If romantasy is a thing, romanstery should be too, and Hidden Nature is a great exemplar…
If romantasy (a blend of “romance” and “fantasy”) is the hot new thing in genre fiction right now, then I think romanstery (“romance” and “mystery”) should also be a thing. And Nora Roberts has just written a fine exemplar in Hidden Nature, which is coming out in a couple of days. Of course, it’s worth noting that not only does Eleanor Marie Robertson Wilder have lots of experience writing romances with strong female leads under her Nora Roberts pen name, including many with law enforcement or crime elements, she also has written sixty-one successful mysteries under another pen name, JD Robb. So it makes sense that she’d do a great job combining the two.
The protagonist of Hidden Nature is an officer in the Natural Resources Police, whose mandate is mostly education and enforcement of laws and regulations relating to, well, natural resources. But the NRP are also sworn peace officers and when Sloan walks in on a convenience store robbery, she is shot and almost dies. Stuck on medical leave, she temporarily moves back to her hometown, and in her spare time (you can only do so much physical therapy), she picks up crocheting. But she also picks up – informally – the case of a young wife who has disappeared while making Thanksgiving dinner. What follows is a very nice investigation, as Sloan first finds similarities to other recent missing-persons cases, and eventually realizes that she has identified a previously undetected serial killer(s). I’m a huge fan of police procedurals, and Hidden Nature is a great one – I was able to follow along and enjoy the blend of legwork and insight as Sloan and colleagues figure things out.
Of course, for there to be a romanstery, there also has to be a romance, and Hidden Nature has a slow-burn one that develops right alongside the investigation. Neither Nash nor Sloan were looking for someone at this point in their lives, but they click, and readers get to enjoy the result. Although I’ve been a fan of the JD Robb/Eve Dallas series for years, I’m a bit of a late-comer to Nora Roberts’ books, and so I was very happy to read a nice blend of the two. Even if no one else is calling them romansteries…
I do have one minor issue with Hidden Nature: there is a definite “ick factor” to the murders that felt unnecessary, since the basic motive was warped enough on its own. You’ll know it when you read it and I definitely could have done without it. However, I was able to mostly skip over those bits, which were more like occasional fingernails on a chalk board. I thought about knocking off half-a-star for the ickiness, but since it’s largely ignorable, and since the rest of the story is great, I rounded up to 5 stars. And finally, my thanks go to St Martins and NetGalley for my advance review copy.
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