Hero: Jed Skimmerhorn
Heroine: Dora Conroy
Grade: 4.5 out of 5
When Dora Conroy, a Philadelphia antiques dealer, purchases a curious selection of auction items – objects she judges to be humorous novelties, she unknowingly becomes the deadly focus of an international smuggler. When robberies and death surround her merchandise, Dora seeks help from her intriguing upstairs tenant, former cop Jed Skimmerhorn. They discover a shadowy path leading across the continent to the smuggler, a man who will stop at nothing to recover his hidden riches. Like the treasures he craves, Dora and Jed find they are susceptible to his crushing grasp.
I read Hidden Riches a long time ago and I remember really liking the book so I decided to read this book for this month’s Re-read Challenge hosted by Nath.
It’s been so long since I’ve read this book that it was almost like I was reading it for the first time because so many things happened in this book that I had totally forgotten about.
This book is about Dora Conroy and Jed Skimmerhorn. Dora owns an antique shop and lives in one of the two apartments upstairs. Jed Skimmerhorn just moved into the other apartment. Dora thinks that her parents had ulterior motives for moving Jed into that vacant apartment but what can she do? Nothing much so she just goes on about her own business, driving from one antique show to another, purchasing antiques for her shop and unknowingly purchases some antiques that bad people are looking for. She becomes trapped in this dark world where she’s scared to be alone and she’s definitely glad to have an ex cop, a very sexy cop living across the hall from her.
As Dora gets sucked deeper and deeper into this smuggler’s world, Jed is there to stand guard and keep her safe. They both find themselves fighting to stay alive as they battle the attraction that keeps simmering just below the surface between them.
I enjoyed watching these two romp their way toward their happy ending. A lot of people aren’t big Nora Roberts fans but I certainly am. I don’t think she’s written a story that I haven’t liked in one way or another and I admire the work she does. She writes complex storylines that are easy to read and fall into. Her characters are always so real and that was the case with Dora and Jed. They seemed to jump right off the pages and I could totally picture myself being friends with the both of them. They’re not these uber rich characters but they’re normal everyday people that I could see myself interacting with.
I liked all of the mystery and steamy romance and just everything about this book. NR took characters that are in fields (well Dora’s) of work that I know nothing about and am really not all that interested in and she made me interested. Antiques is not my thing and if I hadn’t read any NR books before, I wouldn’t have tried this book out at all. I would have skimmed right over it but I’m so glad that I picked this one up and gave it a shot because I liked it.
While Dora is buying these hot antiques, Jed Skimmerhorn has his own set of issues that he’s dealing with and man oh man is he sexy. He’s that quiet, mysterious neighbor that you can hear lifting weights in his living room and picture yourself licking whipped cream off his abs. He’s that kind of smexy and the way that he got all protective of Dora is just flat out yummy. He made this story all the more enjoyable for me. Loved him.
Dora was a great heroine as well, she was one of those heroines that is smart but knows that she can’t save the world and is totally fine with stepping back and letting her man take care of the bad guys but she’s not totally dependent on her man so that was a plus with me. She was a great mixture of all of the good things you want a heroine to be and she made reading this story a lot of fun.
Dora’s parents were a riot and such an enjoyable part of the story and I really just enjoyed this whole story. This is one of those NR books that I always want to reread every chance that I get and I’m so glad that I picked this book up for this month’s re-read challenge. You can never go wrong with this story and I certainly didn’t. If you haven’t checked this book out yet, you should. It’s an oldie but goodie in my opinion. So seriously, get this book read it and love it with me.
This book is available from Penguin. You can buy it here.
I am a big N.R. fan. I don’t recall not liking any of her books (J.D. Robb included) although there maybe a few books that I liked not as much as the others but, nonetheless, I still enjoyed them.
I don’t remember what I thought of Hidden Riches so that means re-read time! hehe.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never read this one, will have to add it to the every growing list of backlist titles I’m hoping to squeeze in with the new releases!
Ooh – this is one of my all time Nora favourites. The characters, the mystery, the romance, all of it was great.
Scenes I loved. When Dora meets Jed for the first time and he slams the door in her face!
Dora’s Father dressed as Father Christmas and getting Jed drunk!
Dora’s fabulously eccentric family.
Definately a DIK!
I started with J.D.Robb and now am dipping my toes into her back list. Tried The MacKade Brothers and loved them. I’ve always been jealous of new reader discovering authors as Linda Howard and think of how lucky they are to have 2 decades of books waiting for them to read. I hope I’ve found one myself! *crossing my fingers*
The library has this, so off I go.
This was one of my favorite NR books! Now that you have me thinking about it again, I may have to get it off the keeper shelf and reread it!
Great choice for the challenge Rowena!! It’s been a while since I last re-read this one 🙂 Hmmm, I have to reserve a week-end and just glom on NR 😛
Wow – sounds really good and lately I’ve not even been a Nora fan! lol Thanks for the review.
Thanks for the great review! It’s one of my favorite NR books, I’ll have to reread the book once more!
Thank you so much for the fantastic review Rowena! I’ve only read NR’s Quinn Brothers series (and the In Death books 🙂 I think this sounds like a good book for dipping my toes into the NR pool so to speak 🙂
*off to see if the library has it*
Although I don’t read Nora Roberts trilogies anymore, I still read her stand alone books and OF COURSE I still read JD Robb. Hidden Riches is one of the books I inhaled way back when I first discovered her. I loved this one and I reread it a couple of years ago and loved it all over again.
I’m just getting into Nora Roberts. I read a few of her older books, Harlequin ones. I didn’t like them one bit. So for all these years I have avoided her.
Then I got into her In death series, and decided to pick up one of her more recent books, which I loved. Now I have about 3 NR in my TBR. Hidden Riches is one of them 🙂
2 days later, after ignoring my husband&child, cooking and what not, I finished the book.
I lusted for Jed from the Prologue and though Dora got on my nerves a little here and there, she’s always able to catch herself immediately. She was overall the best kind of heroine-frivolous at times but mostly smart and mature and human.
The sexual tension was slow and steady but the sex couldn’t happen fast enough for me. I spent the better part of the story, waiting and anticipating – for the relationship to built, for the sex to happen(already!!) for the cops to catch on, for Jed to come out of his shell. But the story couldn’t be rushed.
By the end, well, I wasn’t ready for it to end.
Thanks for the recommendation.
i love NR! thanks for this..
can u guys do a review about her new book/series?