Is it AWFUL? NO! Is it GOOD? NO!
Okay, perhaps, I have read her two worst books, but so far after reading Blue Smoke, I'm scratching my head, wondering, what's the big deal? Big deal? Nora Roberts is supposed to be a big deal. She cranks out a new book every other day, each one a best seller. My wife has read every book she has written including those by Robert's pseudonym, JD Robb. Oh yeah, that's right I read a book by JD Robb too. That makes three mediocre books.
I should have known, when my wife, who considers Roberts' books, light reading, gave Blue Smoke to me after she had finished ninety percent of it. She said it was getting too violent for her and is more to my liking, so what the heck.
Is it awful? No! Is it good? No! Is it just right? I suppose. I'm not sorry I read it. I just expected more from the biggest writer this side of J. K. Rowling (whose appeal, I also don't get).
Blue Smoke
Blue Smoke is a story about a young woman named Reena, short for Catarina, Hale. The story starts one night in 1985 when Reena is twelve years old. The family business, a pizza parlor - Sirico's, has just gone up in flames. It turns out that the fire was intentionally set by a neighbor of the Hale's named Joe Pastorelli, with whom Reena's father, Gibson, had words about his son Joey's assault on Reena, the day previous.
Pastorelli eventually, goes to prison and Reena decides she wants to be a fire investigator when she grows up.
I should mention here that Reena has two older sisters, Fran and Bella, as well as a younger brother, Xander. To a member, they each exhibit the comeliness of their mother, Bianca and father Gib. They are also a very close knit family, a paradigm of the ideal family, including the extended family.
Fast forward to 1992 and Reena is now in college, where she meets her first love, Josh Bolton. Tragedy strikes when Reena's lover dies in a fire, ostensibly caused by smoking in bed.
Reena goes on to become a police arson investigator but while fire has become her career, it continues to haunt her personal life as well as numerous fire related accidents are suffered by those close to her.
Conclusion
It has been several days since I read Blue Smoke, so I may not remember everything. I thought the story was decent. It wasn't confusing and moved along at a good pace, in a nice chronological order. The writing was good, except I do remember a couple of times Roberts' didn't seem to finish a thought. She also lost (confused) me in a few more places. No big deal, I just glanced over those spots.
One of the things that bothered me, was the apparent naivety of the main character. She was a detective, a fire investigator and she couldn't connect the numerous fire incidents in her life, to her. I thought detectives' motto was there's no such thing as coincidences.
Another thing. I'm probably not giving anything away that you haven't figured out, by saying that Josh Bolton was murdered. Josh didn't smoke and Reena told the investigators so. They said, maybe he smoked and didn't want Reena to know it. Come on when people smoke you can smell it on their breath. What's more they were lovers. It's a long time ago, but when I smoked, the first thing I did after making love was reach for a cigarette. Wouldn't an investigator have checked it out with friends, family etc.?
That's just a couple of the holes and loose ends that I found in this novel. Perhaps in her straight romance novels, these oversights are no big deal or don't come up. Final rating 3.25 starsRead full review
