Black Hills

Author: Nora Roberts
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Grade: C

Have I ever given Nora Roberts a C before? I don't honestly know but I have my doubts. This book, however, I feel merits a C if not lower.

The book begins with our hero and heroine meeting as children. Eleven year old Cooper Sullivan was supposed to spend the summer at baseball camp but instead has been dumped upon Grandparents he barely knows while his parents try to salvage their marriage. He and the grandparents are invited for dinner at Lilly's house -- her mom and dad and his grandparents are hoping the kids get along. It proves to be a momentous evening -- Lilly is a darn good ball player with a batting cage of her own (her dad played ball for awhile and has taught her quite a bit) and to add to the excitement the kids run into a cougar. It gives Coop his first real happy evening in awhile.

Lil and Cooper form a lasting friendship that survives the span of many miles and years. When Coop comes back the summer Lil graduates from high school Lil makes sure they take the relationship up a notch, going from friends to lovers on a weekend camping trip she has mapped out almost as carefully as she has mapped out her future career. Lil is nothing if not a meticulous planner, from birth control pills to single tent. The cougar makes a second appearance, seeming to give an eerie kind of blessing to their union but what really marks the trip is their finding of a dead body. Doggedly, Lil ensures that the dead hiker is not the final word on their relationship and the two begin a sporadic and difficult long distance relationship.

If by now you are not getting a picture of Lil as the driving force of this union, what have I done wrong? Lil has PLANS for her future and has carefully mapped them out to include Coop. She is puzzled why the huge distances and sporadic meetings don't suffice for him and is actually stunned by their breakup. She can't forgive Coop for what he has done to her and the two drop to the level of acquaintances -- an acquaintanceship where Lil is careful that the two don't run into each other when Coop's visit to his grandparents coincide with Lil being home.

Then the two find themselves back together in Montana. Coop has come home to help his injured grandfather run the farm and Lil has built a big cat refuge next to her parents place. But Coop and Lil are not the only people who have come back . . . . .

I never really got a clear image of Coop -- he seemed very two dimensional through out the book, as though he were simply a prop for Lil. Lil is one of the few Robert's heroines I have not loved. She was so planned and meticulous, which was admirable, but she seemed unforgiving when people didn't fall in line with those plans. I found her very controlling and while that was good in her work I sure didn't like the way she applied it to her personal life.

The mystery was confusing, not in a blow your mind away conclusion style but in a lackluster, no real motive style. The killer enjoyed killing and had many unique characteristics but I was left with an impressionist style image of him, not a clear snapshot. That doesn't really fit with Robert's writing style so it added a bit of a jarring note.

There is a sweet secondary romance, which I enjoyed and the information on the big cats was interesting if not riveting. Overall not a great read but not a terrible one either.