Hideaway Review

Author: Nora Roberts
Genre: Romance Suspense
Publisher: St. Martins Press
Release Date: May 26, 2020
Purchase Link: Amazon

My Review:  3.5 Familiar Hearts

A special thank you to St. Martins Press for a paperback arc of this book.

A family ranch in Big Sur country and a legacy of Hollywood royalty set the stage for Nora Roberts’ emotional new suspense novel, Hideaway.
(Synopsis & author bio can be found following review.)

Review:
The Sullivans of Hollywood fame have all returned home to Big Sur to celebrate the life of their patriarch Liam Sullivan who has passed.  Nine year old Caitlyn is playing with her cousins out back when she's kidnapped.  Authorities believe it's an inside job because of the tight security in place on the estate. Cate manages to escape her captors, running through the woods until stumbling upon a house with a light. Little does Cate know this harrowing ordeal and the after shocks will follow her the rest of her life.  Hideaway is her story of living with the ultimate betrayal and eventually, over the years, finding her way to overcome it.

Nora Roberts excels at writing family sagas - the complicated relationships, family dynamics, love, betrayal.  Her books have a comforting familiarity to them that I find enjoyable.  While I found Hideaway a bit predictable, it is a good, solid read that unfolds at a steady pace.  The suspense and angst are low key as is the romance.  It's a story of deceit, manipulation, and vengeance, but even more . . . a story of strength and the ability to move beyond adversity to find true happiness.  Characters are well-fleshed out as relationships develop slowly making them more believable.  I will say that the reveal of the villain early on dampened the suspense a little more than I would have liked.  I missed not having a last minute surprise or shocker at the end.  Having said that, Hideaway is an engaging, enjoyable read that reminded me of some of Roberts earlier works.  It will be a great summer read, maybe on the beach.  Highly Recommended!

My Rating: 3.5 Familiar Hearts
Cross My Heart . . . xxx
♥Sandra♥

Synopsis:
Caitlyn Sullivan had come from a long line of Hollywood royalty, stretching back to her Irish immigrant great-grandfather. At nine, she was already a star—yet still an innocent child who loved to play hide and seek with her cousins at the family home in Big Sur. It was during one of those games that she disappeared.

Some may have considered her a pampered princess, but Cate was in fact a smart, scrappy fighter, and she managed to escape her abductors. Dillon Cooper was shocked to find the bloodied, exhausted girl huddled in his house—but when the teenager and his family heard her story they provided refuge, reuniting her with her loved ones.

Cate’s ordeal, though, was far from over. First came the discovery of a shocking betrayal that would send someone she’d trusted to prison. Then there were years spent away in western Ireland, peaceful and protected but with restlessness growing in her soul.

Finally, she would return to Los Angeles, gathering the courage to act again and get past the trauma that had derailed her life. What she didn’t yet know was that two seeds had been planted that long-ago night—one of a great love, and one of a terrible vengeance…

Nora Roberts is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than 200 novels, including Come Sundown, The Obsession, The Liar, and coming in December 2017, Year One -- the first book in The Chronicles of The One. She is also the author of the futuristic suspense In Death series written under the pen name J.D. Robb. There are more than 500 million copies of her books in print.