Hideaway

I receive this book on my Kindle the day it was released. As I was in the middle of rereading the O'Dwyer cousins trilogy, I waiting until yesterday afternoon to start it. I finished it this evening, which is about the normal amount of time it takes me to reread a new NR novel.

The difference between this book and the many that came before is that I probably will not reread it - at least not anytime soon. Often I'll finish a NR book and immediately start over to to pick up on details I may have missed. I don't think I missed many details in this book since they just weren't there to begin with.

The beginning of the story is great. I loved the thorough backstory of Cate's kidnapping and her character's development through her teenage years and into her early adulthood. For me, the story slowed and much of the character development stopped when Cate moved back to her family home in California. Something else I missed were the sexy, intimate scenes between Cate and her paramours. And I can't believe I'm saying that, because normally I end up skimming the sex scenes and being a bit embarrassed by all the detail. The detail was missing in this book. Cate was involved with a third person who ended up physically assaulting her, and we only heard about him when she was telling Dillon about her prior relationships.

The ending in this book was very rushed. One minute the person attacking Cate was being restrained and five pages later, the book was over. I felt like there was a little more story to tell - maybe an epilogue including the wedding. I also felt like Jessica's character was a tired rehashing of a character NR uses in many of her stories. I felt the same about Cate's mother. Her cavalier dismissal of her child is a theme that's way too common in her books. It's fine to have women as "bad guys," but maybe lay off the child resentment issues a little and give the woman villain a different perspective other than apathy toward the child she gave birth to.

All in all, I didn't think the story was horrible, and I certainly finished the book. Overall, I wish some of the story had more colorful detail. In my opinion, it isn't one of NR's finest. But I'll still look forward to her next book.