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Book Review By Debbie
Birthright by Nora Roberts

The town of Woodsboro, MD was divided over the new Antietam Creek development. Half of the town thought it was great that they were building some new homes in the area - the building brought jobs and the new families would breathe new life into the little town. The other half of the town wanted to preserve the beautiful area which sat by a tranquil pond as a nature conservation area. However, nature lost out to commercialism and the Antietam Creek development was underway when a construction worker found a human skull while he was digging.

When archaeologist Callie Dunbrook discovered that the skull was 5,000 years old, she jumped at the chance to go and excavate. This could be the find of the century and make her career. Not even the discovery that Jake Greystone, her ex-husband, would be the anthropologist on site could keep her away. Callie throws herself into her work, but quickly has her world pulled out from under her. Suzanne Cullen, owner and founder of Suzanne's Kitchen, a successful bakery business, spots Callie on TV and knows that Callie is her long lost Jessica, her baby who was stolen when she was only a few months old.

Callie refuses to believe it. Her parents never said anything about adoption and she thinks that Suzanne is not very mentally stable to boot. Unfortunately, Callie soon learns that she was adopted and that her parents paid a quarter of a million dollars for the privilege. Callie knows that she cannot be the daughter that Suzanne has always waited for, but she is determined to bring those responsible to justice. But as Callie uncovers dark secrets she discovers that someone is determined to keep the past buried - even if they have to kill for it...

I think that this is one of Nora Roberts best romantic thrillers. Callie, who loved her parents and thought that being independent was the only way to be free; Jake, who thought that expressions of love didn't have to be verbal and that if there was no trust there was no love; Suzanne, a woman who had sacrificed everything including her husband and her other child to find the child that she had lost; Lana Campbell, Callie's beautiful, capable lawyer who had lost her husband in a senseless shooting and now found herself falling in love again; Doug Cullen, as Callie's older brother, he hated himself for not taking care of the baby Jessica and didn't know if he wanted a sister in his life; and many, many other characters. Lana and Doug had a nice secondary romance going on and Suzanne started to fit her life back together again in the book. The icing on the cake was the archaeological and anthropological detail that Roberts included, which was absolutely fascinating. A great read - well worth your time!


Plot & Themes
Tone of book? - upbeat
Time/era of story - 2000+ (Present Day)
Internal struggle/realization? Yes
Struggle over
Crime & Police story Yes
Story of
Is this an adult or child's book? - Adult or Young Adult Book

Main Character
Gender - Female
Profession/status:
Age: - 20's-30's
Ethnicity/Nationality

Main Adversary
Identity: - Female
Age: - 20's-30's
Profession/status:
How sensitive is this character?
Sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence - Smarter than most other characters

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 5 ()
United States Yes
The US: - Northeast
Small town? Yes
Small town people: - nice, like Andy/Opie/Aunt Bee

Writing Style
Sex in book? Yes
What kind of sex: - descript of kissing - touching of anatomy - actual description of hetero sex
Amount of dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
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