The Collector by Nora Roberts


No need to add to your book collection with The Collector, a suspense novel by Nora Roberts.  This book was anything but suspenseful and brought no mystery to the reader.  Rated: 2 out of 5 stars.

Lila Emerson's job is being a professional house-sitter.  One night, while looking out the window, she witnesses what police first believe to be a murder/suicide. From that moment on, her life is never the same.  Through this mess, she meets Ashton Archer, the brother of the man murdered.  Ashton believes his brother never killed his girlfriend or himself and ropes Lila into working with him to find out the truth of what is now being called a double homicide.  As an artist, Ashton is longing to paint Lila in the time they have between discovering the truth.  The more the discover the truth, the more they find out exactly what Ashton's brother was involved in and what lead to his untimely death.

At first, the book began very well.  Roberts grabbed me in with the murder happening almost immediately.  I was anxious to read the book and couldn't wait to discover what the truth was between the murder and how Lila got involved with Ashton in it.  Then that was it...it began to go downhill.  Too many people were being introduced at once.  I was lost and didn't know what was going on.  Roberts needed to slow it down and not put so much action into one chapter.  Break it up and make it clearer to the reader.  There were scenes that weren't needed and the flow of the book would've been better.

It took too long for Roberts to get to the action part of the book and even when she did, it stopped abruptly and then didn't return until much later on.  It wasn't continuous and I don't even know why what was in between was even written.

Ashton's family alone had about 12 siblings in it.  Why did Roberts make it be that way?  All the names of the siblings being thrown around and them popping in, it was all too confusing.  I'm sure she could've found a way to let the readers know that Ashton was a family man and cared deeply about his siblings by having him have less than 12.  I lost interest in what was going on and because of this, I ended up skimming most of the rest of the book.

I couldn't stand Lila.  She was a woman who had no permanent place to live and made a living by living in other people's houses as she house-sat, staying at her best friend's whenever she didn't have a job.  It wasn't like she didn't have a place to live, her parents wanted her to move in with them.  I don't know what Roberts wanted to readers to get out of Lila's character, but I found her to have no respect for her clients, especially so she could bring Ashton to the places and have their romance.  It was not her home, it was the home of clients.  Have respect for the people who hired you!!

This was the first time I read a book by Nora Roberts and I wish I had read a different one.  This couldn't hold my interest at all and the writing of this book to me was just bland.  I can't think of anyone I would recommend this to because it's not a book that will hold your interest for long.


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