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Book Reviews of River's End

River's End
River's End
Author: Nora Roberts
PBS Market Price: $8.09 or $4.19+1 credit
ISBN-13: 9780515127836
ISBN-10: 0515127833
Publication Date: 2003
Pages: 461
Rating:
  • Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
 524

3.9 stars, based on 524 ratings
Publisher: Jove Books
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

75 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

dolver avatar reviewed River's End on + 240 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 8
I loved it! It was more suspense than romance. I thought I knew who the killer was, then I didn't, then I did....I love books that keep me guessing!
reviewed River's End on + 64 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 6
This book really keeps you in suspense until the last few pages. You never see what is coming.
reviewed River's End on + 9 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 5
thriller - page turner - could not put it down! kept me guessing until the last few pages...
reviewed River's End on + 18 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
Definately one of Nora's better reads.
reviewed River's End on + 97 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
This is an older book of Ms.Roberts, but it is really great.
reviewed River's End on + 33 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
excellent book. keeps you guessing.
reviewed River's End on + 118 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
awesome book.. Kept me interested the whole time!
reviewed River's End on + 23 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
A real page turner...great book!!!!
reviewed River's End on + 85 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
One of Roberts great novels.....Starts with a murder which the husband is imprisioned for 20 year. After he is released, he finally decides to tell his story.....A story which he is not sure that he remembers because at the time he was on drugs. His daughter at the age of 4 wanders into the room after the murder and finds her father kneeling over the body of her mothers bloody body. The twists and turns will not allow you to put the book down...
reviewed River's End on + 3 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
I read this book in like 2 days which is good for me and now I'm hooked to Nora Roberts.
reviewed River's End on + 14 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
nora roberts is a wonderful story teller
emmaliss avatar reviewed River's End on + 55 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Another winner from Nora Roberts!
reviewed River's End on + 35 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
I loved this book! She's always great.
reviewed River's End on + 10 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 2
Another fabulous Nora Roberts read.
reviewed River's End on + 65 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
a scared little girl hides while her mother is killed . but growes up to nightmares of the murder that has to be solved before it happens again
great read couldn't put it down
LaurieS avatar reviewed River's End on + 504 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
After reading a few too many lackluster, hard to get into and hard to stick with until the end novels this one reminded me of all the reasons I use to buy Nora Roberts books the minute they were released (can't do that anymore). Her characterization just grabs me from the first page and her books are difficult to break away from.

The book starts out when Olivia, the heroine, is only four and her storybook life with her beautiful movie-star mom comes to a horrific end. Olivia is the only witness to her mom's murder and her movie-star father, a coke-head with a jealous mean streak, is locked up for the vicious stabbing death. Olivia's grandparents raise her in the woods, secluded from prying Hollywood reporters where they all try to forget the painful events.

Olivia grows into a strong young woman but enjoys staying close to the woods and has pursued a living as a naturalist giving tours and helping to run the family tourism business. But when Noah, the son of the policeman who worked on the murder investigation, decides to write a novel on the events, Olivia must face up to the past while struggling with her romantic feelings towards the man dredging up the past.

I enjoyed this book from the beginning page until the end (despite the unsurprising "surprise" reveal). It has romance, murder, fantastic characterization and a sense of place that most writers don't bother creating.
reviewed River's End on + 12 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This was a great romantic suspense! It really gets your emotions going !
reviewed River's End on + 204 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I really liked this book. I thought it was suspenseful, well written and a page turner. The characters are well defined and very interesting. The ending to the book bothered me. It was too neat and clean. Otherwise, this was a good read.
grammy4 avatar reviewed River's End on + 110 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Wow! Loved this book from start to finish! It keeps you enthralled thru the twists and turns till the ending! Great read.
xmascarol avatar reviewed River's End on + 261 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I have read many books by Nora Roberts, but this is absolutely the best one she has written.
lynxxmarie avatar reviewed River's End on + 165 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Really enjoyed River's End! It is romance, humor, and mystery. Very entertaining. Kept me reading until wee hours of the morning... just couldn't put it down.
justbren avatar reviewed River's End on + 17 more book reviews
I love Nora Roberts' books and this was one of many that I have read and couldn't put down.
reviewed River's End on + 53 more book reviews
"Olivia's parents were among Hollywood's golden couples...until the night a monster came and took her mother away forever. A monster with the face of her father..."

Nora Roberts is such a great storyteller, and this book is no exception. She includes mystery, romance and humor in this one. Really a good read!! Can never put her books down.
reviewed River's End on + 155 more book reviews
How a murder affects so many people, for so long...
reviewed River's End on + 5 more book reviews
One of her best
reviewed River's End on + 18 more book reviews
Well written mystery.
reviewed River's End on + 44 more book reviews
Exciting and great read by one of the best, Nora Roberts.
HeartsongChica avatar reviewed River's End on
Great, gripping story!
reviewed River's End on + 26 more book reviews
Little girl witnesses her mothers murder. Sheltered from the truth she has dreams about the monster and then the monster has her Daddy's face. When she becomes an adult she must find out the truth. Romance with suspense. A real page turner.
reviewed River's End on + 24 more book reviews
Olivia's parents were among Hollywood'd golden couples- until the night a monster came and took her mother away forever- was it her father ? Years later she has to solve the problem-for the monster walks again-
reviewed River's End on + 13 more book reviews
good book
reviewed River's End on
I loved it!!!
goldilocks2005 avatar reviewed River's End on + 104 more book reviews
Another excellent story by Nora Roberts!
reviewed River's End on + 5 more book reviews
THIS IS DEFINATELY ONE OF NORA'S BEST WORK
sues avatar reviewed River's End on + 94 more book reviews
I usually would never read this author/genre, but my book club chose it, and it was pretty good. I was surprised that I enjoyed even though it was somewhat predictable.
reviewed River's End on + 117 more book reviews
Great read! Couldn't put down.
reviewed River's End on + 82 more book reviews
Her signature florid style again serving a suspenseful mystery combined with a fated romance, bestselling Roberts (Hot Ice) tells a Helter Skelter-type Hollywood horror story lurid with murder, drugs and insanity. One summer night in 1979, four-year-old Olivia Tanner finds her doped-up father, Sam, bloodied shears in hand, poised over the dead body of her movie-star mom. Haunted by the image of "the monster" pursuing her, Olivia is sent to live with her grandparents in the Pacific Northwest, where she is sheltered from her memories by towering Douglas firs. Two decades later, the specter of the "monster" returns. From prison, her father urges young investigative reporter Noah Brady?son of the police detective who discovered Olivia after the murder?to research the crime. Noah accepts this task eagerly, heedless of Olivia's rebuffs and undeterred by violence and danger, especially after Olivia begins to remember the crime. The denouement brings both of them into a bloody confrontation with the past. Roberts's careful research, particularly into the ecosystems of the forests of the Pacific Northwest, makes for vibrant background detail. Her artful manipulation of the plot, contrived so that amour and horror escalate in tandem, reaffirms her ability to deliver entertaining fiction. From Pulisher Weekly
reviewed River's End on + 13 more book reviews
Not one of her best, but still good. =)
reviewed River's End on
This book is the best book by Nora that I have read! It is unlike any she has written and will leave you shocked at the end!
reviewed River's End on + 85 more book reviews
Another hit....she is amazing!!!
reviewed River's End on + 104 more book reviews
IT'S A PAGE-TURNER
reviewed River's End on + 134 more book reviews
One of Roberts darker novels, an excellent read.
reviewed River's End on + 80 more book reviews
Olivia's parents are among Hollywood's elite, but then a monster in the form of her father comes into the house, now many years later the dream comes back and Olivia seeks the truth, will she?
reviewed River's End on + 7 more book reviews
wonderful
reviewed River's End on + 579 more book reviews
olivias parents were among the hollywood golden couple.untill a monster came and killed her mother. a monster with the face of her father.
reviewed River's End on + 84 more book reviews
I loved this book. I can't even mark it down for the long lead-in because it was absolutely necessary to know the h/h. I really liked Olivia and I loved Noah. I was never certain of the outcome right to the end but on the other hand I wasn't ever mis-led in a way that felt like a cheat. Well done!
If I had to pick something that was negative I have to say that I skimmed quite a bit. Not out of boredom but because I was anxious to get on with the important stuff and there would be long descriptions that I didn't care about.
ferretlover avatar reviewed River's End on
Wonderful book, I love this author. I have read almost all her books. 1-5 I give it a 5
reviewed River's End on + 35 more book reviews
Good romance/mystery/surprise who-dun-it ending. I enjoyed this book!!
reviewed River's End on + 45 more book reviews
Olivia's parents were among Hollywood's golden couples...until the night a monster came and took her mother away forever.A monster with the face of her father.
As Olivia growsup and has been sheltered from the night of the terror, she continues to have these recurring dreams.
The son of the man that found her in the closet so many years ago is willing to help her reconstrut the night. Not only does Noah want to help Olivia find the true, he would like to heal her heart.
Will finding the truth bring closer or more terror?
reviewed River's End on + 3389 more book reviews
Sam and Julie, a Hollywood couple. Their four-year-old daughter, Livvy, was in the house the night Julie was murdered. She tried to find her mother and finds her father bending over her mother's bloody body. She hides in a closet where a very nice policeman, Frank Brady, later found her. Although her mother's twin sister, Jamie, and her husband, David, wanted to have Olivia live with them, she went to live with her grandparents who run River's End, a lodge and campground on Washington state's Olympic Peninsula far from the media circus. Livvy lives in the safe environment her grandparents provided for her. Loving nature, Livvy goes to college majoring in resource science and returns to River's End to open a naturalist center that she dreamed about. Twenty years after Julie's murder, Sam Tanner's parole has continued to be denied thanks in large part to the testimony of Frank Brady and Julie's twin sister, Jamie. Stricken with a terminal cancer, Sam contacts best-selling true-crime author Noah Brady (Frank's son) to finally tell his side of the story. Noah has long been interested in the case; and, particularly in Livvy, who he has had contact with a couple of times in the past 20 years. Noah knows he will have to get all sides of the story, not just Sam's which will mean seeing Livvy again. When Noah sees Livvy, the attraction is still there but little does he know that in his quest to get her father's story, her life will be in danger for there is one person who knows the truth of what happened that night 20 years before. RIVER'S END is one of Nora Roberts best.... way to go Nora!!!
reviewed River's End on + 12 more book reviews
A great page turner!
reviewed River's End on + 52 more book reviews
I've read a lot of Nora Roberts and this isn't her best. It's still Nora, tho.
reviewed River's End on + 9 more book reviews
This was my first Nora Roberts book, and the one that made me adore her work and totally attached to her books! Another tear jerker with lots of suspense and murder mystery and of course romance.
reviewed River's End on + 223 more book reviews
Great book
robinmy avatar reviewed River's End on + 2112 more book reviews
At four years old, Olivia McBride witnessed her father standing over her mother's bloody body, holding a knife. Olivia ran and hid from him until a police detective found her in a closet. Olivia was sent to live with her grandparents at their home on the edge of Olympic National Park.

True crime writer Noah Brady wants to write the story about the murder of movie star Julie McBride. Noah grew up hearing about the murder. His father was the lead detective on the case. Julie's husband, actor Sam Tanner, was convicted of her murder and has spent twenty years in prison. When Noah contacts Olivia, she is upset. She wants nothing to do with the book and doesn't want to be reminded of her mother's murder. But Sam has been released from prison and wants his story old.

This is an older Nora Roberts book that I hadn't had a chance to read when it came out. The first 30% of the story was on the slow side, setting up the story and getting to know the characters. The pace picked up when Noah decides to write about the famous murder. The story was heavy on romance, but there was some suspense. We also got some in-depth description of Olympic National Park and the rain forest. My rating: 4 Stars.
reviewed River's End on + 115 more book reviews
As usual, another great book by Nora Roberts.
reviewed River's End on + 13 more book reviews
An easy-going read, definitely a page turner and exciting to see unfold :)
reviewed River's End on + 31 more book reviews
One of Nora Robert's best.
reviewed River's End on + 88 more book reviews
Any book from Nora Roberts is worth reading. This has good suspense and an exciting conclusion.
reviewed River's End on + 11 more book reviews
Great romantic mystery!
reviewed River's End on + 36 more book reviews
Nora never writes a bad one!
reviewed River's End on + 44 more book reviews
Everyone knows Roberts is great
farazon avatar reviewed River's End on + 44 more book reviews
This is a simple little mystery. As a child 4 year old Olivia witnessed her Mothers' murder. Or did she? Growing up later this chacter had little interest in her real parents- even though they had both been celebrities. How could a real person not have any curiosity?
The story in general was lacking in description in some areas and far to full of them toward the end when Olivia is running thru the woods. All in all it entertained and I never guessed the real killers' identity until the main characters did.
The audio book reader tried to different voices for each character. Some of those voices were irritating; the young Olivias voice and the male voices.They really should use more than one reader when there is a lot of dialog.
reviewed River's End on + 15 more book reviews
Hardcover book. A girl witnesses her mother's murder by her father. A writer contacts her to write a book about her famous mother's murder. She is ready to talk and open her heart and mind to the memories and to love.
reviewed River's End on + 18 more book reviews
Another great book by Nora Roberts
reviewed River's End on + 3389 more book reviews
Amazon.com
Olivia MacBride and her parents, a fairy-tale Hollywood family, had everything--fame, fortune, and love. But when 4-year-old Olivia awakens one night to find her mother brutally murdered and her father, Sam, standing over her corpse, the little girl's dreamland dissolves before her very eyes.
Whisked away to the sanctuary of the Olympic Peninsula by her grandparents, Olivia learns to bury the past deep within her. Determined to protect herself from painful memories, Olivia limits her life to the emerald rain forests and the River's End resort. Years later, when Noah Brady arrives on her doorstop, Olivia allows her defenses to slip and opens herself to the passion that sparks between them.

When she learns that Noah is fascinated with her mother's death and is writing a tell-all novel, Olivia is devastated. But as Noah helps Olivia acknowledge the lingering effects of her painful memories, she learns to trust him again. With careful research and the apparent cooperation of Sam, Noah begins to unravel the mysteries of that night. However, soon after Sam's release from prison, dangerous threats begin to pursue Noah and Olivia. When the killer enters the serenity of their world, Noah and Olivia must face the dark secrets of the past, or fail to secure a safe future.
reviewed River's End on + 25 more book reviews
Very good story!
CraftyTJ avatar reviewed River's End on + 381 more book reviews
Her signature florid style again serving a suspenseful mystery combined with a fated romance, bestselling Roberts (Hot Ice) tells a Helter Skelter-type Hollywood horror story lurid with murder, drugs and insanity. One summer night in 1979, four-year-old Olivia Tanner finds her doped-up father, Sam, bloodied shears in hand, poised over the dead body of her movie-star mom. Haunted by the image of "the monster" pursuing her, Olivia is sent to live with her grandparents in the Pacific Northwest, where she is sheltered from her memories by towering Douglas firs. Two decades later, the specter of the "monster" returns. From prison, her father urges young investigative reporter Noah Brady?son of the police detective who discovered Olivia after the murder?to research the crime. Noah accepts this task eagerly, heedless of Olivia's rebuffs and undeterred by violence and danger, especially after Olivia begins to remember the crime. The denouement brings both of them into a bloody confrontation with the past. Roberts's careful research, particularly into the ecosystems of the forests of the Pacific Northwest, makes for vibrant background detail. Her artful manipulation of the plot, contrived so that amour and horror escalate in tandem, reaffirms her ability to deliver entertaining fiction.
reviewed River's End on
In 1979, four-year-old Olivia Tanner discovered her drug-addled father standing over the dead body of her Hollywood actress mother with bloodied shears in his hand. The crime was scandalous--one of the most horrific in Tinseltown history. Twenty years later, Olivia is an accomplished and stable young woman after having been raised by her grandparents in the Pacific Northwest and protected by memories from the past. But when writer Noah Brady contacts Olivia on behalf of her incarcerated father in pursuit of the truth behind her mother's death, memories of that dark night from her childhood begin to unravel. Did her father actually kill her mother? Or is the real killer still out there--and ready to strike again?
reviewed River's End on + 14 more book reviews
Romantic Mystery
reviewed River's End on + 90 more book reviews
Olivia's parents were among Hollywood's golden couples...until the night a monster came and took her mother away forever. Sheltered from the truth, an older Olivia only dimly recalls her night of terror. Her recurring nightmares make her realize she must piece together the real story.
reviewed River's End on + 45 more book reviews
Olivia's parents were among Hollywoods golden couples until the night a monster came and took her mother away forever. A monster with the face of her father. Sheltered from the truth, an older Olivia only dimly recalls her night of terror-but her recurring nightmares make her realize she must piece together the real story. Assisted by Noah Brady, the son of the police detective who found her cowering in her closet so many years before, she may have her chance. Noah wants to reconstruct the night that has become an infamous part of Hollywood history. He also wants to help Olivia and heal the longing in her lonely heart. But once the door to her past is opened, there is no telling what is waiting on the other side. For somewhere, not too far away, the monster walks again...
reviewed River's End on + 145 more book reviews
Olivia's parents were among Hollywoods golden couples until the night a monster came and took her mother away forever. A monster with the face of her father. Sheltered from the truth, an older Olivia only dimly recalls her night of terror-but her recurring nightmares make her realize she must piece together the real story. Assisted by Noah Brady, the son of the police detective who found her cowering in her closet so many years before, she may have her chance. Noah wants to reconstruct the night that has become an infamous part of Hollywood history. He also wants to help Olivia and heal the longing in her lonely heart. But once the door to her past is opened, there is no telling what is waiting on the other side. For somewhere, not too far away, the monster walks again
reviewed River's End on + 711 more book reviews
Olivia's parents were among Hollywod's golden couples...until the night a monster came and took her mother away forever. A monster with the face of her father... Sheltered from the truth, an older Olivia only dimly recalls her night of terror---but her recurring nightmares make her realize she must piece together the real story.
reviewed River's End on + 16 more book reviews
Olivia's parents were among Hollywood's golden couples....until the night a monster came and took her mother away forever - a monster with the face of her father. Sheltered from the truth, an older Olivia only dimly recalls her night of terror. Her recurring nightmares make her realize she must piece together the real story. Good suspense.