was right until almost the very end, precisely because I overlooked a few details right from the beginning. I never thought they would matter, and in the end they were the key to the whole plot. 

On top of that, this book inspired me. Naomi's passion for photography inspired me to improve my own photography skills, and Xander's reading habits made me want to set aside more time for reading too. When a book inspires me to change something in my personal life, it's definitely a winner. 

So yes, The Obsession is worth it, every 460+ pages of it, and I totally recommend you to read it!

Have a wonderful weekend!