Natural Resources police officer Sloan Cooper had just arrested three men taking down hikers in the Western Maryland mountains with her partner, when they stopped at a convenience store. Sloan walked right into a robbery in progress and got shot in the chest almost losing her life. She was shocked back to life on the operating table and took some time off to recover at her family’s home in Heron’s Rest. Having a hard time not working, when Sloan hears of a woman who goes missing leaving her car behind in a grocery store parking lot she searches through the database for similar cases. She finds a lot of cases matching the description but nothing ties the victims together. The new man in her life, Nash, proves to be a great sounding board for her theories and with his help she soon finds that missing connection.

There’s just something about the comfort of reading one of Nora Roberts romantic suspense novels. Her pacing is steady, allowing her to build the characters back stories and allow the reader the time to really connect with and care for the characters, but she also develops the romance at that same pace. The two plots don’t outdo each other but rather complement each other so that moving from the romance to the mystery doesn’t distract from the other but rather adds to it. I loved that especially about Hidden Nature.

Sloan’s rehab from her wounds gives the reader a great gage of her head space. She’s exhausted, then frustrated, then angry, then resolved and we’re along for the ride with each of those feelings. When she’s finally ready to embrace those romantic feelings for Nash the reader is brought along seemlessly into those new emotions and is ready for Sloan to feel better, so begins to root for their romance and for Nash to jump on the we love Sloan bandwagon. Of course, he does, and that part of the story feels very natural.

The hardest part for me to read was from the killer’s point of view. Of course, it’s natural to feel uncomfortable, but I kind of wished for a little less of them and more of Sloan and Nash. That’s my only criticism of a really solid novel.

❤️❤️❤️❤️

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley for an honest review and it was honest!

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