dragonfire88's Full Review: Nora Roberts - Blue Dahlia
I got hooked on Nora Roberts books three or four years ago. Since then I have gotten all of her new books as they are released and picked up some of her older books as well. She usually has several new books each year, including one or two that are part of some sort of trilogy. I have read and enjoyed several of her trilogies. She has started the In the Garden trilogy and I recently finished Blue Dahlia, the first book in the trilogy.
Harper House was a mansion located outside of Memphis Tennessee. The house is very old, and someone from the Harper family has always lived in the house. A ghost that is only known as the Harper bride has been seen walking the halls of the house at night and singing lullabies. Roz Harper is the member of the family currently living in the house. She started a nursery, In the Garden, on the house’s grounds. She got married young and had three sons. Her husband died when the boys were still very young. She had remarried, but that marriage didn’t last long. Her second husband, Bryce, was a jerk who had conned her and stole money from her. She was content with being single and working in her nursery. The business had been growing, and Roz decided it was time to hire someone to help with managing and organizing the business. Roz wasn’t good with paperwork and organizing. Her oldest son, Harper, lived on the property and worked at the nursery as well.
Stella Rothchild’s world fell apart when her husband was killed in a plane crash. She had to adjust to being a young single mother. Three years after the crash, she moved to Tennessee with her sons Luke and Gavin. They stayed with her father and stepmother until she found a job. She’d worked at nurseries in the past and was good at organization. She tended to plan and make lists for everything. She applied for the job at In the Garden and was hired. One of the requirements for the job was that she live at Harper House. Roz wanted whoever she hired close to the nursery in case of any emergencies. She liked having children in the house again.
Stella jumped into her job and started changing how things were done and located in the nursery. The changes annoyed Logan, a landscaper that worked for the nursery. Stella and Logan clashed over several things related to the nursery for a while. They were attracted to each other and started to spend time together. Logan spent time with her sons and got along well with them. Logan seemed to be more willing to make a commitment than Stella was. Shortly after Stella moved in, Hayley, a very distant relative of Roz’s showed up at the house. She was young and pregnant. Roz let her move in and work in the nursery. Stella and Roz were very careful to make sure that Hayley didn’t do too much. The three women became friends.
The ghost showed up after Stella and her sons moved into the house. The ghost seemed to be drawn to children, and spent time in the boys’ room singing. She seemed to be watching over them. Stella and Hayley both noticed some strange things. Roz admitted that she had seen the ghost when her sons were children. Harper remembered seeing her as a child. The ghost seemed to be upset with Stella at times. The women decided to try to discover who the ghost had been. Harper and Logan got involved in the investigation as well. Roz decided to hire Dr. Mitch Carnegie, a family historian, to look into the history of her family. The ghost got more violent.
Much of Blue Dahlia focused on Stella making changes in her life and getting it back in order. The first chapter of the book dealt with the death of her husband and the next several days. There wasn’t a lot of time spent on those things, but they were discussed. That part of the book was a bit sad, but it wasn’t depressing. The mood did pick up once Stella moved to Tennessee. The book did jump forward three years to Stella’s interview with Roz after the first chapter ended. Stella still missed her husband then, but she was moving forward with her life. Things that happened early in the book were related to Stella and her sons adjusting to living in a new state. A few places in the book did seem to go slower, but it didn’t seem too slow to me. The book didn’t drag even in the slower spots. I really only gave an overview of what was going on in this book.
Many things that happened were connected to the nursery. Roz owned it and worked there every day. Harper created graphs of plants. Stella, Hayley, and Logan were connected to the nursery as well. Some things about the day to day business of the nursery were described throughout the book. A few of the things related to explanations for creating graphs of plants were a little confusing to me, but I don’t know that much about plants. I like having flowers around, and I’ve figured out a few things over the years dealing with plants, but there are still many things related to flowers that I don’t know. I thought the things related to the plants were interesting, though some people may be bored instead. Stella did a lot of things at the nursery once she started, including rearranging the items for sale. There were some scenes at the nursery that just involved one of the characters helping a customer that could have been left out. I wasn’t bothered by those scenes. Since this is the first book in a trilogy, I’m guessing that the nursery will be important in the next two books as well.
Most Nora Roberts books have some kind of mystery in them. There really wasn’t much mystery in Blue Dahlia. What mystery there was in the book was tied to the ghost in the house. Roz had heard stories about the ghost from other family members and had even seen her, but she had no idea who the ghost was. The women started to go through papers tied to the Harper family past to try to figure out who the ghost had been. I believe the search for the identity of the ghost will continue through the second book and into the third. There wasn’t a lot with the ghost in the book, and that was disappointing for me. I would have liked it if there had been more dealing with the ghost. I hope that changes in the next two books. The ghost mostly just turned up in the children’s room to look over them, but later in the book she got more active and even violent. There was some suspense late in the book from something the ghost did. I didn’t think anything was really scarey. This isn’t the first time Roberts has had some supernatural elements in her books. I do tend to enjoy those since I think supernatural things are interesting.
Logan and Stella met early in the book and their relationship grew as the book progressed. There were some sex scenes between them. The scenes were descriptive, but not graphic. There weren’t that many of those scenes in the book. People who are offended by scenes like that should look for a different book. Logan and Stella were the only characters involved in any kind of romantic relationship in this book. That relationship wasn’t the main focus of the book and it didn’t detract from the other aspects of the books. The growing friendship of the three women was more important than any romantic things going on. Obviously Hayley had been involved at some point in her past since she was pregnant. That relationship didn’t work out and she was trying to start over at Harper House like Stella. Roz had been married twice in the past. Her second marriage was over quickly because she discovered that he had lied to her several times and even conned her. Roz’s family was well known in the area, and the society pages of the papers loved to print stories about her and who she might be interested in. She wasn’t dating anyone, though she did encounter her ex-husband once. There were some hints for a possible future relationship for a few characters.
Stella, Roz, and Hayley were all important in the book, but Stella was more developed than the other two. Roz and Hayley will each get their chance to be a more developed character in the next two books. A good foundation for them was laid in Blue Dahlia. I don’t consider them to be flat characters. They just haven’t been developed as much yet. There wasn’t resolution to the mystery surrounding the ghost by the end of this book, so I expect there to be more of the investigation into who the ghost could be in the next book. With the other trilogies by Roberts that I have read, each book has a unique plot, but there are elements that connect all three books. A short exert from the second book, Black Rose, was included at the end of Blue Dahlia. It looks like Roz will be the main character in that book. I’m not sure about who the male character will be. In some of the other trilogies, a couple that had broken up got back together in one of the books. There is a possibility of that since Roz does have an ex-husband that has been mentioned more than once. Bryce has clearly been established as a jerk who lied and conned Roz. I just don’t see how he could be turned into a likeable character. I’ve also thought that maybe Roz and Mitch will end up involved. I am pretty sure who Hayley will end up with in the third book.
Nora Roberts also writes a futuristic mystery series as J.D. Robb. I have read all of the books in that series and really enjoyed them. Those books tend to have even more focus on mystery than the books written as Nora Roberts do. The In Death series is a bit darker and more violent at times. The same group of main characters and some supporting characters return in every book. I actually started off reading the In Death series and then moved onto Nora Roberts books. People who like the In Death series may also end up liking the books written as Nora Roberts since the same person wrote them.
CHARACTERS
Stella - She loved working with plants and organizing. She tended to plan everything and make lists. She liked things done a certain way and got irritated when things didn’t go the way she planned. She was a kind and loving mother.
Luke and Gavin - Stella’s sons. They didn’t want to move to Harper House at first, but they adjusted. They liked to annoy each other at times. They were good most of the time.
Logan - He was a landscaper that worked for Roz. He was very good at his job and set in his ways of doing things. He was annoyed when Stella arrived and started changing things at the nursery. He didn’t want to have to spend time filing out all the forms she came up with. He enjoyed spending time with Luke and Gavin.
Roz Harper - She owned Harper House and In the Garden nursery. She had three adult sons. Roz preferred to spend her time in the nursery with plants instead of doing paperwork and organizing things for the business.
Harper - Roz’s oldest son. He lived on the property but kept to himself a lot. He worked making graphs of plants. He was friendly and got along with people, but he tended to lose track of time when working.
Hayley - She was a distant relative of Roz. Hayley was unmarried and pregnant. She was hoping to start over at Harper House. She was kind and hard working. She was interested in the ghost in the house.
Mitch Carnegie - He was a family historian that Roz wanted to look into the history of the Harper family. He tended to lose track of things when he was working and his place was a mess.
Blue Dahlia didn’t have as much mystery as I would have liked, but I still enjoyed the book. It was entertaining and I am looking forward to getting the next two books in the In the Garden trilogy. Nora Roberts fans should like the book as well.
From the Publisher: A Harper has always lived at Harper House, the centuries-old mansion just outside of Memphis. And for as long as anyone alive reme...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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