Samyann
Audiobook just over seven hours long, narrated by Kate Rudd.
Gage = Lead male character = Charming, tall and handsome, ridiculously rich, Type A chauvinist.
Nemesis = Charming superman-vigilante, with a bizarre paranormal ability, who always seems to be in the Night Shadow ready to rescue a damsel is distress. He wears all black, including a mask (Spoooooky).
Deborah = Lead female character = Assistant District Attorney (the damsel in distress), career obsessed, beautiful, swoons to the charms of both.
Before the end of the first chapter you’ll have no trouble guessing Nemesis = Gage, both of them give Deborah weak knees. Deborah is written to be the strong female lead, but succumbs to the sexual innuendo of these two characters like a high-hormone-laden teenaged girl. Her reactions are awkward and silly. The romance aspect of Night Shadow is so mawkish your eyes will roll back to bounce on your tailbone. Fast-forwarded a lot through several required, and lengthy, sex scenes to get back to the mystery. Typical of Nora Roberts, 70% of the novel is sickly sentimental foo-foo, 30% mystery, and point of view is an author whim. Nora has a wonderful way of throwing conventional writing dictums out the window :-).
For anyone familiar with the In Death series by Nora Roberts/J.D.Robb, the Deborah/Gage dynamic is just too similar to that of Eve/Roark. Coffee references, Gage being filthy rich … even has a secret high-tech room in his mansion, Deborah being in law enforcement … all uncomfortably similar. Roberts/Robb should simply adjust character names and re-work a bit to create Night Shadow – In Death. Might consider changing the narrator to Susan Erickson for the audiobook and ta-da … new book in the In Death series.
The story line is pretty basic, but good. A cop killing drug dealer is the target of the DA, and for personal reasons, the target of Gage. When the two can stay focused on the bad guys instead of dewey-doe-eyed lovey-dovies, it’s not a bad story.
If you like Nora Roberts romance novels, you’ll like much more of the story than I. *shrug*
