Shelter in Place

Wow! This book opened with so much drama, so emotional. Be ready for this one, don't start reading it without a bit of time to at least get through the first few chapters, and definitely have a box of tissues to hand. It starts off with three teenage friends meeting in a shopping mall to go to the cinema who get caught up in a mass shooting by three teenagers, and the fallout around this shocking act. The rest of the book mainly centres around two of the survivors, Reed Quartermaine who managed to save a young boy and eventually become a Detective, and Simone Knox (one of the three teenage friends) who placed the first emergency call, and become a well-known sculptor, along with someone (no spoiler) trying to kill off the survivors years later. There were also side characters who helped both main characters to finally meet up, years later, on Tranquility Island, the main ones being Essie, one of the first Officers on the scene, the one who killed one of the shooters and Reed's inspiration to become a police officer, and CiCi, Simone's grandmother, who I absolutely loved! She was such a bohemian artist type character, who lived her life the way she wanted to, without anyone telling her what to do, but equally loved her family, especially Simone, so much. The story just flowed so well, I didn't want to stop reading it, with the suspense always lingering in the background, ramping up to nail-biting towards the end; when was the killer going to strike, were they going to kill any of our main characters? I have to say there is a dog in it, and he's not harmed, in case anyone (like me!) would be worried. An absolutely fabulous book that I wanted to keep reading, but didn't want to finish, as now what am I going to read to follow this?! Another keeper from the very, very talented Nora Roberts.

From the very start this book had you emotionally hooked and you will need a full day to start this book because of it and how you get swept up into the horror of something that can and has happened. I will never truly understand what peoole feel when this happens but this book surely brought you a little bit of the terror kids and adults go through in the most horrible time of their life...

Just the right mix of zany characters and the ever present dark foreboding in the background. I did think the finale was a bit tame, but forgivable since the book was a pleasure to read and got me through a 2 day illness as well.