Shelter in Place
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4.6 • 2.1K Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
From Nora Roberts comes the #1 New York Times bestseller Shelter in Place (June 2018)—a powerful tale of heart, heroism...and propulsive suspense.
It was a typical evening at a mall outside Portland, Maine. Three teenage friends waited for the movie to start. A boy flirted with the girl selling sunglasses. Mothers and children shopped together, and the manager at video game store tended to customers. Then the shooters arrived.
The chaos and carnage lasted only eight minutes before the killers were taken down. But for those who lived through it, the effects would last forever. In the years that followed, one would dedicate himself to a law enforcement career. Another would close herself off, trying to bury the memory of huddling in a ladies' room, helplessly clutching her cell phone--until she finally found a way to pour her emotions into her art.
But one person wasn't satisfied with the shockingly high death toll at the DownEast Mall. And as the survivors slowly heal, find shelter, and rebuild, they will discover that another conspirator is lying in wait--and this time, there might be nowhere safe to hide.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Shelter in Place starts with a horrific event: a mass shooting at a suburban shopping mall. That violence launches a gripping story that weaves together family drama, neighborhood conflict, and steamy romance. Rather than sensationalizing this violence, bestselling author Nora Roberts shows how the tragedy ripples through the lives of those who were there. The emotional soul-searching of her vivid characters unfolds via snappy dialogue and frank confessions, creating a world that feels uncomfortably relatable even as we grapple with unimaginable tragedy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The latest from the prolific Roberts (Irish Thoroughbred) follows the survivors of a mass shooting in Maine as they piece their lives together, only to be targeted three years later by the tragedy's mastermind. After saving a child during a shooting at the DownEast Mall, college kid Reed Quartermaine bonds with the first officer on the scene, Essie McVee, and decides to be a cop. High schooler Simone Knox encounters fame as the first 911 caller and grows up to become a renowned artist who honors the victims by sculpting their likenesses. Three years later, Reed starts to suspect that something's afoot once he notices that people who were present at DownEast that night begin to turn up dead. His fears are confirmed when he is attacked by Patricia Hobart, the younger sister of one of the shooters who was killed. Patricia blames Simone especially for her brother's death, but particularly has it out for Reed now that he's survived her attack. Reed can't keep himself away from the case of the new deaths, even after it's taken over by the FBI and he meets and falls for Simone. Roberts's characters are serviceable, but real draw is the story, which has some welcome red herrings and a page-turning brio that elevates it above the average thriller. 1,000,000-copy announced first printing.
Customer Reviews
Read, grieve, heal
For someone to give this story a poor review, based solely on the subject matter, is closed minded and just dumb. Books have been written about every facet of the good and evil humans enact upon each other and will continue to do so. Nora Roberts has done what she does best- taken us into the depths of the fear, heartbreak and evil of an act of mass murder and imagined how those who come out the other side might survive, heal and ultimately thrive despite the trauma they have experienced.
As an educator, I am mad, scared and frankly, hopeless, that our American society will change- change gun ownership/licensing laws, change our deeply flawed medical system to help those with mental health deficits- to eradicate the horror of these escalating acts. But I appreciate Mrs. Roberts using her talents to weave an arc, with heart, compassion and insight, and share some healing. I want to hug a LEO, adopt a (yet another!) dog, hang out on the New England Coast and get my art on. 5 stars for a summer read.
Shelter In Place
So good that I read it twice .
Great read
Excellent, hard to put down