Hidden Star by Nora Roberts

Goodreads Summary: Diamonds can be a girl's best friend…or her worst enemy. Bailey James can't remember a thing, including why she has a satchel full of cash and a diamond as big as a baby's fist. It's clear she's in big trouble, and Bailey desperately needs private investigator Cade Parris to help her live long enough to find out just what kind. The moment the coolheaded detective laid eyes on Bailey, she almost had him forgetting who he was. Surely she isn't a criminal—but how can he unravel this mystery if he keeps tripping over his heart?

Goodreads Rating: 3.87 stars with over 9,000 ratings

Genre listing: Romance, Contemporary Romance, Mystery, Fiction

Goodreads Challenge: 22/60

2020 Reading Challenge: #33 a Book with the word "Star' in the title (find the full challenge here)

Book Review:

I ended up picking this book because I needed something for #33. What few Nora Roberts books I've read are kind of hit and miss for me. I'm not a huge romance fan. I'll read it if it's mixed in with a bigger plot, but I'm never really wanting to read something that's solely romance. Luckily, there was a little bit of mystery in Hidden Stars to keep me entertained.

I think I would have liked this a lot more if Cade wasn't an absolute sleazebag through most of the book. Ugh. I wanted to pepper spray him and have sexual assault charges filed on Bailey's behalf. (No, that's not an attempt at humor. I felt like his actions were borderline sexual assault through most of the book.) The majority of the book, I thought it was gross how he was coming on to her so strongly and being demanding with her. Bailey had amnesia, hired him to help her figure out who she was and what happened to her, but he just had to hit on her the entire time, despite her requests for him to stop. 

As I said before, I'm usually not a huge fan of romance. If I read it, I like for there to be some building to the characters feeling the way they do. I want it to make sense. Maybe part of that is because my husband and I were friends before we started dating. For me, the whole spend a weekend together, and wanting to get married wasn't realistic, and I rolled my eyes at it a lot. 

I thought the take on the amnesia was interesting. I liked the idea of Bailey still being who she was, even if she didn't realize it. Despite my disdain for his sexual advances on Bailey, I thought that his way of helping her find herself was thoughtful. He took the time to explain well you probably do this because of this reason, or if you hate this food before, you probably still hate it. Putting the pieces together like that made the private detective job make sense and fit well within the story.

I think what saved this book for me was the mystery. The idea of Bailey being a gemologist and jewelry designer appealed to me because I make jewelry and, at one time, thought about becoming a gemologist. I wasn't really sure where the mystery was going to go, or what Bailey actually saw. I wasn't expecting her connection to the culprits. This was the part of the story I really wanted to read. How she got her memory back, what happened to her, and why was the diamond so valuable. 

Overall, I did like the book. It was a short read, which I got through quickly. I liked Bailey a lot, but couldn't stand Cade. The mystery kept me entertained. I do tend to think that Nora follows a couple of formulas for her books, and I could kind of see already how it was setting it up for the other two books in the trilogy. I don't know if I'll pick up the other two. I enjoyed it, but not enough to where I feel like I need to continue on with the trilogy.