Come Sundown by Nora Roberts

Title: Come Sundown

Author: Nora Roberts

Series: n/a

This path has already been heavily tread

*sigh*

This is a Nora Roberts, so of course I bought and read it—or tried to. Many people I’m sure do the same, and that’s why Roberts can afford to toss out this kind of crap. Brand recognition is priceless in marketing.

Roberts wrote this story years ago, except it was titled Montana Sky, and it was so much better.

Let me tell you what happened the first quarter—or “part” as Roberts likes to section it unnecessarily. We jump back and forth from past to present between a young woman who was abducted and forced to experience unspeakable horrors—I mean, been there, done that, in Roberts’ books alone—and the heroine, who does the most truly fascinating thing I’ve ever read—she goes through her morning routine, then goes to work, puts together agendas, and attends meetings.

Yeah. Seriously.

This book was so boring that at one point, maybe about a third of the way through, I got sick of spacing off and having to reread passages that I just shook my head and started flipping through pages, trying to find something exciting or even just interesting. So many scenes were irrelevant to any plot, whether it was the thriller or the romances. Some scenes were fluffy bits of nonsense with one important line thrown in. What a tangled, tedious mess of tones and points of view. Just a mess.

I knew Bo and Cal were supposed to be the main characters, but honestly, this wasn’t their book. If it was anyone’s, it was Alice’s, though we got to spend time with just about everyone, which annoyed the crap out of me. There was no focus. The book wanted to be too many things at once, and ultimately didn’t manage any of them. I didn’t care about the characters. Cal’s horse, Sundown, had more personality than he and Bo combined. And “Bodine Longbow”? Really? Did Roberts find a name generator website, select the categories of ‘hick’ and ‘western,’ and go with the first random name it threw at her? She’s used the name Bodine in at least two other books (Carolina Moon and Born in Shame, though in the former it was spelled “Bodeen”).

(Apologies to anyone named Bodine Longbow.)

It was just such a retread of many of Roberts’ books. The Bodine name, a ranch in Montana, all the siblings in the same family falling in love at the same time, a religious fanatic villain who takes the Bible literally, a not-so-unexpected family connection to the villain (I suspected him the moment I met him), and an obvious misdirect. There was even a wedding and the planning thereof. It’s not identical to Montana Sky or any other book, but it’s far too similar for its own good.

So yeah, I didn’t read the whole thing; I just read the parts that included Alice, because she was the most interesting character out of the lot, the only one with an arc. And honestly, I don’t feel I missed anything.

To be fair, though, the writing style was pretty good, even if the story crafted in that style was crap. Roberts is exceptionally talented—if only she would write a story that isn’t a waste of her time and ours. If I had any complaints about the writing itself, it would be that there wasn’t enough action or physical description with dialogue, like mannerisms or facial expressions. We were largely left to assume the tone implied, and sometimes I had to stop and puzzle over the nuances within a conversation. If you aren’t accustomed to how Roberts speaks/writes, you might get confused.

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