THE SEARCH

TITLE: THE SEARCH
AUTHOR: NORA ROBERTS
Pages: 488
Date: 08/08/2010
Grade: 5-
Library

Sometimes you pick up a book and you find yourself torn between wanting to race through it in order to find out what happens next, how it's going to end, and wanting to take it slow, just to let the pleasure last that little bit longer. This was such a book, and I'm afraid the racing impulse won out.
This is the story of Fiona Bristow who, nine years ago was the only survivor of a man who strangled women with a red scarf, a man who did manage to kill her boyfriend.
Now she has restarted and rebuild her life on Orcas Island where she runs a dog training school and is part of the search and rescue team with her three dogs. However, the past won't leave her alone. Although the man she escaped from is still in prison, someone else is out and about killing young women with red scarfs, copying the earlier murders and probably on his way to finish the job his predecessor left unfinished.
Through her dog training school, Fiona meets Simon Doyle a wood artist with a clear lack of social graces. The two are attracted to each other and soon Simon finds himself reluctantly getting closer to Fiona than he wants and up to his neck in her problems, which are getting ever closer to her island.
This is a typical Nora Roberts story. An independent woman trying to hold her own, an attractive man falling for her despite himself, a menace lurking in the background, a beautiful setting and as a bonus in this book, lots of dogs.
I loved the parts of the book concerned with dog behaviour and training and, as always, thoroughly enjoyed the sexy bits.
I do feel this book could have been a bit shorter without losing anything essential but really liked that the ending I was predicting to myself didn't actually happen.
Mrs. Roberts will always be my safe haven when I need a comfort read, and I hope that she'll go on writing forever.