Book Review: Shattered by Karen Robards

Shattered by Karen Robards

Publisher: Putnam

Publish Date: March 23, 2010

Hardcover, 388 pages

My Review:
I haven't read Karen Robards in a couple of years, just wasn't able to get to her release last year because of review books and other books screaming my name.  But when I saw Shattered was being released, I made sure to check it out at the library and read it.

I'm so glad I did.  It was a little bit of a slow start - getting to know Lisa and Scott and the situations that surround them, their past and their  present.  But after some of the preliminaries were gotten out of the way, the book took off and did not stop until the final page.  After reading the full book, you know that each thing mentioned in the beginning plays a role and the character development was essential to the book as a whole.

Shattered is a great example of romantic suspense as a genre.  There was always the suspense element in the background, but the characters and their romance was equally important.  I really feel there was a great 50/50 mix in this book of romance and suspense, which made it wonderful in my eyes.

Lisa and Scott made excellent characters along with some of the secondary characters.  At the beginning it seems that a lot is going on, but it quickly funnels into one main plot line and I truly did  not see the bad guy coming until Karen made it apparent in the book.  I never even got a handle on who it could be, it was really well done.

The romance is heated and these two love to hate each other at times.  Scott has crushed on her since he was young and Lisa has had a thing for Scott since she was 16 and he was 20, but now he's her boss and that adds that extra little obstacle.  But truthfully it seems that there has always been an obstacle in their relationship.  They just finally decide to go for it.  Sparks fly in this book and they are all good.

So if you like your romance mixed with suspense, then this is just the book for you.  I now remember why I read each Karen Robards book that came out a few years ago and now I need to go back and catch up on the ones I missed.  Ms. Robards does an excellent job with plot, characters and her writing.

My Rating:  4.5/5.0

About the Book:
The past is never over. It just gets dusty.

Lisa Grant was a rising star in a prestigious law firm in Lexington, Kentucky, when the firm went bankrupt and she lost her job. With an ailing mother to care fore, she takes the first job she can find: research assistant to District Attorney Scott Buchanan. Scott is as disagreeable as he is sexy, and Lisa suspects the only reason she got the job was Scott's fond feelings for her mother, who treated him well when he was just a farmhand on the Grant's large horse farm while Lisa was growing up.

After she misses and important court date, Lisa doesn't get any special treatment from Scott. As punishment, he sends her to organize cold-case files in the basement of the courthouse. What Lisa expects to be a mind-numbingly boring task turns into anything but that when a missing persons case draws her attention. The details of the case are engrossing: an entire family - father, mother, and two children - disappeared without a trace more than twenty-eight years ago. Except that's not all: the mother in a photo Lisa finds could be her own twin.

Before Lisa can learn more, a series of catastrophes strikes close to home, and she realizes that finding the photo has put her in terrible danger. Determined to uncover the truth, she confides in Scott, and there relationship develops into something beyond that of employer and employee. Together they unravel a terrifying web of criminal connections that could shatter what Lisa knows of her past. And it's clear someone will got to shocking lengths to make sure certain secrets stay hidden.

About the Author:
Karen Robards is a best-selling author of over thirty romance novels. After first gaining recognition for her historical romances, Robards became one of the first historical romance novelists to successfully make the switch to contemporary romantic fiction. Her work has been translated into eleven languages, and has won awards from both Romantic Times and Affaire de Coeur. 

Previous Books I Have Read by Karen Robards:
Vanished
Guilty
Superstition

FTC Information: I checked this book out from my wonderful local library for my reading enjoyment.  I have Amazon links on my review pages but I do not make any money from these because of NC laws.  I put them solely for people to check out the books on a retail site.