Black Hills (edition 2009)

Black Hills
4 Stars

Synopsis:
While visiting his grandparents on a ranch in North Dakota, Cooper Sullivan meets Lily Chance and they begin a friendship that develops into romance years later. After circumstances drive them apart, Lil fulfills her childhood dream of establishing a refuge for large cats and Coop becomes a detective and then a PI. Now, Coop has returned and they rekindle their romance. However, their path is not without obstacles for they must get past Lil’s trust issues as well as the threat of a serial killer who has decided to make Lil his next victim.

Review:
The backstory regarding the animal refuge and the large cats is very enjoyable as are the descriptions of the scenery. While the book begins very well, I found that the middle dragged on a bit until the build-up of tension at the very end. While I did like the main characters and the development of their relationship, I felt that Lil’s trust issues were a bit unfounded and did not warrant her coldness toward Coop.
Farley is definitely my favorite character in the book. His loyalty, honesty and ability to love despite the circumstances of his upbringing make him one of the best characters Nora has ever written.
Recommendation: A enjoyable read overall and I recommend it to Nora fans without hesitation. ( )

an interesting read, the supernatural elements all seeming very matter of fact and the story flowed. You got to find out about Paha Sapa from his childhood, through to his descendants, you got a sense of place, both in the Indian days and in the 30's America days. It all felt a bit dreamlike, I can't say that I really know why Paha Sapa set his goal to be the blowing up of the Rushmore heads or (spolier alert) why he failed to do so in the end, but the story was intersting nevertheless. ( )

i poslije 20 godina ljubav zivi izmedju Lil i Kupa,vlasnica prihvatilista za zivotinje biva progonjena od lovca koji uziva da lovi zene,ali ljubav je brani od svega,ljubav jednog muskarca i jedne divlje macke... ( )

It looks like 2009 is the year Nora Roberts's writing started to go wrong for me. It's like the spark has gone out of her writing, as if her heart is not entirely in it anymore. Also too much research went into the books from here on and not enough thought into the relationships. Luckily, the protagonists in this book still have some problems to solve between them, so I did enjoy this. But some of the background information was presented awkwardly IMO, the writing seemed forced, especially at the start of the book.
Somewhere between 3 and 4 stars, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. ( )

Good story line. The setting is great. ( )