Hidden Nature - Nora Roberts

Title: Hidden Nature
Author: Nora Roberts
Genre: Suspense
Rating: 4/5
# pages: Audiobook ~15hrs
Date read: June 2025

Natural Resources police officer, Sloan Cooper, and her partner had just taken down three men preying on hikers in the Western Maryland mountains. Driving back, she pulled in at a convenience store—and walked right into a robbery in progress. One gunshot from a jittery thief was about to change her world.

After being shocked back to life on the operating table, she has a long recovery ahead, so she moves back to her parents’ peaceful house in Heron’s Rest. As for the boyfriend who dumped her via text while she was in the hospital, good riddance.

She may be down, but she’s not out. So when a woman vanishes, leaving her car behind in a supermarket parking lot, Sloan searches online for similar cases. She finds them, spread across three states. Men and women, old and young—the missing seem to have nothing in common. And the abductions keep happening.

Luckily, the new man in her life shares her passion for solving this mystery. But it will take every ounce of endurance to get to the dark heart of this bizarre case—and she's willing to risk her life again if that's what it takes to stop the horror.


You always know what you're gonna get with Nora Roberts' books. She really excells at describing "little town coziness", and I always enjoy reading her "romantic suspense" novels - even if they are incredibly formulaeric :-P

This one perhaps less so than most, as it covers a much shorter period of time (less than a year, rather than the 10-20 years most of her books cover), but it still has the lovely descriptions of family - both found and real - in a really cozy setting.

The ending was somewhat less satisfying than usual - which is why I've rated this 4 stars rather than 5 - and a lot more sudden as well. It neither had the same build-up, nor the same aftermath.

Worth reading - but not her best work.