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Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. I was so excited for an opportunity to be an ARC reader of a Nora Roberts book. I love Nora Roberts books. Which is why it pains me to give this one a negative review.

Why? Well, a few reasons (semi-spoilers below).

1. I really disliked the main character. Adrian is painted as career-driven and head-strong and both of those are great qualities in a character, but the way she forced her fitness and nutrition regimen on her friends was over the top. She was constantly judging what people ate, constantly forcing them to participate in her fitness videos despite their protests, bringing over weights to peoples houses in a not-so-subtle attempt to get them to work out. That’s not charmingly pushy, it’s obnoxious. Not to mention the way she’s always volunteering other people’s time (“Oh, you need a business manager, Teesha will do it.� Did you ask Teesha before you volunteered her? Nope). Honestly, if any of my friends behaved like Adrian, I’d stop returning their calls.

2. There was very little romance in this romance suspense story. I understand that in a second-change, best-friend’s-brother, friends-to-lovers romance there’s going to be a slow build, but this romance had next to no build. There were hundreds of pages dedicated to the minutia of Adrian’s fitness video productions and her errand running. And maybe two scenes with furtive glances and accidentally-on-purpose touches. There was no sexual tension, no build, none. Then wham, zero to sixty and now there’s sex and they’re in love. If you’re going to give me a slow build romance, there needs to be a build.

3. There was very little suspense in this romance suspense story. Throughout the book there were creepy little murder vignettes stuck in between Adrian’s workout video productions and family dinner parties, but they didn’t seem to build toward anything or fill me with anticipation. Nothing that felt particularly suspenseful. When the suspense portion of the story finally kicked into high gear, our main characters were eating olives on the porch and riding carnival rides while a lot of the heavy lifting of the suspense plot was handled by a cast of tertiary characters whose names I’ve already forgotten.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh. Perhaps I hold Nora Roberts to a higher standard for quality romance suspense books than others. She is the queen, after all. But this one just didn’t make the grade.