Nightwork

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We follow the life of Harry Booth, whose mother was diagnosed with cancer and became a thief to help make ends meet. After she passed away Booth continued his nightwork and never stayed in one location for too long, fearing that his enemy will catch up to him. While the fashionable method of short, separated paragraph units sometimes impedes the prose, Pol’s understated wit is fine company

From mystics and soothsayers to madmen and mountebanks, prophets people many of my very favourite books and stories. Here are some of them. Three woman who join together to rent a large space along the beach in Los Angeles for their stores—a gift shop, a bakery, and a bookstore—become fast friends as they each experience the highs, and lows, of love. Harry is also just kind of blah. I also wasn't in the mood to root for a thief. I feel like a little bit this was a little of her trying to do another "Roarke" type character for her readers. We all know that Roarke started off stealing as a kid and of course got involved with criminal gangs in Ireland and then New York. Most of the dialogue and circumstances about him I think were supposed to read as thief with heart of gold, but I just kept rolling my eyes. Also Harry does have "relations" with other women in this book so when you get to the whole "heroine" in this one you wonder why it even matters. I will add that I think that most of the books where Nora just follows a "hero" it does not work as well for me, see my review of "Shelter in Place." Wow, what a great character! At the age of nine, Harry Booth's mother has cancer. She owns a cleaning service with her sister, Mags. When she was too ill to work, Harry goes with his aunt, but it wasn't enough for her medical bills, he was worried about foreclosure. Without her knowing, Harry starts going into homes and taking small things. He never takes more than what he needs and he never "breaks" into a home. From the get-go, Harry has a code of conduct. A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism.Nightwork" follows Harry Booth who at age 9 starts stealing to support his mother who is undergoing chemotherapy treatments. When his mother eventually dies, Harry still keeps stealing and breaking into homes hence the title of this book. Harry eventually meets a woman called Miranda and starts to think about a different future, but is threatened by someone who wants to use his skills.

The second is that NOTHING GOES WRONG, not even a single major hiccup. Everything came together TOO seamlessly. I felt in suspense, but then nothing even happened. Nightwork is a book I would recommend to anyone who loves romance. It has everything that makes for a great novel. Loved it!!! We grow up with Booth and watch his talents as a thief evolve until he actually gets a rep (a good one) amongst the underground and attracts the attention of a man, LaPorte, who begins to think of Booth as much of a possession as the art and baubles he hires Booth to steal. But Booth has no plans to be anyone's possession.I want to start by saying that I tried to keep my walls up about our main character. He has so many names, but Booth is the most important. I tried so hard not to love him and failed completely. He was just a kid when he stole to keep his mother's bills paid while she fought the demon that is cancer. He was barely out of high school when he lost her. He traveled and changed who he was and existed in a world that never gave him a chance.

I also loved the Red Goddess of the story. Megs, Dauphine, Sebastian... I loved the theatre kids both in college and at the high school. He fell in love with the ocean, the hills, New Orleans, North Carolina, and a beautiful girl named Miranda. He read, and educated himself and did everything he could to follow the rules he set when he was only 12 and doing the only thing he knew could work. When that all caught up to him, and he had to leave it all behind, he didn't think he'd fall in love with anything again. But isn't that just human nature? So he fell in love with a house. With his students. And with the same girl. And he would not be ran off from it again. This book hit me right in the heart for so many different reasons. Starting with losing a loved one to cancer, switching to having a teacher that means everything to you, and ending with the idea that life will always work out the way that it's meant to. My only criticisms are that her writing style is changing to ‘more telling, less showing’ (with fragmented, choppy sentences rather than paragraphs) and Harry/Booth was too perfect. He’s clearly a blend of Nora’s many memorable male characters, but he most strongly resembled Luke Callahan from her early book ‘Honest Illusions’ (another favorite of mine), while Miranda, with her doting father and red hair, was a Roxanne expy; even Sebastien was too similar to LeClerc. The side characters were an afterthought, but I enjoyed Mags (who reminded me a lot of Mavis, from the In Death series) and Dauphine (who, again, was reminiscent of the female lead, Lena, in NR’s early book ‘Midnight Bayou’).

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NIGHTWORK by Nora Roberts is a unique romantic suspense with a young hero who grows up to becomes a gentleman thief with his own set of rules and moral code. This is a standalone that that is mainly told from the viewpoint of the hero. This story starts out with an unusual main character for a Roberts story. A guy. A kid really and we are with him as he tells his story and grows. He educates himself in ways we cannot believe. He loves hard and works hard. He protects what and who he loves always. He continues to learn and grow. The End of Nightwork is a novel rich in provocative and timely ideas, yet seductively readable. While the fashionable narrative method of short, separated paragraph units sometimes impedes the prose, Pol’s understated wit is fine company. And despite the novel’s complex philosophical and theological underpinning, its characters are always vividly alive. There’s a rare originality here, and a willingness to take risks, that promises great things. I enjoyed this story, quite a bit, as it meandered through Harry’s life from childhood through his adult maturation. His travels took me from coast to coast in the US, to Europe and other continents. I was never bored because he was interesting and, if I’m honest, I’m a die-hard fan of Roberts’ storytelling style. While this is categorized as romantic suspense, it reads more like contemporary fiction with romantic and suspense elements. It’s my only criticism, though I’m happy regardless of the label. 4.5 stars

Thanks to his love of acting and theatre, Booth is by now expert at switching identities, and escapes the country to avoid LaPorte’s further demands: he will not be owned. But he doubts this man will ever tire of his pursuit, and begins to long for a more settled existence: a job as an English/drama teacher in a mid-size town would fit the bill. And does, until someone who knows him arrives… The bad guy LaPorte was an absolute idiot. NR can and has built extremely twisted villains, but sometimes, like The Witness with Russian mafia, these villains seem straight out of PatheticVille. If I have to hear about how scary and mean and cold a person is, I need to see my main character overcome problems and challenges on the way to best the bad guy. But there is absolutely none of that, which is ridiculous. As much as I love Nora and will continue to read her books, they’re rapidly becoming repetitive if you’ve read most of them. However, this is a good book for a newbie, or even if you’re an old-timer who wants a satisfying read.The characters are not developed at all. We also have insta-love which I don't recall Roberts doing for ages in her stand-alones. Like I said, I liked Booth. I loved going along with him on his adventures. And I felt some anxiety that he would be discovered. NR made him nicely clever and resourceful. LaPorte was easy to hate, but in later portions of the book, he was less dimensional as a character, as where his henchmen.