Carolina Moon

Author: Nora Roberts

Published: April 1, 2001 (Jove)

Category: Romance
Rating: 8/10

Time for my dose of Nora Roberts. I have to space my favorite authors (who have backlists) apart so I don't get tired of them. It appears I'll have to do the same with Julia Quinn. While Carolina Moon has a heroine with a dark and twisted past, like so many of Roberts' heroines, this one is psychic.

Tory Bodeen grew up in a small, rundown house where her father ruled with an iron fist and a leather belt - and where her dreams and talents had no room to flourish. But she had Hope - who lived in the big house, just a short skip away, and whose friendship allowed Tory to be something she wasn't allowed to be at home: a child.

After young Hope's brutal murder, unsolved to this day, Tory's life began to fall apart. And now, as she returns to the tiny town of Progress, South Carolina, with plans to settle in and open a stylish home-design shop, she is determined to find a measure of peace and free herself from the haunting visions of that terrible night. As she forges a new bond with Cade Lavelle - Hope's older brother and the heir to the Lavelle fortune - she isn't sure whether the tragic loss they share will unite them or drive them apart. But she is willing to open her heart, just a little, and try.

But living so close to unhappy memories will be more difficult and frightening than she ever expected. Because the killer of Hope is nearby as well.

Tory is a real psychic, the kind that can tell you where you left something several years ago. She had the bad luck of growing up under the heavy hand of an ultra-religious father though, who tried to beat the evil out of his witch of a daughter. Roberts can really write herself a tormented heroine. Cade, for a hero, was okay. Nothing really wowed me about him.

Goodness, I wanted something really bad to happen to Cade's mother. She was one of those cold society women who cared more about how she and her family looked than that family's actual wellbeing. Of course, she frowned on Cade's growing relationship with Tory, the woman she blamed for Hope's death. But she was so cold about it, trying to pay off Tory to stop seeing Cade. Then she tried to get around Cade by taking control of the family's properties, and thereby kicking Tory out of the house she was renting. She said such horrible things, and then she leaves the story, no poetic justice served for her, and that was my biggest problem with Carolina Moon. I know, not a real problem.

I felt like this book was 1/3 romance and 2/3 mystery, maybe even more towards mystery. Roberts did a good job of keeping the identity of the murderer in the air. It could've been any of the guys in town.

Definitely an entertaining read, and good for someone who doesn't want to read a saccharine-sweet love story.