Savor the Moment - Nora Roberts

This saved the series for me. I was rather disappointed with Emma and Jack's story but I really liked Laurel and Del.

Maybe it's because Laurel's more like me. She had to scrape and work to get through school while holding down jobs that paid the bills. As a result, she's forthright and not afraid to go after what she wants. She is a pastry chef and runs that aspect of Vows.

Del may be wealthy (and here is where the comparison between Laurel and me ends) but he's not snobbish. In some ways, Laurel is more stuck up than he is. But it's a reverse sort of discrimination against herself as she doesn't feel worthy of being with him.

I liked Del; he wasn't too overconfident and cocky. He was the right mix of man, boy, adult and child for me. Fun loving but serious when the situation requires it. He helped Laurel unwind a bit and stop being so stuffy.

Overall, good job!

Sea Swept - Nora Roberts

Every NR fan I know has told me that I must read the Chesapeake Bay series. And "must" is always emphasized that way when they talk about it. I figured it should be good but I picked it up last year at the last book. I never blogged about it because I didn't want to go out of order here. lol ... yes, I know.

Anyway, Cameron Quinn came from a troubled past as did the rest of the boys that Stella and Ray Quinn adopted. She was unable to have kids so they kept their eye out for children who needed the assistance. Cam did. When they came across him thinking about stealing their Corvette, they never thought about it twice. Cam had been beaten severely and regular abuse from a mother who just didn't care left him wary and mistrusting of everyone. Ray and Stella assumed legal guardianship and fought to adopt him to give him a better life.

It took a while but eventually he came around and became part of the family. In time, they gave him brothers. Phillip and Ethan had gone through similar issues and eventually became absorbed into the family whole. They thought of themselves as brothers and they were at the heart of it.

Eventually, they grew up and left the nest as children so often do. Ethan stayed the closest, choosing to fish the waters of the river and bay. Phillip went into advertising in Baltimore. And Cameron went to Europe to race. I think he raced hydrofoils solely. They're those things that float just on top of the water. Our story really starts with Ray's accident.

He had collected another child and only had him for a few months when he ran into a telephone pole on the way back from Baltimore. It started a ripple effect for everyone connected with him. Cam came back from Europe. Ethan and Phillip moved back into the house after the funeral. Seth was still in a surly stage especially since he didn't really know Cam. He, like the rest of them, had been abused not only by his mother but by the men she brought home constantly. He trusted no one.

Enter Anna Spinelli, a social worker with a caring heart and an insight into the kind of troubles that can tear a child apart. Her only interest, at first, is the best interests of the child. She guides the Quinns through the process, all the while seeing that they're becoming a family unit. The inevitable happens (it IS a NR book after all) and she falls for Cam. Being male, he falls for her too but doesn't realize it until it's too late.

One question lingers over all of them. Was Ray's accident truly an accident or was it suicide?

Homeport - Nora Roberts

This may be one of my favorites of her standalones.

Dr. Miranda Jones is an archeometrist. She is a scientist that studies, authenticates, and restores various art pieces for public and private display. Art restoration and display is a family affair. Miranda and her brother, Andrew, run the Institute in Maine where they teach various classes and restore paintings in the labs as well as work as curators of the museum. Their father, Charles, prefers dig sites to family and is usually off. Elizabeth, the mother, moves to Italy and opens her own lab, Standjo, where she is engaged in authentication of new pieces.

It is on such a mission that Elizabeth contacts Miranda and orders her to Italy. In their family, there is no tenderness ... no care. Miranda is delayed as she is mugged in front of her house, an unusual occurence as she lives in a very small town. For those of you who don't live in a small town, something like that would never happen as there typically aren't enough people to rob or care about.

It is the start of a downslide for the entire family. Miranda gets to Italy and authenticates an original, undiscovered work of Michelangelo's which is later proven to be a fake. Andrew's drinking gets worse and worse. The Institute is robbed after Miranda's return from Florence by a retiring thief who also happens to be a gallery owner in NYC named Ryan Boldari.

He discovers that the statute he stole is also a fake and is bound & determined to prove that Miranda did it on purpose. Along the line, they figure out that someone is trying to ruin her and fall in love. It's a fun ride that takes us from New England's serenity to the bustle of Brooklyn and the beauty that is Florence.

Enjoy!

Voyager - Diana Gabaldon

Where to start with this? There's so much that happens.

The basic plot of the story is this: Claire goes back to find Jamie. Her husband died two years prior and her daughter is in her third year of college. She contemplates which would be better for her ... staying with Bree in the present or going back to put her heart together again.

She went back but it wasn't the easy, blissful ending she pictured in her mind. Jamie had changed and so had she. If they'd been together for the prior 20 years, those changes wouldn't have been as obvious. And probably some of them wouldn't have occurred at all. They have a lot to relearn about the other.

While they were newly reunited, Jamie's nephew Ian was kidnapped and taken to the West Indies. They followed him and the usual mayhem ensues on the trip. Jamie's seasickness, Claire's healing (which gets her pushed into the King's service for England) among other things. Fergus and Marsali (Laoghaire's daughter) handfast. There's a snitch among Jamie's men who turns out to be Mr. Willoughby (an Asian that Jamie saved from himself), a murderer on the loose in Jamaica when they get there and more. The new governor of that island is a former jailer and current friend of Jamie's. He has custody of Jamie's bastard son. It just never ends.

And that's what makes this series so compelling. Everything keeps piling up but you just can't put the books down.