C-
Genre: Romantic Suspense, Romance
If Present Day Elyse traveled back in time and told Past Elyse that someday Nora Roberts would write a romantic suspense novel that didn’t quite work for her, Past Elyse wouldn’t have believed her. Then Past Elyse would have squinted at Present Day Elyse and said, “Are we growing out our bangs again? You know we’re only going to last six weeks before we cut them.”
I love Nora Roberts’ romantic suspense books. I schedule time off around release dates. I was so excited when Under Currents was released because I assumed it would be a slam dunk for me. Unfortunately the pacing and the plot of this book felt so disjointed that it was difficult to enjoy. Rather than having several plot threads woven together, the story resolves them consecutively, like ticking boxes off a checklist. The result is that the tension is almost constantly disrupted and my reading experience was really uneven.
I do want to warn that this book deals with domestic violence and much of that violence is graphic. That includes violence against children. There is also one scene that includes a rape.
Under Currents unfolds in three parts. The first occurs in the past when Zane Bigelow is a high schooler living in a fancy suburb in North Carolina. Zane’s father is the head of surgery at their local hospital. His mother is a homemaker, dedicated to keeping herself and her house looking perfect at all times. While their exterior life looks ideal, the reality is that Zane’s father, Graham, is a violent and controlling man. He routinely beats his wife, Eliza, but the abuse doesn’t spill over to the children. Then one day rather than going to his room as told, Zane tries to stop his father, fearing his mother will be killed. Graham savagely attacks Zane, giving him a broken nose, two black eyes, and a concussion . Rather than protecting her son, Eliza takes Graham’s side and helps him cover up the abuse. After this Zane is a target for violence as well.
All of this comes to a climax when Graham one day attacks Zane’s younger sister, Britt. Zane, now much larger, confronts his father and the ensuing fight sends both of them to the hospital. Despite Eliza continuing to lie for him, Graham’s abuse is exposed and both he and Eliza go to prison while Zane and Britt go live with their aunt, Emily.
The first part of this book is a lot. I wouldn’t have stuck it out for any other author, but I figured the sheer brutality and sadness of the first section would be offset by a powerful story about healing and finding love. While Zane and Britt do go on to lead happy adult lives, I didn’t think the rest of their narratives supported the presence of the violence in the first section. I think it can be argued that showing domestic violence in all its ugliness versus “closing the door” can be important, but as a reader, I never fully recovered from the gravity of the first section to enjoy the rest of the book.
The second part begins eighteen years later. Britt has grown up, has a family, and is a counselor for women who have suffered from domestic violence. Zane is a lawyer. Their father is up for parole, and that has made Zane decide to move back home near his sister and his aunt, the people who love and support him. He meets Darby, a landscape artist who is working for his aunt, and a fellow newcomer to town. Where Zane is deliberate and steady, Darby is feisty and creative and moves a mile a minute. Zane hires her to help landscape his new house, and the two develop a romantic relationship.
Darby is a domestic abuse survivor too. Her ex-husband was imprisoned for five years after assaulting her, and now she’s trying to move on with her life by building the landscaping company she’s always dreamed of.
This book contains lots of the competence pr0n that Roberts is known for. I have zero interest in landscaping or plants in general, but I was fascinated by Darby’s visions and creations. Her descriptions of the color and height and variety needed to create the perfect planter were almost enough to make me want to go to the garden store. Almost.
As Darby and Zane are developing their relationship, Graham’s father is let out on parole. I assumed the main focus of the book would be him looking for revenge against the people who had him put away, and I was right. Kinda. The Graham subplot was resolved about sixty percent of the way into the novel which left me wondering what else was going to happen.
That’s when we get another suspense subplot revolving around Darby’s ex-husband. That’s the third part of the book. Once that subplot is resolved, all of the tension is over and we move on HEA.
I wasn’t sure why the threat from Graham and Darby’s ex needed to happen sequentially rather than be woven together somehow. The result was that the book felt weird and episodic. As I reader I endured the first portion that detailed the abuse Zane and his sister suffered assuming I’d find closure during the second portion when they were adults. I did, sort of, as the plot involving Graham comes to an end, only I had almost half a book left. The addition of Darby’s ex at the end felt strange. There wasn’t enough about her past in the earlier parts of the book to sufficiently weave him in, and as I read, I thought the main plotline was done.
My overall experience with Under Currents was that too much was happening, and it wasn’t happening at the right pace. While I liked the relationships between Britt and Zane, and Zane and Darby, and while I certainly enjoyed everything competent about them, as a whole, the plot didn’t gel, and so I left the book feeling unsatisfied and looking for more closure than I was going to get. I was so excited when this book hit my Kindle, but I find that I just cannot recommend it.
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Under Currents: DNF
I’d give it a D-. I just gave up towards the end. We’ve had every element of this book done better in previous books by Nora. I agree about the graphic violence. Why? TWO domestic abusers? That’s not what I’m reading romance novels for.
Agreed with everything in this review (even the part about growing out bangs!). I love Nora, and 90% of the books she writes hit it out of the park for me, and I end up re-reading them at least 3 or 4 times. But this book didn’t work for me for structural reasons (there were 3 abuse story lines in it, not two, because there was the woman that Darby and Zane help).
The individual parts worked within their closed loops (even at her worst, Nora is incredibly readable), but it didn’t hang together.
OMG! Thank You. Everyone I know loves this book with Fire. I started it the day it came out and am still picking through it. I spoilered myself by flipping to the end so I know what happens. So I am kinda just backtracking to fil in some blanks. But this is not a winner for me.
I will say the domestic violence is a lot. But even so, that early part was really a strong hook. I — won’t say liked — but it was riveting. But once I saw that darby was also a domestic violence survivor, I just sighed. It felt like just too much. I loved the characters but I think the jeopardy part with Zane’s family was enough for the plot.
And while I love job competence porn in any book, I thought the landscaping was just too, too much. I loved it at first because it was fascinating, but then it just went on and on and on. One of my peeves with recent NR books is how much numbing descriptions we’ve gotten on home decor or renovation. Well, it seems like she just moved that outdoors with the landscaping with this one. Honestly, I just did not care to learn about every minute house or plant detail!!
Honestly, think I am loving her Year One series so much because there are no home renovation descriptions.
I agree with you about the violence. I wondered if this was originally planned to a trilogy. The Aunt. The Sister. Zane. There was too much violence for one book. The romance was lovely, but not enough to erase the horror of the beginning. One thing I loved was that Darby was a “kick ass” gardener who reminded me of earlier Nora heroines.
I didn’t even realize she had a new book coming out until I saw this in Target the other day. I wasn’t even tempted to buy it because her last several books have been wallbangers for me. Everything you said in this review is similar to how I felt about the last one about mass shooting survivors. The first few chapters where the shooting is described were riveting, but everything that came after was just blah. I think the last of her books that I truly enjoyed was The Witness, and that has to be at least 6 years old.
Classic YMMV here. Loved it. Wallowed in it.
Ah, dissenting opinion . . . I thought this was better than some of her other recent books, which have become, to me, a bit formulaic. My secret “fun” with any Nora book is to pick the character’s sentences or hero/heroine descriptions that most sound like they walked over from a J D Robb book’s descriptions of Roarke and Eve.
I really love plants and the garden, so I think I enjoyed it more because of that… I think it would have worked better as a duo or trio, one dealing with the romance between Emily and her husband and the abuse, one with the start of Zane & Darcy and the abusive dad with a HFN and then a third with the ex husband and a happily ever after? Everything just felt like snippets, like there wasn’t enough time to truly develop everything, and yet I still enjoyed reading it, especially in the audio version. Though the audio descriptions of the abuse were rough to sit with and listen to, it forced me to really think and feel my way through instead of skimming those sections.
I actually liked (if that’s the right word) part 1 because I was intrigued with how they would eventually overcome the abuse, if at all.
Part 2 was a bit too predictable for me as far as everything went…the romance, having Graham show up to take his revenge, and endless blathering about gardening which did not interest me in the slightest.
Part 3: It felt like overkill having Trent show up after we already went through basically the same thing with Graham. It was like NR wanted everyone and their brother to show up to exact their revenge against our couple.
I honestly would have preferred to read more about Emily and Lee’s romance, since I really liked them, and less about Trent and/or the gardening stuff.
Part 1 = A
Part 2 = B-
Part 3 = D
Final score: C+
I had to put down her last book, the one that involved a shooting at the mall, because I just couldn’t with all the time spent in the villain’s head. It was just too much. I will read this one, but it isn’t at the top of my list right now.
I’ve had a strong preference for the JD Robb books for like 10 years now. The Roberts books have been hit and miss for me for a few years, starting with Witness, which I really didn’t care for. I think the problems were similar to the ones in this book. Kind of spoilers – since she had to be able to live happily ever after in the town, the Russian mob I thought was supposed to be the antagonist never really came near her and suspense had to come from other random places; it felt weird. I saw the pacing problems in this one, but I think I liked it better than Elyse and a lot of others because it was actually a romance as opposed to Shelter In Place, which had a better suspense plot but no romance until halfway through the book. That would have been fine if I hadn’t expected more romance from it. So this was closer to expectations but not as well structured. It was fine for me, but I probably won’t re-read it and I wouldn’t recommend it to non-Roberts readers.
Roberts’ suspense novels have been an up and down for me. The good stuff is really, really good, but the mediocre stuff hits that note too. Makes me miss her category romances all the more.
Didn’t enjoy for the reasons you stated. It was too predictable. The resolution was so quick with the dad and then she shoehorned in this other villain as well. Maybe because she is so prolific, but her books are just basically becoming repeats these days. This story is from this previous book and this character is basically this other character, etc. Nothing fresh anymore.
I don’t disagree about the pacing/plot resolutions, and didn’t enjoy the book overall for the reason.
However. I feel like backstories of domestic violence or sexual assault are such a staple, the sort of thing tossed in to give a character “depth” or to justify otherwise incomprehensible behavior or as a sort of artificial obstacle to overcome. Giving it real space and showing the effect on the characters’ lives in a non-exploitative way is something I appreciate. Re: Darby also being a survivor of abuse… Realistically people who have experienced that kind of violence often connect. And sometimes your ex does show up out of nowhere (not necessarily in this exact way but *shrug*). While I understand the need for closure with respect to the first half of the book, there isn’t always closure. One doesn’t meet the right person and have all that damage healed by their love. The memories don’t go away-but you live and make new memories. There can be an HEA in terms of romance without it having to make everything better.
This could have been a good story on surviving domestic violence, but the plot was hurt by making the villains stock characters. Graham and Trent were abusers, which is terrible enough, but it seemed a stretch to make them homicidal maniacs, too.
Graham is a doctor & highly intelligent, yet after his parole, we’re suppose to believe he wouldn’t be methodical in plotting his revenge? Instead, this entire section of the book is quickly resolved. Also, without giving away any spoilers, why even have Zane’s mother in the parole plotline? Her story did a disservice to abused women trapped in a marriage which wasn’t the case here. NR has the habit of portraying the mother character as dysfunctional or as an outright terrible person. As far as the final portion of the book, with Graham’s part in the story all wrapped up, it was so obvious who was stalking Darby. There really wasn’t any suspense.
I was eager to read your review, as I’m about 6 months away on the library holds list. In the blurbs I’ve read, the domestic violence was mentioned at all and I didn’t know how prominent it is. This is one that I’ll probably pass. I also passed on Shelter in Place, and her Year One series is NOT one I want to read because I’m really over dystopia. NR used to be an auto-buy for me, pre-ordered them all, but… she’s breaking my heart because she’s just not working for me anymore. If I want to read about gardeners/landscapers, I’ll re-read the In the Garden series or Emma’s book in The Quartet series. Grateful for Eve Dallas, despite the repetitive quirks.
I didn’t love this one. I was drawn in by the abuse storyline in the first part (horrific, but well written) but then there were two more distinct sections that got progressively less well written. It felt like it was originally designed as a trilogy but she didn’t have enough material. But I thought the same thing about Come Sundown, her 2017 romantic suspense release, which I liked parts of, but felt was pretty weak overall.
I adore Black Hills (2009; honestly one of her best ever, IMO) and liked Chasing Fire (2011) and The Obsession (2016), but her romantic suspense titles over the last decade have generally not hit the mark for me. I wish she’d take a break from this genre since she doesn’t seem to enjoy writing it anymore. It all seems very formulaic.
I wish Ms. Roberts/Robb would slow down a bit. The decline in quality vs. the increase in quantity isn’t working for me, either. For instance, earlier this month I saw the first JD Robb book *ever* in a Dollar Tree. And some of the reviews for the last few Robb books mention many problems (I myself found some real editing howlers in Connections in Death).
I’m a little over halfway through this book. My favorite Nora Roberts books are the non-suspense non-paranormal, but she doesn’t seem to write those much anymore. The child abuse was really hard – I’m still scarred by Carolina Moon – but I got through it. I also love landscaping, so I liked that part, other than Darby is exhausting. The father/ex-husband return part is just starting, and yeah, I could tell that was going to happen.
Random question – in multiple places, Zane’s father is referred to as the chief surgical resident, but I don’t think that title is right. He seemed too old and established to be a resident, even chief? Residency doesn’t last forever Wouldn’t it be chief of surgery, closer to the title Elyse uses above? My knowledge here is based on some family in medicine and ER and Grey’s Anatomy so clearly I’m not an expert, but I wondered.
What pulled me out of the story was wondering how the hero got so much money. He was a prosecutor for a number of years (not a high paying job, by the way, since it is a government job) and yet he could afford a Porsche (which would cost probably what he made in a year or more). He could just buy a house without a job as he opens his own firm in his hometown. He could afford to hire the heroine to do elaborate landscaping which includes a “water feature”. It is brutal trying to make a living as a lawyer these days since supply exceeds demand by a wide margin. There was some comment about the mother having a trust fund but her sister, the aunt who raised the hero didn’t seem to be rolling in money and living having a trust fund.
@Patricia M I wondered the same thing but then thought it was possible that Graham had quite a bit of money that may have been held in trust for them.
Just finished – much later than everyone else 🙂
@Patricia M – and also, the intern in his office was referred to a grad student, and not a law student? Even though she was going to maybe practice law in the town after graduation?
And re Darby – The competence porn actually annoyed me here. Not that she was good at her job, but that all the jobs seemed to complete so quickly. Maybe I wasn’t reading the passage of time correctly, but I don’t understand how all this work was getting done so quickly.
I couldn’t finish it. In fact, I have not been able to finish her last 3 books due to the overwhelming violence and sheer evil depicted. I don’t know if she has lost her “mojo”, but something is surely amiss with the tone of her latest offerings.
I wonder if you happen to know of any other books that follow this classic Nora Roberts formula? I loved The Witness, for example, and when I started reading this book, thought that it would be a lot like that book was laid out. But I, too, was left feeling somewhat unsatisfied at the multiple plots kind of jumbling together towards the end. Do you have any other recommendations?
I was glad to read the comments because I’ve been skimming over a lot in this book and I never do that. TOO MUCH GARDENING, aside from not being an enjoyable book. (I also hardly ever read spoilers.)