The Reef

The Reef is a compelling romantic tale of love, betrayal, and witchcraft surrounding a priceless necklace named Angelique's Curse lost at sea when the Isabella shipwrecks off the Caribbean coast in the 18th century. After chasing the haunted amulet for decades, Matthew and Buck Lassiter team up with the Beaumonts to continue the search, and, together, they stumble onto the Santa Margarita, a sunken ship off the Island of Nevis that contains priceless treasures but no necklace. Tate Beaumont and Matthew's love/hate relationship is painful and, at times, aggravating as the two families find their discovery snatched away by a madman who will go to any length to possess Angelique's Curse. The author's descriptive narrative of underwater show more diving is realistic and colorful, the action is lively, and the plots twists at the end are worth waiting for. All in all, I found this modern-day swashbuckler very entertaining. show less

This book was a little too "romance fiction" for my complete liking but the story about treasure hunting in the Caribbean was certainly exciting and interesting. You just know the young hero and heroine are eventually going to get together but it's interesting to see the impediments to their relationship arise and eventually be overcome. The villain was suitably evil and the other characters were quite well developed. An enjoyable if light read.

This is a reread of a book that I marked as a 3 first time around and I think it is still that. I have read better from her and I am not particularly a fan of marine salvaging stories. There are often lots of ambiguities around who gets what and what is legal. However, there was no question of who the bad guy was going to be in this.
The romance had a very 90s feel with many of the tropes of the time. Still a decent romance but not as nuanced as some of her current romantic suspense. This is more like her contemporary romance trilogies.

Average story from Nora Roberts. Could not get really worked up about the characters, rather non descript, but marine archaeology seemed quite interesting to me. All that history!

The more books I read by Nora Roberts, the more I am discovering her tallent for creating a setting for her novels. She really knows how to take the reader with her on every adventure. The Reef was so well written that you could just imagine yourself in the sea diving for treasure or aboard the boat in the warm sun. The plot was wonderful, the characters were likable, the villians were nasty. I really enjoyed the love story between Tate and Matthew. I liked how it spread out over the years, which made it slightly more realistic. I really enjoyed this book, it was full of adventure!

Very light reading but quite enjoyable. During the reading I couldn't help but wonder how Silas VanDyke would get his reward/punishment.
The book gives some insight into diving for treasure too.

My all time favorite Nora Roberts book. I don't have the brain power to be a marine archelogist, but I dream of it. This allows me to sink fully into that world.