I received this audiobook as an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed this story with its curses, spirits, and found family. And the dogs are obviously a bonus! The romance between Sonya and Trey lacked development and they just fell together. The book was on the slower side but sped up at the end. It did end on a major cliffhanger right when it was getting exciting.

The narrator did a wonderful job voicing all of the characters and I enjoyed the book and recommend it.

"The Inheritance" by Nora Roberts is an outstanding literary gem, deserving of a resounding five-star rating. This book is a masterclass in storytelling, seamlessly blending a captivating plot, character development, and a hauntingly atmospheric setting.

Roberts' prowess in character development is nothing short of extraordinary. The characters come to life with a depth and authenticity that is simply breathtaking. Each character is a fully realized individual with their own unique complexities, histories, and growth arcs. I found myself emotionally connected to all of the characters, main and supporting, and their journeys are profoundly moving.

The haunted manor setting is a tour de force of atmospheric storytelling. Roberts' descriptions create an immersive world that is both eerie and enchanting, making the manor itself a character in the story. The haunted elements add an extra layer of intrigue and suspense, which kept me on the edge of my seat.

The plot is a finely woven tapestry of romance, mystery, and family dynamics, and it is executed flawlessly. The narrative kept me eagerly turning pages, skillfully building tension and revealing secrets in a way that is both engaging and satisfying. The story's structure and pacing are impeccable.

In "The Inheritance," Nora Roberts accomplishes a perfect balance of character-driven storytelling and a rich, mysterious setting. The synergy between character development and the haunting backdrop of the manor is a testament to her storytelling brilliance. This book is not only a must-read but also a shining example of the power of literature to transport readers to another world.

This is a highly recommended read for those who are searching for a compelling, emotionally resonant, and beautifully crafted novel that will leave you captivated and enthralled. This book stands as a shining example of the heights that storytelling can reach when executed with such skill and finesse.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me with an advanced copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

Put this on your TBR! I binged this book in a weekend, turned the last page and immediately started googling when the next book would be coming out and was thinking who I could talk to about what I just read! I wish this was coming out in October as this is the perfect spooky romance.

This was sooo good and grabbed me from the beginning. Featuring a beautiful old mansion with some ghostly inhabitants, Roberts always does such a good job weaving together well plotted storylines with such realistic characters that have great camaraderie you are absolutely rooting for.

While the story revolves around a haunted house(not creepy or scary as I don’t do either) it is the mystery around who is haunting the house and why that kept me turning the pages.

I flipped between the physical copy and audiobook and once again Brittany Pressley does not disappoint!

I really liked the beginning of this audiobook, and I thought the narration was great, but towards the end, it bored me. I kinda felt like the whole story was going downhill.

Thank you to the publisher for an advanced audiobook!!

This is the first book in The Lost Bride Trilogy. I love ghost stories, and this one is really good! I liked the characters, the storyline, the world building, and the pace. I am looking forward to more in the series. The narration is great, and pleasant to listen to. I highly recommend it. I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, a Macmillan Audio production, for an honest review. #NetGalley

Ok so this was a good book but I’m not a huge fan of ghost so I have to give it a 3.5!
It has a twisty plot, magic and a haunted mansion with multiple ghosts!
Sonya MacTavish is happy in her job and engaged to be married--until she walks in on her fiance and her cousin having sex in her bed. As her life's plans are in an uproar, she is hit with another bombshell. Her late father, who was adopted, had a twin, and that twin has left Sonya a gorgeous estate in Maine. The only stipulation is that she has to live there for three years. Sonya ultimately decides to move to the estate and start over her life and her career. But the house has a history of "lost brides" and many ghostly inhabitants. And at least one of them does not want Sonya there.
Thank you to Net Galley, Nora Roberts and St. Martins Press for generously providing me with my eARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. I listened to an Audio ARC- I do want to say that the narrator Brittany Pressley did a spectacular job,

Inheritance takes you on a journey through a haunted manor and keeps you wanting more the entire time. The main character inherits a house fork an uncle she didn’t know she. The catch? She has to live there for 3 years I’m order to get her full inheritance. As she falls in love with the house she learns it’s quite haunted so she starts to dig deep into her family history to find answers. Luckily she has her ‘take no BS’ best friend and hunky new boyfriend to help her uncover the many mysteries. It ends on a crazy cliffhanger!

Brittany Pressley absolutely amazes on the audio as usual! Her ability to make you feel like you’re right there in the story is something not many narrators can do. I can’t read to listen to the next one!

I have been a long-time fan of Nora Roberts (loved the Year One series) and maybe my expectations were a little too high for this novel. First, the characters are just not that interesting. Sonya and Trey are so vanilla; I was bored by all of their exchanges. The whole haunted house thing was less creepy because NO ONE seemed very concerned about it. People have died in the house, yeah, but the worst these ghosts seemed to do were leave cabinets open and tidy up. Horrifying. The supporting characters finding out about them and being so blase about it was really unrealistic and took me out of the story a couple times. The main baddie, the ghost of the witch who cursed the family, also did not have much play in this book. I think/hope that the bulk if this story was the set up for an awesome follow-up novel, but it's looking a little too predictable. I hope I'm wrong!

Nora never disappoints. A paranormal thriller where the new owner of a haunted mansion must solve the mystery to break the curse. Cliffhanger ending. Good, quick listen.

I'm having a hard time trying to rate this- I'm going to settle on 3.5 stars for now.

Inheritance, the first book of The Lost Bride trilogy starts in 1806 at Astrid Poole's wedding day. As she sits down in her bridal gown, overwhelmed with happiness, she is murdered, and her wedding ring is torn from her finger.

Flash forward in present day, graphic designer Sonya MacTavish is shocked and surprised when she walks into the home she shares with her fiancé to find him in the act of having an affair. She quickly calls off the wedding and breaks off the engagement.

Shortly after, she finds out that her late father had a twin brother that he never knew existed. Sonya's newly discovered uncle, Collin Poole, has died and left her almost everything, including a Victorian manor in Maine. His will stipulates that she must live in the house for at least three years. Now newly single after her broken engagement, Sonya agrees to move to the small coastal town and into the manor home.

As Sonya settles into her new life and home, she starts noticing small things, shadowy figures in windows, things being moved when she is sure she left them in another place. Music that turns on by itself. Fires being lit on their own.

It soon becomes clear to Sonya that not only has she inherited a gorgeous and sprawling manor home, but a centuries old curse that goes along with it.

I've been thinking about this book for a little while, trying to decide how I feel about it. I'm very new to Nora Roberts novels so I'm still a little unfamiliar with her style of writing.

I really enjoyed each and every one of the characters, they are so likable and well rounded- Roberts does such a fantastic job of breathing life into them and the writing flows so effortlessly, truly a captivating story teller.

Sonya, who is a truly fearless main character, Cleo who is a super supportive and amazing best friend, Trey - the sexy lawyer love interest and Yoda the cutest doggy sidekick.

Somewhere around 70-80% I really felt like this was going to be more of a cozy type of mystery because I wasn't exactly getting any spooky vibes, it's all all very standard- getting along with the ghosts of the manor. So I wouldn't say there's much to fear, it's all very charming actually- but with that, I found it lacking in the plot- there just wasn't much of anything happening at all.

Around 90% a lot starts to pop off, and while I wish I had a wee bit more closure in the first book - that or I had the second book handy because Roberts has set up the sequel perfectly with an abrupt cliffhanger that has me dying to know more.

I listened to an Audio ARC- I do want to say that the narrator Brittany Pressley did a spectacular job, was a pleasure to listen to and really brought the story to life.







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Shaking things up with my current reads and starting this by the <b><i>Queen</b></i> Nora ⋆˚✿˖°

Many thanks to NetGalley, Nora Roberts and Macmillan Audio for the Audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have just finished reading Inheritance, my first official book by Nora Roberts. I had previously read one of her books written under the pen name of J.D. Robb and I enjoyed it. Inheritance did not disappoint me either. The book starts with a note from the author, read by the author, in which she describes the inspiration behind the trilogy she created. She talks about her real-life experiences with ghosts that inspired her. Then, we are introduced to the first bride, in what is known as the Lost Bride Trilogy, and where the curse begins.

Sonya is a Poole and inherits Poole manner after her uncle's death. An uncle she never knew about. After a terrible break-up, she winds up moving from Boston to Maine into a grand house with wings and invisible tenants, most of which are benign. As Sonya settles into her new home she starts learning about the women who passed away in the Poole line, and about the ghosts that inhabit the home. Along the way, we have adorable furry friends, best friends coming to the rescue, and a new love interest.

I absolutely loved this book and everything about it. It has just the right amount of creepiness without being too overwhelming. Although I don't usually enjoy being scared, Roberts knows how to keep the suspense high and the reader on edge. I am completely certain that I would not have been able to handle being at Poole Manor due to the overwhelming amount of frightening experiences that occur there. As someone who does not believe in ghosts, it would have been even more terrifying.

The tales of the brides come in order and are told from the perspective of each of the women as they meet their final moments. We also have bits and pieces of the twins (Sonya's Uncle and Dad) as they seem to connect without ever having met.

The side characters in our story are all delightful, including the ghosts and Yoda. Among them, Cleo stands out as my favorite. She brings her Southern charm and knowledge of all things spooky to the table, making her a perfect complement to the sensible and logic-seeking Sonya. Cleo also lightens up the story, which can get quite intense at times. Additionally, there is Trey, the love interest in the story. Although there was not much buildup to their romance, they seem to be moving quite fast into their relationship, though they are not yet in love, we know it is coming.

If you're wondering whether or not to read this book, the answer is a resounding yes! The writing is engaging and keeps you hooked, while the ghosts are each unique and have their own well-developed personalities. The suspense is just right, and there are even some adorable dogs and great friendships included. Trust me, once you start reading, you won't be able to put it down!

Um, I just couldn't love this. It wasn't at all my cup of tea. Nora Roberts fans, call me crazy if you'd like.

Sonya’s life changes dramatically within 6 months— she catches her fiancée cheating on her, quits her job, and finds out that she’s inherited an estate from an uncle she didn’t know about. When she picks herself up from Boston and moves to her new manor in small town Maine, she soon discovers that the house isn’t exactly empty. She can’t see her new housemates, though— they’re ghosts. Sonya must try to unravel her family history and discover the secrets hiding in the house— like why one bride is cursed to die in every generation.

This book is classic Nora Roberts— haunted mystery, small town, charming love interest, and female friendships. Also in typical Ms. Roberts fashion, we get plenty of slice of life as Sonya works on setting up her freelancing graphic design business and settles into her new small town life.

I enjoyed Sonya’s confident and warm personality. I’m curious if the next books will feature other main characters (Cleo? Bree?) or if Sonya will be our focus through the trilogy. The romance plot was very low angst, and while certainly present, in some ways took a backseat in that it didn’t push the plot forward much. However, we still get plenty of time with Trey and Sonya as they work together to uncover the history of the haunted manor.

The narrator is a great fit for the character, and the audiobook was a very enjoyable way to consume the story. I especially enjoyed her interpretation of the prose, but she did a great job with the dialogue as well. My one gripe was that Sonya’s friend Cleo’s Southern accent was too over the top for me— it really didn’t have to be that exaggerated to get the point across.

All in all, I enjoyed this audiobook and look forward to reading the next two in the trilogy.

Much thanks to Nora Roberts, St. Martin's Press, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for allowing me to both read and listen to free ARCs of the ebook and audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

The premise checked a lot of boxes for me, as it did for Nora when she was brainstorming her next trilogy. Old haunted mansion, ghosts, spooks, a family curse, a witch, magic--yeah, I was down. And I wanted to love it! A few things bothered me, so I planned to give it four stars--then we reached the end. And the end is a problem.

Those few things that bothered me:

The cover is pretty, but it's misleading. It looks like a woman standing on tiptoe in ballet flats like a ballerina. The story has nothing to do with ballet, though, so now I wonder if it's supposed to be a bride circa a few hundred years back wearing slippers, because that's what high born women wore for shoes back then. That makes more sense, but shoes don't have anything to do with the story. Rings do, however, as does an old haunted mansion. So why weren't those utilized for the cover? Why not give it an appropriate gothic vibe?

The only beverage called by name was Coke, and all the characters liked it. Propaganda, much?

For all the strength Nora wanted to give her female characters, she also didn't approve of them going without makeup. It drove me insane. The girls had to doll up before going out, before company came over, when they got up in the morning. Even if they only put on a little, they weren't allowed to go without makeup, just at home, working. I hated it so much.

Sonya and Cleo were able to master difficult recipes the first time. Cleo was known to cook some, but Sonya made it known she could burn water, and yet she made a savory pot roast and--was it oysters? some kind of seafood--and knocked both out of the park first try. I call bullshit. It would have been much more relatable if she'd fubbed something.

Actually, on that point, both Sonya and Cleo were way too perfect. Granted, Sonya almost married a grade-A asshole, but otherwise she excelled at pretty much everything else. Moving quite a ways away from home? Piece of cake. Getting harassed at work, quitting and going freelance? No sweat. New house is blatantly haunted? Unnerving, but she rolled with it. Adopting a new dog? He's perfectly behaved. I didn't see Cleo mess up much either. And of course they were both can-do-no-wrong geniuses in their fields. Nora tried to give them girls-next-door vibes, but failed, and they became hard to relate to. Add that on top of a grand living situation they won't ever have to pay a dime for, and by the end I resented them more than I related to them.

Now for the bigger problem. This book had no plot whatsoever. Yes, there was plenty of the overarching plot for the trilogy, aka the brides and the curse, but this book did not have a self-contained narrative arc. Waaaayyyy too much time is spent detailing Sonya's work projects, which don't matter and which I couldn't give a flying rat's about. A self-contained plot could have involved the ex-fiance Brandon, but we never saw hide nor hair of him again. Sonya could have struggled going freelance at first, but no. She could have not been so certain about staying in the house and didn't make the decision to until the end of her three months were up. Nope. There wasn't even a full romantic arc--we all know she and Tre will end up together, but thoughts of permanence doesn't even cross anyone's minds. They didn't even say the L word. If conflicts were begun, they weren't carried forward, but most often whatcould have been conflicts became null because Sonya was so goddamned perfect at everything.

So overall, while the premise checks a lot of boxes for me, too, Nora, your execution fell very flat. Also toward the end you were head-hopping and it got annoying.

I always get so excited when a new Nora Roberts series is announced. I love her standalones. I love her J.D. Robb series, following murder cop Eve Dallas in the late 2050s and 2060s. But her trilogies and quartets are the stories I truly sink into the most. While I have loved her last couple of trilogies, where she was doing new and exciting things outside of her norm by going more fantasy-heavy, I was also excited to hear that she would be going back to her roots, so to speak, with her newest offering, The Lost Bride Trilogy. Firmly rooted in reality with a healthy dash of the supernatural, it’s a romance and a mystery and, if Inheritance is any indication, a compulsively rereadable story that is going to stick with readers long after they read the final pages.

In Inheritance we meet Sonya right as her life comes crashing down around her ears. She comes home to find her fiancé in bed with her cousin. To make matters worse, said (now former) fiancé works in the same office as Sonya and embarks upon making her life a living hell after she refuses to see reason and forgive him for “slipping.” But when a cliché in the form of a long lost, wealthy, recently deceased uncle falls in Sonya’s lap, leaving her his (their) family home, a mansion by the sea, Sonya embarks on the adventure of a lifetime. The house is perfect. And very, very haunted. But with the support of her wonderful mother, her best friend Cleo, and the new friends she makes in her new town, Sonya is determined to make this manor her home. Most of the ghosts are happy to have her. But one will stop at nothing to drive her out.

There is a very compelling mystery at the heart of the story, that of the Lost Brides of the manor. Seven brides have died in the house within the first year of their marriages, multiple on the actual day of their weddings. A bride per generation. The ghosts of brides and their killer reside in the house, alongside who knows how many others. And yet, most of these ghosts are fairly cheerful. My favorite is one who plays DJ, always playing just exactly the right song for the moment through Sonya’s phone or tablet. That addition brought me joy all the way through the book. As did the manor itself. It’s a house with a ton of character and charm and hidden depths, with just the right amount of creep factor. I could happily live in that library.

The characters here are wonderful, as always. I love the chemistry between our main character and her love interest. I love the family dynamics of Sonya and her mother, as well as those of the Doyle family of lawyers who brought Sonya to her new home. I adore the friendship between Sonya and Cleo, who won me over immediately as a fellow Louisiana native. And then there are the dogs. There are three dogs in this book, and all three are wonderful. Nora has a way with dogs, and hers always seem like characters in their own right.

What I didn’t love as much was the cliffhanger ending. Strangely, while the two stories have very little in common, Inheritance had almost exactly the same ending as The Awakening, book 1 of her last trilogy. It’s a striking ending, but it’s a frustrating place to wait for over a year until I can get the second installment in my hands. But other than that, there’s not a thing I would change about this book. It was absolutely fantastic, and I seriously cannot wait to find out what happens next.

Sonya MacTavish is happy in her job and engaged to be married--until she walks in on her fiance and her cousin having sex in her bed. As her life's plans are in an uproar, she is hit with another bombshell. Her late father, who was adopted, had a twin, and that twin has left Sonya a gorgeous estate in Maine. The only stipulation is that she has to live there for three years. Sonya ultimately decides to move to the estate and start over her life and her career. But the house has a history of "lost brides" and many ghostly inhabitants. And at least one of them does not want Sonya there.

This was just a wonderful reading/listening experience. The characters and the story drew me in right away. I was immediately transported to this haunted mansion and caught up in the legend of the lost brides. The spirits, some of them fun-loving and one of them definitely not, make this book unique. The narration by Brittany Pressley is spot on. Pressley does a great job of portraying the characters, human and spirit, in a captivating way.
My only slight critique is that the book ends on a cliffhanger. I hope Book 2 comes out soon because I want to read more of this story!

Nora Roberts has hit a homerun with this one, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys magical realism.

I received a free copy of the audiobook from MacMillan Audio via Netgalley. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.

Extremely slow. Extremely boring. Hours and hours too long. The narrator was quite good. Waste of my time. Not a fan at all. Nora Roberts doesn’t need my opinion or money, but. I have to wonder, who reads these books?? I’ll skip any further Inheritance books.

All I can say is wow! loved this author and tried this audio. The only disappointment in the book is that it ended and now I have to wait for the next book. Ghosts, mystery, romance and spooky happenings. Who could want more! Supporting characters are great and funny. I highly recommend this book and author. No spoilers- it is too good to give out.

**I received this book from NetGalley and publisher for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Ooooh I love a good “spooky” gothic romance novel! This wasn’t really that spooky, but it had some entertaining creepy moments. I actually kind of wish there were some more ghostly scenes and it could have had some more spooky paranormal activity throughout the book.

I really enjoyed the cast of characters. They meshed very well with one another.

I was so bummed about the massive cliffhanger at the end of the book! This book has pretty much zero ending, so you have to read the next book to feel any sort of closure. I don’t mind reading a book that has an option to continue, but this was rough for me since I hate waiting. Lol

Some of the pace of this book was a little slow for me, but I loved the story!

Thanks NetGalley and publisher for the digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

I really enjoyed this book, soooky ghost element perfect for this time of year. This was my first book from this author so I wasn’t sure if i was going to enjoy her style or not and she kept me interested from start to finish. I am HIGHLY invested in this family now and I cannot wait for the 2nd book to come out so I can find out more information.

Thank you to netgally for sending me this book for my honest opinion.