Inheritance by Nora Roberts

Title: Inheritance

Author: Nora Roberts

Series: The Lost Bride Trilogy #1

No self-contained plot, protag too perfect

Much thanks to Nora Roberts, St. Martin’s Press, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for allowing me to both read and listen to free ARCs of the ebook and audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

The premise checked a lot of boxes for me, as it did for Nora when she was brainstorming her next trilogy. Old haunted mansion, ghosts, spooks, a family curse, a witch, magic—yeah, I was down. I wanted to love it! A few things bothered me, so I planned to give it four stars—then we reached the end. And the end is a problem.

Those few things that bothered me:

• The cover is pretty, but it’s misleading. It looks like a woman standing on tiptoe in ballet flats like a ballerina. The story has nothing to do with ballet, though, so now I wonder if it’s supposed to be a bride circa a few hundred years back wearing slippers, because that’s what high born women wore for shoes back then. That makes more sense, but shoes don’t have anything to do with the story. Rings do, however, as does an old haunted mansion. So why weren’t those utilized for the cover? Why not give it an appropriate gothic vibe?

• The only beverage called by name was Coke, and all the characters liked it. Propaganda, much?

• For all the strength Nora wanted to give her female characters, she also didn’t approve of them going without makeup. It drove me insane. The girls had to doll up before going out, before company came over, when they got up in the morning. Even if they only put on a little, they weren’t allowed to go without makeup, just at home, working. I hated it so much.

• Sonya and Cleo were able to master difficult recipes the first time. Cleo was known to cook some, but Sonya made it known she could burn water, and yet she made a savory pot roast and—was it oysters? some kind of seafood—and knocked both out of the park first try. I call bullshit. It would have been much more relatable if she’d fubbed something.

Actually, on that point, both Sonya and Cleo were way too perfect. Granted, Sonya almost married a grade-A asshole, but otherwise she excelled at pretty much everything else. Moving quite a ways away from home? Piece of cake. Getting harassed at work, quitting and going freelance? No sweat. New house is blatantly haunted? Unnerving, but she rolled with it. Adopting a new dog? He’s perfectly behaved. I didn’t see Cleo mess up much either. And of course they were both can-do-no-wrong geniuses in their fields. Nora tried to give them girls-next-door vibes, but failed, and they became hard to relate to. Add that on top of a grand living situation they won’t ever have to pay a dime for, and by the end I resented them more than I related to them.

Now for the bigger problem. This book had no plot whatsoever. Yes, there was plenty of the overarching plot for the trilogy, aka the brides and the curse, but this book did not have a self-contained narrative arc. Waaaayyyy too much time is spent detailing Sonya’s work projects, which don’t matter and which I couldn’t give a flying rat’s about. A self-contained plot could have involved the ex-fiance Brandon, but we never saw hide nor hair of him again. Sonya could have struggled going freelance at first, but no. She could have not been so certain about staying in the house and didn’t make the decision to until the end of her three months were up. Nope. There wasn’t even a full romantic arc—we all know she and Tre will end up together, but thoughts of permanence doesn’t even cross anyone’s minds. They didn’t even say the L word. If conflicts were begun, they weren’t carried forward, but most often what could have been conflicts became null because Sonya was so goddamned perfect at everything.

I suppose it’s that last which makes me forget Sonya did kinda maybe have a full arc, at least as a character. I’m reluctant to give her that, since she didn’t struggle much, but she did have to get over her epic fail with Brandon in order to move on with Tre. She also appeared to regain some self-worth/confidence/esteem in the wake of the Brandon sitch. But it’s peanuts.

So overall, while the premise checks a lot of boxes for me, too, Nora, your execution fell very flat. Also toward the end you were head-hopping and it got annoying.

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