I was a thirty-year-old virgin (stop laughing). Okay. Okay. I was a thirty-year-old virgin to Nora Roberts' storytelling until my husband brought home a Nora Roberts book for my birthday. (Okay. All right! So I'm not really thirty either.) I admit I was skeptical. Nora Roberts is one of the most popular, best-selling authors in the world. All those books (more than 150) had to mean that the quality was lacking, right? (Okay, so I am a book snob too.) Boy, was I wrong! Northern Lights, Nora Roberts' romantic suspense novel, dished up enough excitement, the perfect amount of romance, and a hearty enough helping of intrigue to keep my literary appetite satiated. And did I mention the quality storytelling was first rate?

Northern Lights initiates the audience immediately to its thrilling prose with a daredevil plane ride into the Alaskan wilderness where we meet Ignatious (Nate) Burke. He's a man with a past, and as anyone with a past does, he runs from it, straight to Lunacy, Alaska, where he's been hired as the chief of police in the everyone-knows-everyone town. He's strong-willed, stubborn, and no-nonsense; like a glacier, ninety percent of Nate is buried beneath the surface, being haunted by demons from his past, demons he's not sure he'll escape. Then Nate meets Meg Galloway, a daredevil bush pilot who's her own strong-willed, stubborn, no-nonsense, independent person. Nate can't help but be drawn into her vibrancy considering his darkness, and Meg knows she's in for a rough ride from the first kiss she shares with Nate. But the fate in Lunacy has other plans for Nate, a plan to force him to face his demons. When a body is discovered in the snowy peaks of a mountain named No Name, the discovery sets off a chain of events that test Nate's instincts, his will, his skills of survival, and his very desire to live.

Nora Roberts wrote a superb narrative in Northern Lights that captures the imagination so effectively I had to remind myself I was reading fiction. Ignatious (a name I love after reading this book) was stellar. He is strong and intelligent as well as unafraid to commit to honest admittance of his weaknesses. I couldn't help but fall in love with Nate Burke and his rough exterior because I knew he had a heart of gold. He doesn't come across as the idealized hero of most romances, but instead has grooves, creases, and chasms of character that make him all the more endearing. Ignatious Burke is Northern Lights and makes the novel wonderful. So you might say my first time was pleasurable--my first Nora Roberts experience that is. After reading Northern Lights, which I highly recommend, I will be on the lookout for another Nora Roberts title to knock my socks off.

Reviewed By Maci Walker
© July 2005