Shelter in Place in Audiobook Junkies

May 29, 2020 ⊱✿⊰ Alicia ⊱✿⊰ rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2020-audiobooks, 2020-re-reads, nora-roberts

To say this started with a bang would be an understatement. The first part of this book deals with a situation that may be a trigger for some people but it is something we have seen a lot of in the past 10 years. I was in tears while listening to it, I couldn't imagine going through that and not being completely shattered.

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We got taken through that horrific situation with two seperate teenage characters Reed and Simone both in different circumstances, then we go through their journey of finding ...more

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Nov 01, 2018 SB*needs low angst books* rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: nora-roberts, low-angst, contemporary-romance, romantic-suspense, ok-read, annoying-side-characters, borrowed-from-library, great-heroes-not-ott-alpha

Mass Shooting warining

Simone Knox is at the DownEast Mall Cineplex with her best friends Tish and Mia. She was recently dumped by her boyfriend and decided to do movies instead of shopping with her Mom and sister.

Reed Quartermaine is working at Mangia at the DownEast Mall while on summer break from college. He is on his ten minute break and about to try to get a date with a girl he is interested in.

Officer Essie McVee is in the parking lot at the DownEast mall with her partner and they are cu ...more

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Jun 20, 2018 Kathy Martin rated it it was amazing

This standalone thriller begins at the DownEast Mall outside Portland, Maine, on a July evening in 2005. Two girls take their friend to the latest science fiction movie to help her get over being dumped on social media by her boyfriend of seven months only to find out that he, and the girl he threw her over for, are at the same showing. A college sophomore takes his break from the restaurant where he works to chat up the girl he liked to date at the sunglasses kiosk and then stops off at the gam This standalone thriller begins at the DownEast Mall outside Portland, Maine, on a July evening in 2005. Two girls take their friend to the latest science fiction movie to help her get over being dumped on social media by her boyfriend of seven months only to find out that he, and the girl he threw her over for, are at the same showing. A college sophomore takes his break from the restaurant where he works to chat up the girl he liked to date at the sunglasses kiosk and then stops off at the gaming store to get his buddy to ride shotgun for him. A perfectly normal evening at hundreds of malls across the country...until the shooters arrive.

Simone, our heartbroken girl, is in the restroom when the shots begin in the theater she just left. She's the first to call 911. Then she stays hiding until the police come to find her. Reed, our boy looking for a date, hears the shots on the way back to his job, rescues a small boy looking for his mother, and hides in the sunglasses kiosk next to the body of the girl he wanted to date. The first cops on the scene were outside in the parking lot dealing with a fender bender when the call came in. Officer Essie McVee rushes into the mall along with her partner. Backup is three minutes out.

In eight minutes, the whole thing is over. Three 16 and 17-year-olds are dead as are their 80-some victims. Hundreds are wounded and, wounded or not, no one there is unaffected.

Thirteen years later, Patricia, the younger sister of the boy Essie killed, is ready to get revenge for those people she blames for killing her brother. She's a psychopath, sure she's smarter than anyone else, and she is motivated to right what she sees as the injustice of her brother's death. In fact, she is the one who planned the whole mall shooting but her brother moved up the timeline before she was ready.

Reed has become a cop who has been investigating the shooting and aftermath in his spare time for his whole career. He and Essie are partners both in the police force and in the investigation. Patricia tracks him down and shoots him and he wounds her too. As part of his recovery, he goes to Tranquility Island which he remembers fondly from childhood family vacations and where he meets CiCi who is a free-spirited artist who happens to be the grandmother of Simone. Simone has also become an artist after going through her own tough time after the shooting.

Reed becomes the new Chief of Police and he and Simone fall in love. However, Patricia needs to be caught before they can finally move on. Tensions mount as Patricia claims more and more victims and both Reed and Simone know that they are on her hit list.

This book has all the elements that Nora Roberts is known for. The characters have strong support systems and strong networks of friends. Both Reed and Simone are strong, caring people who don't need a relationship to fill gaps in their lives. Though they are very different people, the cop and the artist enrich each other's lives.

This was a fast-paced story filled with suspense and love. I couldn't put it down. ...more

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Jun 13, 2018 Talya rated it it was amazing

Shelves: contemp-romance, mystery-suspense, guys-pov, tearjerker, nora-2018

Very well done. I think Nora tastefully touched on a difficult and all too relevant topic of mass shooting, and the survivors finding ways to cope, while remembering those they lost.

Simone is a great heroine, one of the most unique in my Nora library. She's written quite a few free spirited types, but something about her sticks out differently. Reed was also a great hero lead, he has classic Nora traits of being very sure of himself, and what he wants, while being respectful of women and others. ...more

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Jul 05, 2018 Darcy rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2018, romantic-suspense, audio-book

I liked this one, but the start of it was a bit brutal, it starts out with a shooting at a mall and it's pretty graphic, what I think would probably happen in real life. I'm not sure how I feel about that, the topic is in the news (as it should be) so much lately since the Parkland shooting. I realize that this book was probably written before that happened and I worried how Roberts would portray this, but she did a good job.

I liked that we got to follow 2 people in depth in the aftermath and 1 ...more

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Sep 18, 2018 Vi ~ Inkvotary rated it really liked it

Shelves: i-o-a-c, 2018-newreleasechallenge, hc, english-orig, 2018-release-e, 2018-nora

Inkvotary
At first, I was wondering, what the cover motive might have to do with the novel itself, and the blurb wasn´t giving me any hint. But after I´ve started reading, it became very clear, and I´d have to say, very fitting.

Simone´s life changes from one second to the other during what was supposed to be a normal evening out with her best friends. But with the bullets flying around all over the place and people are screaming and dying, Simone does the only thing she can think of. Calling for Inkvotary
At first, I was wondering, what the cover motive might have to do with the novel itself, and the blurb wasn´t giving me any hint. But after I´ve started reading, it became very clear, and I´d have to say, very fitting.

Simone´s life changes from one second to the other during what was supposed to be a normal evening out with her best friends. But with the bullets flying around all over the place and people are screaming and dying, Simone does the only thing she can think of. Calling for help. And from that moment on, she does whatever she can to keep that horrible incident in the past and out of her actual life. Not knowing, that she hurts others with her new lifestyle and way of thinking. Only her grandmother CiCi understands her. And with Reed stepping into her life again years later, Simone finally starts to see what wounds that tragic day has caused in her.

With this book,, the author has changed her writing style a tiny bit. Usually, her style is smooth, soft and very sensitive. This time, it reads a bit like a staccato-rhythm and irritated me at first. But after some chapters, I´ve got used to it. The author still writes in a sensitive way about a shooting rampage and shows what consequences such a brutal and cruel act has and can have on people.

To turn something bad in something good, that is, at least I see it that way, one of the messages, this novel contains.

Somehow a few things, like the island CiCi is living on, sounded very familiar to me. And after searching a bit, I knew that the author had used an island in one of her other books as well as for the main figure. Thankfully she created a completely different place with the island in this novel, so no harm was done.

The way how Simone changes, after the fatal shooting at the Mall, is impressive. Sure, she shows every sign of a restless person after going through such a nightmare, but she is coping with it in her very own way.

And when she discovers with the help of her grandmother CiCi that she, too, has a creative talent, she starts to heal bit by bit. Her art is amazing, her way to honor the dead, to value life is beautiful and I liked it very much to read the scenes in which Nora Roberts described the process Simone went through while creating her art.

Shelter in Place is a solid reading pleasure, no doubt about that. But nothing out of the ordinary I´d say. Don´t get me wrong, I had a wonderful time reading it, and consider this novel a good book to spend an afternoon or weekend with. ...more

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Jun 10, 2018 Judy Hall rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-set-in-massachusetts-and-new, 2018-facebook-challenge, 2018-nora

It's a Friday night in July and the Down East Mall is busy. Simone and her 2 best friends are at the movie to help distract her from the boy who broke her heart and is now sitting 3 rows ahead of them. Her mother and sister are shopping in the mall. So is little Brady Fuller and his mother. Reed, Chaz and Angie are all working on summer break for college. And Essie and her partner are dealing with a fender bender in the parking lot.

Simone steps out to the rest room and returns to a horror that It's a Friday night in July and the Down East Mall is busy. Simone and her 2 best friends are at the movie to help distract her from the boy who broke her heart and is now sitting 3 rows ahead of them. Her mother and sister are shopping in the mall. So is little Brady Fuller and his mother. Reed, Chaz and Angie are all working on summer break for college. And Essie and her partner are dealing with a fender bender in the parking lot.

Simone steps out to the rest room and returns to a horror that will change all their lives. As she sees the blood and hears the gunshots, Simone runs back to the rest room to hide and call 911. She's the first. But there are more shooters. Reed is the second to call 911 as he finds Brady alone and makes sure that he is hidden.

Essie and her partner are the first officers through the doors. She is able to take down the shooter in the theater. As more officers close in, the other two shooters keep their promise not to be taken alive. In minutes, the worst mass shooting in this century is over. The survivors are left to pick up the pieces of their lives.

The shooting isn't just an opening to introduce what comes later. It goes on as we follow Reed and Simone and Essie through this night. Not just the shooting, but then finding those they care about and learning what happened to them. Simone's amazing grandmother CC shows up to help her family and be sure her daughter and granddaughters are alright.

Ultimately, the book follows Simone and Reed through the next years as they deal with the aftermath and figure out their lives. Reed joins Essie as a police officer. Simone takes a harder path to figure out who and what she is. Years later, fate brings Simone, Reed and CC together again on Tranquility Island.

This was such a powerful story. I finished this book yesterday and I am tearing up as I write the review. Shelter in Place is not a political book about gun violence. After reading it, you may skew more towards gun control because of the visceral experience shared with these victims, but it doesn't hit you over the head. There are plenty of people who responsibly own guns in this book.

There is just as much about the damage we can do to the ones we love without even realizing it. We can try to force people to fit our molds. We can get lost in our own pain and not see the pain of others. We can assume that the face we see is what there is and forget the soul beneath. That's a worthwhile conversation to be had days after we lost Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain to suicide.

The second half of this book is the book you expect from Nora Roberts, but, by the time you get there, the emotional foundation that she laid doesn't make the romance seem like every other book. I will say that I think Reed is the best hero Nora Roberts has ever written (under the name Nora Roberts). ...more

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