Nora Roberts

After surviving a mass shooting at a movie theater a group of survivors navigate trauma and recovery.

Shelter in Place

Celeste Richardson

Full review now posted!

In my opinion, Nora Roberts is one of the most underrated authors ever. Yes, she’s incredibly popular, but her work is relegated in people’s minds to chick-lit and breezy, mindless beach reads. There’s so much more to her work than that, especially her more recent novels. There’s a depth to her prose and characterizations and descriptions that is overlooked by those who belittle her work and believe that she just writes fluff. I’ve never come across another author who can make me care as deeply about her characters or make me feel their joys and sorrows more profoundly.

With this novel, Nora broaches a topic that is unfortunately all too common in our modern world: mass shootings. Shelter in Place begins with such a shooting, and follows the lives of survivors as they try to put their lives back together. You can never move on from such a travesty, but you can move forward, and that’s what one of our main characters does. After the DownEast Mall shooting that rips his life apart, this character decides to become a cop in hopes of helping prevent other such happenings in the future. Another character dedicates her life to art as a way to block out the past, to try to forget. When someone starts picking off survivors of the shooting, these two come together. And in the midst of this reopened wound, there is healing. And love, because this is still a romance, after all!

Within the first ten percent of the book, Nora had me in tears. Her descriptions of the shooting and the victims and survivors were so realistic that I could hear the pop of bullets and the terrified screams of mall shoppers and movie goers. I felt like I was there. While I’ve been heartsick every time I’ve heard about a shooting in the news, no news coverage has ever sucked me into the midst of death and pain and fear like Nora did through her writing. I was in awe of her skill even as I read on in horror. But what was hardest to read was the stories of survivors trying to figure to how to go on living their lives. Thankfully, our main characters had family and friends who pulled them up and helped them rebuild.

My favorite character hands down was CiCi, a free-spirited artist who is a little bit psychic. She’s also a loving grandmother, and is there for the granddaughter who needs her so much. She opens her heart and home and life to so many people, and I love her for it. There’s no one else quite like her, and she felt incredibly real to me.

I don’t want to name any other characters or go into much more detail, because I don’t want to spoil anything for those who decide to pick up this book. But I will say that I absolutely love when Nora adds art into her stories, because she does such an amazing job describing both the process and the final result. In no other books can I see art so clearly as I can through Nora’s writing. Whether it’s a painting or a sculpture, Nora has such an amazing way of describing art where I can almost look up at my wall and expect to see the piece.

If you can’t tell, I have this deep and abiding love for Nora Roberts. There is no other author who I’ve read more, or reread more. And I have such deep respect for her choice in recent years to start incorporating hard topics that have touched her heart into her work. If I had to choose a favorite author, it would honestly be her.

For more of my reviews, as well as my own fiction and thoughts on life, check out my blog, Celestial Musings.

Shay

Shelter in Place is one of those books that made me fall in love with Roberts' books, and I love going back and rereading this one. It's just so suspenseful and keeps you on your toes almost the whole entire time. That being said, I would definitely check trigger warnings before picking them up because it follows the after-effects of surviving a mass shooting. The book starts off with the shooting, and we follow the survivors as they try to move on and someone trying to complete what started in the mall. I think these characters in this book are so interesting, and seeing them all go in different ways was really interesting. Simone, Reed, and CiCi are some of my all-time favorite characters. I just feel like every time I reread this book, and I see things that I either forgot about or just don't remember happening, so it always ends up being so good and feeling like a new read instead of a reread for me.

Becky

This book began well. The panic and the trauma and people's reactions to a mass shooting were done well. Roberts was sensitive to something which many will have thoughts about, especially with gun control being a key issue in the US right now. Like I said, it began well with the every day becoming this shocking event. The way the shooting was written with it being quick and disjointed made sense and I had a lot of respect for the initial aftermath. Then the book began jumping about a bit.

This book was told with multiple POV which was fine. Once I'd connected to the key characters I was fine with that. But the multiple POV also had time passing at a rapid pace. I expected to see the immediate aftermath and people's reactions but instead it kept bouncing forwards in time seeing major events in characters lives and I got used to that too seeing how even through large gaps of time the shooting still had an impact. I did feel like it was rushed though until Reed and Simone met. I get that was the big romance Roberts was building to but I could have skipped the middle events if that was the case because this book felt dragged out in places and rushed in others.

Also, I mentioned being ok with the multiple POV, and I was, but at times it bounced too much between perspectives so I wasn't sure whose perspective I was seeing things from. It got confusing and I was fed up after a while.

I felt like he big finale was dragged out too. Once the killer was set up and events explained I think there was too much delay between that and the epic showdown at the end of the book. In fact, I began skim reading because I just stopped caring.

I did enjoy elements of the book but the gripes really took over for me at times.

b.andherbooks

Trigger warning: mass shooting

Nora Roberts has been traveling some dark roads lately and I for one am not finding myself loving the results. 

I adore Roberts romances, but alas I wouldn't hardly classify this as one (yes there is a HEA so technically it fits the bill). There is a romance, eventually, between two survivors of a mass shooting but the road to get there makes the overall romance arc a bit of a throwaway. 

About 40% of the novel is a very detailed account of the mass shooting from various character perspectives, the immediate aftermath, and years of separate character development for the main male and female characters who eventually meet up and fall into destined love. There is really no tension between the characters as they are 'fated' so it wasn't really interesting. 

The book is supposed to be suspenseful because there is a nefarious person out there killing survivors of the shooting, but I found myself skimming those parts. You know what is going to happen in the end, so meh.

I believe many Roberts fans will love this book. It is well written, it is a page-turner, it has the Nora Roberts flair. For me who checks in to her for an escape, this was more a "let's get this over with." I'd much rather read about best friends running their successful wedding planning company.

Plus, the hero tells his lady love about fifteen times that he would leave her in a heartbeat for her grandma (view spoiler)[even during HIS PROPOSAL (hide spoiler)]! Yes, grandma is awesome. Maybe he should have been with her. Now THAT would be interesting!

Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for the ARC.

Lynn Braden

Shelter in Place opens with a shooting at mall in suburban Maine. Reed Quartermaine is a college student taking a break from his job as a waiter at a restaurant in the mall when the shooting starts. When he sees a little boy crying, he bravely grabs the boy and hides with him in a kiosk. Simone Knox, high school senior, takes a restroom break in the middle of a movie she is attending with her two best friends when she hears the popping sound she realizes is gunfire and calls nine-one-one from her stall where she hides in the restroom. When the shooting finally subsides, dozens of people have been injured or killed. 
The rest of the story follows the lives of the people affected by the shooting. Reed becomes a police officer as a result of meeting one of the first-responders, and after several traumatic years, Simone finally finds her place in the world as an artist. The two meet for the first time when several of the survivors of the original attack begin dying under mysterious circumstances.
With all of the shootings in the news lately, this is a very timely story, giving insight and thoughtful consideration of those left behind after a tragedy such as this. In her usual style, Roberts brings the characters and their stories to life while telling a tale of courage and love. Overall a very entertaining and thought-provoking story.

Kaye Oliva

When the shots rang out in the shopping mall, Simone Knox knew what to do. Shelter in place. That's what they taught you to do in the event of a mass shooting. So on that terrible, hot summer day in 2005, Simone was lucky. She escaped death. But she would never be the same again. More than ten years later, Simone still struggles with grief, trauma and the misplaced guilt of a survivor. She spends much of her time alone on Tranquility Island - a quiet, artistic community off the coast of Maine. But she is transforming - shaping herself the way she shapes her extraordinary and highly prized sculptures. As she heals herself, she opens up to Reed Quartermaine, who survived the shooting himself and has become a detective. But someone has been watching all the survivors of the DownEast Mall massacre. They have spent years perfecting a plan to finish what was started that day. Now that Reed and Simone have found each other, they are in more danger than they can possibly imagine - from a killer who will not, and cannot stop.

Tina Rawls

Sandi King

McKenzie McWhorter

Cindy

riley dawson

Neisha Gabrysiak

Nathalie Wong

Sophie Sweany

Jill Basilone

Liz Carpenter

Caitlin Snyder

Karen Visser

Kathleen

Ashley Ramirez

From Nora Roberts comes the #1 New York Times bestseller Shelter in Place (June 2018)—a powerful tale of heart, heroism...and propulsive suspense. It was a typical evening at a mall outside Portland, Maine. Three teenage friends waited for the movie to start. A boy flirted with the girl selling sunglasses. Mothers and children shopped together, and the manager at the video-game store tended to customers. Then the shooters arrived. The chaos and carnage lasted only eight minutes before the killers were taken down. But for those who lived through it, the effects would last forever. In the years that followed, one would dedicate himself to a law enforcement career. Another would close herself off, trying to bury the memory of huddling in a ladies’ room, helplessly clutching her cell phone—until she finally found a way to pour the emotions of that night into her art. But one person wasn’t satisfied with the shockingly high death toll at the DownEast Mall. And as the survivors slowly heal, find shelter, and rebuild, they will discover that another conspirator is lying in wait—and this time, there might be nowhere safe to hide. From the author of Year One and Come Sundown, Shelter in Place blends propulsive suspense, a cast of vivid characters, and intimate psychological insight in a rich, exciting read.

Shelter in Place

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