Public Secrets

When I purchased the book last year, it looked vaguely familiar. Let me be clear; I have read a LOT of Nora Roberts. Between haunting the library shelves in Germany for her books and purchasing almost all of the rest, I do believe that I have read most of her books. There are only a few I have not gotten around to reading. When I bought Public Secrets, I thought this was one of those that remained unread. After reading the first page, I remembered the story. It turns out I did read it more than ten years ago and just forgot that I had. Big time #michellefail, but I figured this was a good one for the Flashback Challenge. There is nothing wrong with re-read!

The best part about this story is that it is not, in my opinion, a typical Nora show more Roberts novel. She breaks away from her formula and gives us something a bit different. Yes, there is a romantic lead and a murder mystery, but the romance and the mystery itself play as the backstory to the overarching plot of Emma's development and growth as a strong female character. Rather than flashing back to Emma's past in the first few chapters, the book actually starts out when Emma is three years old, and we follow her progression as she ages. In addition, Emma is not the sole focus. At times, the reader is able to get more insight into her father, at times the narrator focuses on her mother and stepmother. The reader watches Emma grow, make poor decisions, and face the consequences. It is a break from the formula, but it definitely works.

If my daughter were to come to me, in future years, and ask me which one Nora Roberts book should she read, I would almost have to say Public Secrets. As a mother and a female, there are some very strong moral messages delivered in such a way that it is palatable to the reader. Throughout the novel, Ms. Roberts shows us the damage that sex, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, and child abuse can wring on a person (no, not the same person). She shows us that to be popular, you can find ways to avoid drugs and alcohol when offered to you, that it is okay to wait, and more importantly, that you can and should stand up for yourself and your beliefs. The most important message of all that Ms. Roberts passes along is the idea that it is okay, and sometimes necessary, to admit mistakes and ask for help. These are ideas that some would argue need to be shared and discussed a bit more these days.

I am and always will be a Nora Roberts fan. There may be books of hers which I would not call favorites, but I almost always enjoy her work. Public Secrets is no exception. Reading it again helped me understand just what a gem this book is, and reading it after having read so many of her other works made me realize how unique it is in the Roberts canon. Ms. Roberts is not one to shy away from interesting or controversial topics, but I believe she outdid herself with this one. Her tackling of domestic violence is spot on, from the emotional and mental abuse escalating to physical violence to the shame and guilt a person feels when in that situation. Emma McAvoy is a character every woman should come to respect and admire for battling her personal demons and winning. For those of you Nora Roberts fans who have not had the pleasure, I highly suggest picking up this selection as soon as possible so that you too can discover what a gem it is! show less

I always forget which is which between Public Secrets and Private Scandals. This is the one with the daughter of a rock star. And boy, is that first part of the book painful to read if you know what's coming.

I'm in awe of the depth of emotion in this book. Like the other single titles we've read recently, it seems to be more emotionally intense than Nora's newer single titles, though maybe that's just me.

Anyway, though Public Secrets IS a romance, it's really more of a general fiction novel, IMO. Michael shows up here & there throughout the book, but the romance isn't the main point of the book. The main point is Emma, period. We follow her life without too many interruptions from the time she's almost 3 and meets her father to the HEA show more ending with Michael, another thing that's unusual about this one.

Once again, Nora's genius with research shows. It's very convincing. I don't know how to explain it, but some books are obviously researched--you have laundry lists of details proving just how much research the author did, and that are a dead giveaway that the author really doesn't know the subject. Nora doesn't do that. She inserts the details in such a way that it's completely normal feeling, and you'd think that she'd either done a stint as a rock star herself or had one sitting next to her while she wrote it.

Since this was a re-read, I already knew whodunit, but it was still painful. Hard to believe they could keep quiet, keep acting as if they were friends when all along... That's just really cold.

Like I said earlier, this was Emma's story. Michael was a nice guy and all, but he was just there to be nice, to give Emma someone to fall in love with. For me, the members of Devastation were much more vivid characters than the hero in this story. Brian McAvoy and Johnno, especially.

Oh, and the tough, tough subject matter---in addition to kidnapping and murder, there's drug addiction, the perils of fame, AIDS, abusive husband, grief. show less

It was amazing! I just couldn't put the book down. With my little daughter, I don't have much time for reading. But I was trying to read in every free minute. The story was really thrilling and dynamic. Even when I wasn't reading, I couldn't help thinking about it.

Actually, there was one time when I left the book voluntary. It wasn't the problem of plot. I was just taken aback by the cruelty of life described. But we just have to accept the reality.

The story was very real for me. It seems like those people really existed. And it's very important for me. I believed everything described. And i'm definitely going to read some other Nora Roberts' books.

This story is about Emma McAvoy, her father brian, rock god, her junkie mother Jane who literally SOLD her at 3 years of age, & the tragedies in that family, one of which, the death of Emma's baby brother Darren, which takes over 20 years & 2 generations to finally solve. I have to admit, I didn't see the one coming. Not bad, & a relatively quick, easy, page turning read!

I've been reading a lot of Nora Roberts lately and one thing I've noticed is that I like the full-length novels much better than the ones that are part of, say, trilogy collections (or maybe it's just the ones that were written for Harlequin or whichever series she started off writing for). There's much more character development, much more time for characters to actually do more than an immediate falling in love thing. Not that I mind that entirely, but perhaps I shouldn't read four 12-chapter books in a row in which the two characters see each other for the first time and are instantly smitten.

I actually started off a bit uncomfortable with this as there was a clear interest between an older teenager and a 12-yr-old. (At least I show more think that was her age at the time. It's been about a month since I've read the book and I've read a lot of NR books since! I seem to remember that it was my daughter's age, though, which made it that much more unsettling.) However, I've since come to recognize one of the patterns NR uses, which is to have characters meet early on, but then skip ahead a few years at a time. In this case, it made the romance that much more believable; even though it was a little frustrating that (SPOILER ALERT) it took so long for the two leads to get together, I liked that Michael basically carried a torch for Emma his whole life, even if it did start when she was a little too young.

In terms of the rest of the book, I have to admit that I skipped through a bunch of it as I simply can't deal with the particular event that created the whole suspense aspect of the book. And after spending the whole book thinking that there was a greater evil lurking in the background, the actual culprit was a bit of a letdown -- thus the 3.5. But I enjoyed all the rest of it enough to keep picking it up even when I didn't have any time to do so. show less

Though I have long-since cried off Nora Roberts' novels, I have a soft spot for this book, it being one of the first romance novels I ever read. I still consider it one of Roberts' most developed stories, right up there with 'Honest Illusions' and 'Sweet Revenge.' If you're new to this author, skip her recent and perpetual trilogies -- head straight for these older, richer stories.

Typically Nora Roberts, for whom I have a soft spot but make no pretence at her books being great literature, they're very readable but fairly typical romance.

Emma is the main character in this book and it follows her life from being the unwanted child of a rock stars affair to being adopted by that rock star, a botched kidnapping that blights her childhood, through troubled times and finally love.

Kinda spoilerish but it's a Nora Roberts Romance, the character HAS to find love in the end!