At the 57% mark it got slightly better because we stayed in one location for a longer period of time, but by that time I just wanted to finish this. However, the plot took an unexpected turn, it was something I’d expect in a rom com. The prophet at the heart of Tressell’s masterpiece is Frank, a socialist agitator who spends most of the novel trying and failing to rouse the slumbering lions of labour. We and he can see what has gone wrong in the penury-stalked world of unfettered, early 20th-century capitalism. But his fellow characters – mainly – cannot. Owen leaves the scene at the end of the novel to seek more fertile ground for his message. It ends, however, with a remarkably eschatological epilogue: “Mankind … is at last looking upward to the light… that will be diffused throughout all the happy world from the rays of the risen sun of Socialism.”

Nightwork was a wonderful amazing uplifting story that held my attention from beginning to end; as Harry’s life totally captivated me. Nightwork had a bit of everything, romance, suspense, mystery, family, friendship, as well as the many exciting adventures along the way. Though he was a thief that started when he was a child helping his mother, Harry was always a good guy. Nightwork was so very well written by Nora Roberts. I wholly suggest you read this fantastic book. href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/2390-1/{55C01898-08CA-406D-97CA-976E1C054A7A}IMG400.JPG This one just wasn't for me :(. I want to feel conflicted about rooting for a morally grey character but I just didn't feel anything for Booth. So of you do like him, then this could be a winner for you! I wasn’t expecting to like this book as much as I did — NR’s last few have been a disappointment for me, and the last stand-alone book of hers I truly enjoyed and have reread numerous times was 2012’s ‘The Witness.’ The fact that the lead male commits crimes might be difficult for some readers to accept easily. But Harry Booth is not your usual down and dirty thief. I know – I know -- you’re thinking that a crime is a crime and should not go unpunished. But it’s fiction! And it’s Nora Roberts!! And the writing is marvelous!!! And the story equally so!!!!href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/2390-1/{55C01898-08CA-406D-97CA-976E1C054A7A}IMG150.JPG

This book might be totally far-fetched and unrealistic… but it’s fiction. Don’t take yourself too seriously, and do read this book. Prophets often appear in tragedies as beacons of the saddest sadness of all: that we are all fated to do the things that we do. From the Weird Sisters to Willy Wonka, prophets are employed by writers as the bearers of this very bad news. In Oedipus Rex, Sophocles’ blind prophet Tiresias is forced to tell tragic mother-effer Oedipus that he has no free will, and that “to his children he is both brother and father”. Like all prophets Tiresias is a lonely interloper in the world of normal time. “Alas,” he wails, “what misery to be wise.” href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/2390-1/{55C01898-08CA-406D-97CA-976E1C054A7A}IMG200.JPGI think it's time for Roberts to just write a straight up mystery and forget about the romance side of things. You can feel her itching to do it. This is supposedly romantic suspense, but it's so light on that it feels like a misnomer to categorize it as such. It doesn't help that we follow a character (Harry Booth) that is so morally grey you have to wonder why Roberts has him as our "hero." href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/L1BLQAAAA2a/products/55c01898-08ca-406d-97ca-976e1c054a7a/metadata I got so swept up in this story. The past, the present and even the future. The people, the settings. My heart raced and broke. I was excited and I was scared. I was also head over heels in love. Thanks to his love of acting and theatre, Booth is by now expert at switching identities, and escapes the country to avoid LaPorte’s further demands: he will not be owned. But he doubts this man will ever tire of his pursuit, and begins to long for a more settled existence: a job as an English/drama teacher in a mid-size town would fit the bill. And does, until someone who knows him arrives…

LaPorte was easy to hate, but in later portions of the book, he was less dimensional as a character, as where his henchmen. A thoughtful exploration of one thief’s motivations and relationships, featuring a healthy dose of romance and suspense.In the meantime Booth meets Miranda and they begin a relationship that comes in LaPorte's cross hairs. Eventually Booth decides he must take care of the LaPorte problem for good. This book hit me right in the heart for so many different reasons. Starting with losing a loved one to cancer, switching to having a teacher that means everything to you, and ending with the idea that life will always work out the way that it's meant to. And yes, a little far-fetched and unbelievable. But I read for that. That amazing feeling and that bit of fancy. The characters are not developed at all. We also have insta-love which I don't recall Roberts doing for ages in her stand-alones.

A lifelong thief needs to pull off one last job—while getting revenge and keeping the woman he loves safe. La Porte didn’t feel like the dangerous villain of the story that he was meant to be. Their first meeting and conflict wasn’t intense enough for me to feel like Booth needed to fear La Porte and live his life in hiding. I just didn’t feel the danger or urgency. When Booth was forced to do a job I thought there would be more time spent on the heist and having to leave his life behind but it was breezed through. I just adore Harry! He makes me think of Frank Abagnale from Catch Me If You Can. Although he doesn't hurt or kill people, his moral codes make me think of Orphan X. The boy now a man has skills, he stays under the radar, a bit of a loner but eventually falls for a girl. He's brilliant at math, tech, languages (5?), and literature. He cooks gourmet foods and even bakes his own bread! Also as others have pointed out this book skips forward in time a lot and changes locations. It honestly reminds me somewhat or some of her older books like "Risky Business". I know she's done the time jump thing before, but think that only "Under Currents" has done it to great effect in her latest books. I think that's because we stayed with the hero for a time period before moving to the present day. And we didn't stay long in the "past" either before shifting things forward in the story. Eventually the book does stop flip flopping around which helped with my reading. We follow the life of Harry Booth, whose mother was diagnosed with cancer and became a thief to help make ends meet. After she passed away Booth continued his nightwork and never stayed in one location for too long, fearing that his enemy will catch up to him.

5681

Nightwork" follows Harry Booth who at age 9 starts stealing to support his mother who is undergoing chemotherapy treatments. When his mother eventually dies, Harry still keeps stealing and breaking into homes hence the title of this book. Harry eventually meets a woman called Miranda and starts to think about a different future, but is threatened by someone who wants to use his skills. Like I said, I liked Booth. I loved going along with him on his adventures. And I felt some anxiety that he would be discovered. NR made him nicely clever and resourceful. The bad guy LaPorte was an absolute idiot. NR can and has built extremely twisted villains, but sometimes, like The Witness with Russian mafia, these villains seem straight out of PatheticVille. If I have to hear about how scary and mean and cold a person is, I need to see my main character overcome problems and challenges on the way to best the bad guy. But there is absolutely none of that, which is ridiculous. My book, The End of Nightwork, is about that most pointless and painful of things: the passage of time. In the book, the protagonist – Pol – is haunted by the influence of a 17th-century millenarian, called Bartholomew Playfere. Like all prophets, Playfere refuses to be part of his own time. Instead he becomes part of a future, a future that Pol coincidentally participates in. Harry winds his leisurely way, as Silas Booth, to New Orleans, learning, always learning, discovering new things, making good friends and continuing to pay his way with a little nightwork. When a fence put him in touch with an accomplished thief, he ends up stealing a Turner sunset. The client insists on meeting him, but Silas is wary of the offer this privileged but greedy man makes.