Nora Roberts starts off her new series, The Lost Bride Trilogy, with a couple of classic tropes – coming home early to find your fiancé in bed with another person, and discovering you have an unknown wealthy relative who has died and left you a manor house and the funds to care for it. These things happen to Sonya in different chapters, but neither is a spoiler.
The newly single Sonya discovers her father had an unknown twin, who has left her the family home on the coast of Maine. To inherit it fully, she must occupy it 40 weeks a year for 3 years. A trust has been set up to cover maintenance and taxes (because who can afford to inherit a manor house with multiple acres in this economy?). Furthermore, Sonya and her mother discover that her late father drew and painted the manor house, and drew sketches of himself looking at a boy who looked like him, but wasn’t him, in a mirror. Intrigued, Sonya agrees to live at the manor for a three month trial period before committing to the three years. If you suspect that the manor is haunted at this point you are correct. The manor is very haunted with mostly benevolent ghosts and one malevolent ghost. This ghost has cursed the Poole family so that the first bride of every generation dies within a year of her wedding.
While Sonya adjusts to life in a huge house with several helpful ghosts and one hostile tantrum thrower, she is also building a business (graphic designers and web designers need to increase suspension of disbelief), discovering family, getting a dog, making friends, and falling in love. It’s a very Nora Roberts book.
Before I read it, I looked at some early reviews and saw one that called Inheritance unlike any other Nora Roberts book she had ever read. The reviewer didn’t identify what was different, but I have some guesses.
- Roberts has included several happily partnered gay and lesbian people as tertiary characters.
- Sonya’s love interest, Trey, specifically disapproves of the kind of straight, white Christian of a certain tax bracket who only respects other straight, white Christians of a certain tax bracket. Sonya agrees with him.
- The book ends abruptly on a major cliffhanger.
I was surprised by the suddenness of the cliffhanger and I immediately went looking for the release date for book 2. I couldn’t find one. Insert cry emoji here. But, I am not going to harass La Nora about this lest there be another, “I have personally explained the process to you, Debra.” Instead I will wait patiently (ish).
For all that I am often frustrated by Nora Roberts, I truly and deeply appreciate that she wants to be inclusive and is explicitly against bigotry. There is a reason that she is widely respected in romancelandia. Long may La Nora reign. I hope she drags some of her recalcitrant readers with her.
CW: infidelity, slut shaming, workplace harassment, death of parent off page, death in childbirth on page, murder on page, discussion of death by suicide, adoption, hauntings both benign and hostile, discussion of witchcraft.
I received this as an advance reader copy from St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.