Birthright

In a smalltown in America, there is some controversy over whether or not 30 more houses should be built in the surrounding countryside. So when the builders dig up the remains of what turns out to be a neolithic settlement, they are very frustrated while their opponents are only too happy to call in archeologists. One of them is Callie Dunbrook, a young woman who's very successful in her field. She is soon joined by several other archeologists, including her ex-husband Jake. Soon the sparks begin to fly again between the two who never stopped loving each other but were unable to get along the first time around. While they are trying to do things better this time and in the midst of the conflict between those who want the area to be protected while others want to build, Callie is confronted with her unknown past. A local woman whose baby daughter was stolen 29 years ago sees the similarity between Callie and the women in her family. When Callie starts digging, she finds out that she actually was adopted - illegally. But the people who are still making money by stealing and selling babies won't stop at anything to stop her investigation - not even murder... Nora Roberts writes a lot of books, a lot of them really good, some rather mediocre. This is one of the good ones, in my opinion. The archeological elements are well done and believable, the thriller elements are great, and the romantic elements are also very enjoyable and convincing. In this respect it's not just Callie's and Jake's story, which I enjoyed very much because it shows two people who really love each other, but need to take the time to really get to know each other and work on themselves to make their relationship work. You don't find that kind of depth very often in modern romance books. In addition you get the love story between Callie's brother Doug and her lawyer Lana. Here we have a man who saw the relationship between his parents go to pieces over his sister's kidnapping and who also has to develop as a human being to be able to risk loving someone. Lana is a widow with a young kid who finds it difficult to love someone again after her husband's murder. To a small degree, the relationship between Callie's birthparents also plays a role. So all in all, these are adult relationships in which there's not just blind passion and happy forevers, but people with problems who are willing to work on their relationships. I really liked this book for that alone. So I'd definitely recommend it as a good read. If you enjoy this, you might want to try the books she writes under the name J. D. Robb, starting with Innocent in death. To me they're by far the best Nora Roberts has written.