The Witness by Nora Roberts, Good Entry Point to LaNora?

I’ve been meaning to get into the world of Nora Roberts’ books for a few years now, but something always held me back. Whether it was residual teenage snobbishness regarding “airport books” or just not knowing where to begin, but I just never got around to it. 

Until recently. I was in the worst reading slump of my life (do I say this about every single reading slump I get into? Yes, yes I do. I’m dramatic like that.), and nothing, not even my favorite authors could get me out of it. Not even re-reading my favorite books could do it. So I was on the lookout for something totally different from what I usually read. 

And voila, Nora Roberts came up. Now, I was very confused as to where to begin. I didn’t want to start a series (definitely not the 60-parts-and-counting one), so a standalone seemed a good idea. One short reddit search later, and the consensus was The Witness was the book to go for. 

So, here we are. I have read my first Nora Roberts and I have… thoughts. 

The spoiler-free TLDR is: The Witness is an unusual book; it’s romantic suspense, but the romance happens quickly and the suspense fizzles out. It’s weirdly cozy, but it keeps you on your toes throughout. It has some old-fashioned ideas, but nothing too jarring, and the prose is serviceable (nothing too flowery, but not spare either). If you’re curious about Nora’s work, I’d recommend giving it a go, you won’t have a bad time, I promise.

• My rating: 2 ⭐
• Heat level: 3 🌶 (nothing too wild, but explicit; more emotional than physical)
• Standalone or series? Standalone.
• Content warnings: Murder, domestic abuse, drinking, drug use, violence and blood/gore, parental negligence/abuse, underage drinking.
• Page count: 496 pages (on my e-reader; a bit overlong if you ask me).
• Read if: you need a book for a lazy day or a long trip, something engaging but not too demanding.

Now, onto the full review. 

Summary

The Witness opens with our heroine, Elizabeth, having a fight with her mother. It’s clear she has not had a normal life. At sixteen, she is already in college, looking at a summer of interning at her mother’s hospital, all with zero friends or experiences that a normal teenager would have. 

Her mother is controlling, distant and cold. She ignores Elizabeth’s pleas for some freedom, and leaves before their conversation is even over. 

And thus our story takes off — Elizabeth decides to have a makeover, and runs into a former classmate, Julie. They agree that Julie will help with the makeover if Elizabeth will make them some fake IDs, so they can go to a club. 

Unfortunately, the club is owned by the Russian mafia, and Elizabeth and Julie are just unlucky enough to catch the eye of two of its members. When they leave the club to go to one of the guys’ home, disaster strikes — Julie’s date is killed, then Julie, and Elizabeth witnessed it all. 

Guilt-stricken, she goes into witness protection, where she finally finds some sort of normalcy (weirdly enough), but then disaster strikes again when her location is leaked and the marshals protecting her get killed, leaving her to run off on her own.

Then we have a time-skip, after which we land in a small town in the Ozarks where Brooks, a local chief of police, is fascinated by a reclusive newcomer. Sensing something off about her, he’s determined to know more. The newcomer is obviously Elizabeth, now Abigail — extremely guarded, gun-toting, socially inept, paired with a big, dangerous dog. 

All she wants to do is be left alone, but Brooks won’t give up, so she, eventually, does. Romance ensues, all while bad guys of all varieties keep closing in. Every interaction with the law could be dangerous for Elizabeth/Abigail, but as she falls for Brooks, telling him her secrets becomes unavoidable, and so does facing the mafia that’s still after her. 

The Suspense

While the book certainly opens with a bang, it doesn’t keep it up throughout. You get this big, explosive beginning, full of uncertainty and danger, only to settle in for some gardening and wine-drinking immediately after. 

And sure, you could say — and I’ll agree — that you feel as if Elizabeth’s in danger the whole time. We get POV chapters from the mafia, she keeps hacking their computers, local rich people hire private detectives to investigate her. It feels as if the danger is constantly closing in, yes, but it also fizzles out so quickly that it leaves you disappointed. 

It’s a constant “that’s it?” feeling. 

For example, when the aforementioned rich people hire a personal detective and he starts investigating her, you expect something to come of it, right? But instead, Brooks disposes of the PI quickly and easily, back home for dinner on time. 

Many other plot points which feel dangerous fizzle out in a similar way. Even the climax, where Elizabeth finally faces the mafia, just kind of… happens? The mafia is arrested, Elizabeth goes to court, the end. 

I kept expecting them to come in at some point, to find her or notice what she’s been doing to them, but it just doesn’t happen. 

Instead, we spend time on building a garden, getting an abusive husband back with his abused wife, reading about women suddenly undressing for Brooks. (more on all of this later)

And while I did believe this book would be more suspenseful, I can’t say I’m entirely mad at how it all plays out. This is what I meant when I said The Witness is kind of cozy — things just happen smoothly. If you watched or read the Mistletoe Murders, it’s kind of like that. 

I would definitely enjoy more of the same, but you shouldn’t expect a high-octane drama/action. The gun is on the table, but no one ever shoots it. 

The Romance

This is the part I was more curious about and excited for, if I’m honest. And unfortunately, this is the part that disappointed me more.

I expected something swoony and sexy, a slow burn (because the situation required it, in my mind), tons of tension and back and forth. Instead, Elizabeth and Brooks get together quickly, and it’s a very matter-of-fact thing, nothing swoony about it. 

What bothered me even more is the way Brooks pursued Elizabeth until she relented, despite her saying no repeatedly. He kept coming to her house even though she said she didn’t want him there. His mother even visits her and talks her into giving in to Brooks (in a way). And then Elizabeth sort of decides that Brooks is handsome and she’d like to sleep with him. 

And Brooks is so smug about it, too. He believes he’s always right and what he wants is always correct and he should get it, and Elizabeth is just a silly creature for not going with it immediately, which is so deeply unsexy to me. 

He constantly refers to Elizabeth as “my woman”, and maybe there’s something of local flavor I’m not quite catching but this, too, is so repulsive to me. He calls her a “restful woman” and constantly implies that all other women are a certain way (bossy, naggy) but Elizabeth isn’t and so she’s better. 

Elizabeth is constantly compared with Brooks’ old girlfriend who is beautiful and very aware she’s beautiful, but that’s not a good thing — Elizabeth is better because she believes she’s plain. 

I wanted to ascribe all of this to the book being of its time or, if not that, then showing the author’s age, I guess. But I’ve since read bodice rippers written in the ‘90s with less of this type of stuff, so I am now extra disappointed. Plus, this book came out in 2012. 

There’s also a side-plot, a local case Brooks is trying to “solve”. One of his high-school friends drinks a lot, and when he does, he likes to beat his wife (for some reason, it’s very important that he gets mean on whiskey, and a specific brand at that). So, the way Brooks solves this is to order the friend to stop drinking and to apologize and make amends to his wife. And then they can be together. The end. 

Really? This is how we’re handling domestic abuse? 

The whole sequence left me reeling, like come on. Again, this book came out in 2012, why are we doing this? No support for the poor woman, nothing at all (though we’re supposed to think Brooks is a saint for doing this “for the wife”). The justification is that she always comes running to get her husband out of prison and that Brooks believes the beatings are some sort of foreplay for them????

(!!!!)

Final Thoughts

So, if the suspense didn’t quite work, and the romance didn’t quite work, why did I recommend this? 

Well, the truth is, despite all of my issues with the individual elements of The Witness, the whole picture was surprisingly okay. Where romance failed, the suspense picked up, and vice versa. With the small town being cozy, and lovely scenes of gardening and all the dogs, it was, to use Brooks’ words, a restful experience. 

This is the kind of book you take with you to a beach, or on a long train ride. It doesn’t require you to think too hard and it doesn’t keep you on your toes for too long, while also being far from unintelligent. So, if you’re having a lazy, sleepy sort of day (or a weekend) and you want something breezy, quick, but still interesting enough to keep you awake, I’d suggest reading The Witness.