Because we start with Zane, I expected his story to drive the plot.
Then we follow their relationship for a little while. We spend a lot of time with teen-aged Zane, then follow Darby as she sets up her landscaping business. This was a lot more episodic in a way that I can’t quite say I was expecting. I think that’s good in a lot of ways - having read so many of Nora Roberts’ novels, I was expecting a central plot that was hinted at in the beginning and then given to us at the climax. I think it’s because I just wasn’t sure what the plot was, and I didn’t know what to expect.
If you read Obsession and The Witness, you’re familiar with this narrative style. The heroine, Darby McCray, doesn’t show up until Chapter Eight. He’s our protagonist for the first 130 some pages as we live through his abusive childhood and the night that changed his family and future forever. We follow the hero, Zane Bigelow Walker, primarily. Like Carolina Moon, The Witness, and Obsession, we’re in a small town filled with vibrant characters, warm family ties, and the seediness that often lies beneath the thin layer of old-fashioned values. Under Currents takes place on familiar ground. I liked both of these books, but I haven’t been driven to return to them. In Come Sundown, the main story was the tragic and disturbing kidnapping of a woman who was then kept in captivity for decades while Shelter in Place examined the survivors of a mass shooting. Both were good, but they showed Nora Roberts stretching her writing muscles and stepping out of her role as master romance writer.
Those releases read more like straight suspense mysteries with romance as a subplot. Under Currents is a return to an old formula for Nora Roberts, one in which she has deviated from in her last two hardback releases, Shelter in Place and Come Sundown.
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