#jd Robb

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

My top three favorite pieces of random author drama, in no particular order:

Anne Rice's feud with the owner of Popeye's Chicken because the latter put a big gaudy restaurant on the used car lot where Lestat died

That time Nora Roberts popped off at a commenter on her blog who was complaining that the sequel to one of her books wasn't coming out fast enough and tried to fan-splain the publishing process to her

The most influential children's librarian in American history pushing really hard to get E.B. White to write Stuart Little, then making a complete 180 on it once she read it and trying to keep it from getting published

[theloneliestblackgirlblog]

I enjoy the In Death series a lot. It’s very fun to read but for the love of God I will pay a million kisses to whoever can get J.D Robb (Nora Roberts) to stop writing Eve interact with characters who are victims of rape and sexual assault/abuse. A lot of times those characters end up killing their abusers or are “in the way” of Eve identifying the killer. For example I recently read Brotherhood in Death and Vengeance in Death, also kinda Purity in Death.

All it does is shows the hypocrisy of Eve’s morals. She seems to have a very hard time understanding that some people’s form of Justice is having their abuser dead by their hand. That is good enough for them. It’s not that she has to agree with it or support it, she can’t cause she’s a cop. But she seems to have a hard time understanding it at all.

All we get is everyone around Eve being like “no Eve you killing your abuser is different! Those other guys who killed their abusers are in the wrong, you’re not.” Even though in the grand scheme of things one can argue her killing is exactly the same.

Also she comes across as rude, unsympathetic, and sometimes heartless. Not because she’s “standing for the victims” and often times because of her job it makes her hunt down victims and stand for the people who victimized them in the first place. However, what makes her worse in my opinion, is the fact that she doesn’t really offer any kindness or sympathy. Just “why didn’t you go to the police” or “it’s your fault you didn’t go to the police” which is ironic because 1) them killing their abusers is sometimes the only reason their crimes get brought to light and investigated and 2) with her (spoiler?) background with Homeland Security she should know that not all organizations deemed to protect and serve are trustworthy. What can be said to a victim of their abuser is powerful enough to just call up the chief of police when they get accused?

My other thing is that Roberts writes Eve as a character who comes off as so deep into the patriarchal bargain (in simple terms a ‘not like other girls girl’) that she is very misogynistic when dealing with women who step out of her schematic of what a woman should be. (This also extends to her friends). Which makes sense in terms of her job, her position but makes her unlikable when it comes to cases where women and their pain are the forefront. I suppose that’s what Peabody is for.

Eve is not my favorite character of the series, she is a good character in some regards. When I read cases like what I hope I outlined above it’s like really hard for me to brush past her (what I deem) character flaws.

This Goodreads review of Brotherhood in Death by reader “E” pretty much sums up my thoughts more eloquently.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1545230948

[my-52-weeks-with-christie]

Round-Up Mystery Reviews

Things I’ve loved watching/reading recently but are so popular they practically sell themselves! First Up: The Glass Onion The second installment in the Knives Out universe is absolutely awesome. Though I must admit, I was worried when I first started watching it. Very, very worried. All the cameos of well-known actors felt a bit gratuitous…but I’d looked forward to the movie for months — so I…

[breath-of-fresh-eyre]

Book: Rapture In Death

Author: JD Robb

Started: Feb 3 2025

Reread: Yes

Notes: Rereading the In Death books is hilarious because you can watch Robb subtly retcon shit as she goes. Sometimes it's personality things, like Eve thinking "yeah sure I'd go to a place like this" in a ritzy spa instead of "stay tf away from me with your gloop and your grabby-hands," sometimes it's subtle shit like saying normal procedure always has three investigators on a scene ---and then immediately forgetting that for every single murder in the rest of the series.

My favorite is the tech, where she started this a few decades ago and you can SEE the FutureTech go from desktops / landlines to cell phones to smart watches

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on Passions in Death by J. D. Robb

Book #59 in the series. I've been reading these for over 20 years, and this one still managed to surprise me in a few ways. Some of what I'm going to say might be viewed as spoilers, but I'm pretty sure it's all in the first half of the book. Anywho, here we go.

So one of the reasons that I love this series is that the type of mystery switches up pretty often. Some of them have been really high-stakes, high-profile things with serial killers, some are man hunts where the killer is known early on, some are practically cozy. This one is more of a cozy sort of murder, where the suspect pool is all present early on, but Dallas has to figure out who the liar is. Probably my favorite type, if I'm being honest.

On the other hand, some of the usual tropes got turned on their heads. There was little-to-no digital work to be done to find this killer. That means Roarke did far less of his really-not-legal information gathering to help.

Dallas had dreams about the case that were 100% not helpful in providing insights to who the killer was. That was very satisfying, because sometimes those almost feel like magic cop powers. This time? Her brain was just being dumb and messing with her.

Good appearances from some minor characters we haven't seen in a long while. I liked the assortment we got this time, and honestly, at this point, there have been so many minor characters throughout the series that it's amazing Dallas doesn't run into more people she knows more often.

And here's the thing that really stood out to me. At 59 books in, we finally got a minor character who was openly trans. I'm nearly positive this was the first in the series, and I honestly liked how she was handled. Donna appears early on in the pool of suspects/friends of the victim. While Dallas does note that Donna looks tall/strong enough to be the killer, Donna is the one who gets to say she's trans. Beyond that, she's just one of the girls. Yeah, there are a few characters who are a little catty about it, but the narrative makes it clear those people are Very Rude People for doing so.

So while I'm certainly a little bummed that it took 59 books to get a trans character on the page, I'm honestly very pleasantly surprised at how gracefully the character was written.

Also, no slips with dollars vs credits in this one. I find myself wondering if the series has had different editors recently. The style bible for this series must be a beast.

Anywho, the next one comes out in a few weeks, but I have a pile of xmas gifts to read through. And I get this series from the library, so I've usually got to wait anyway.

[leihaddock]

I've been reading A LOT of J.D. ROBB (Nora Roberts)' In Death series lately. Started in I think 2017? And then it kinda escalated when I found a second hand store a year ago And I don't think I'll ever quite be over a few of the tropes that keep repeating in the books. Other than dealing with the trauma Eve and Roarke went through in their childhood and of course Eve as a cop busting bad guys The one that gets me every single time is "for you I will become the best version of myself" type situations. Roarke shedding the shady for Eve is the prime example. But he's not the only one. There are a lot of stories where that doesn't happen and the results of that being grave One of the books I loved recently was Faithless In Death. Because it's such a clear fuck you to bigots. It's not only palpable from all the good guys in the book, it's so strong you can tell Nora Roberts was really angry at bigots at the time of writing it

[sandythereadingcafe]

REVIEW:

PASSIONS IN DEATH (In Death #59 ) by JD Robb at The Reading Cafe:

' a compelling, captivating, horrifying thriller from start to finish'

[thesirensims]

Crossover Event I'm working on! I'll be Creating Some of the Characters in the Sims 3 on this Channel and talking about The In Death Series over on my Commentary Channel! Let Me Know What You Think?

[kaetrinsmusings]

Review at AudioGals

Review at AudioGals: Forgotten in Death by JD Robb, narrated by Susan Ericksen.

I’m over at AudioGals with a review of Forgotten in Death by JD Robb, narrated by Susan Ericksen.  When I said I was right back into the series, I meant it!

[atopvisenyashill]

i thought about theonsa AND theon/bran but the throbb pictures worked the best lmao. also-

[redinkofshame]

Modern AU where Varric's spy network and fingers-in-every-pie is just that he's a really good hacker and very nosy. He still pretends he doesn't know how to save a .PDF

[lovevalley45]

i always love the idea of getting a literary reference tattoo’d on me n i can never decide on what to get but i was reading an “in death” book n realized,,, i could get medical examiner morris’ grim reaper tattoo

however i do not think i can pull off a nipple tat so ill put in the lore inaccurate position on my thigh ig

[breath-of-fresh-eyre]

Nora Roberts does excellent sex scenes, right? God knows she's done enough of them. I tend to skip or skim the myriad ones in her "In Death" series, but sometimes I catch a bit that just, like... doesn't go. Just like a weird bit of grammar can pull you out of your reading flow, I caught this bit in my skim and my visualizations did a record scratch

The problem is in the pluralization of "hands". They've been rolling around just previous to this, and there's a pretty clear indication of missionary position. So my brain's doing this "hang on I want to figure this out" refusal to move on and flipping through the possibilities of how he's not doing some bujangasana hoverboard shit

Like if he shifted to one hand and lifted her hips with the other, makes sense. Otherwise "he shifted" is gonna have to cover him, like, strugglebussing around to get his knees under him -though he'd have to be lifting her hips REALLY high to still get the "long hard strokes." Or scootching them both down until he can stand at the edge of the bed, if it's high enough to accommodate his long legs (which hasn't been much mentioned before)

It's really not important but it's definitely one of those "I think the author lost track for a bit" moments

[strongbookthoughts]

Notes on Random in Death by JD Robb

So the challenge in talking about this book for me is that I've read the 50+ books in the series that come before it. But, hey, let's give it a go. For those that don't know, the In Death series is a mystery series set in the near future. Eve Dallas is a murder cop in New York, and her sexy Irish billionaire husband is a former criminal.

I'm generally feeling that this is the best book in the series by a long shot, but it isn't the worst. There is something of a bingo card of scenes and inside jokes for every novel, and most of those felt reasonably fresh this time. It was the mystery itself that fell a little flat for me.

One of my favorite things about the series is the interpersonal relationships between all the regular cast. Eve and Roarke never stop working on their relationship and learning how to communicate with each other, and there is always growth there. Eve slowly being won over by her BFF's toddler is also always great.

This book may have had the least annoying insight dream in the entire series.

The series used to refer to money as "credits," which was a great way for me to not think about what inflation should look like for 30 years in the future. Recently, they've been saying dollars, which is a bit jarring, since money is usually mentioned in connection with clues.

The series has a variety of types of mysteries within the murder investigations. In some of them, all the reasonable suspects are introduced early on and the reader gets to solve them with cast. In this one, it was more of a needle-in-the-hay-stack hunt. It's not my favorite type, but it gave space for the interpersonal stuff to shine.

Also, it's kind of hilarious when Robb has to invent a slang for teenagers so that they can be extra young and hip and confusing to the adults.

So... final opinion? Solid within the series, but not great. And not the book I'd hand to someone curious about the series.

[stonedscully]

I just want a book as smutty as a Lucy Score novel with a more of a crime element. Is that so much to ask for 🙄!? I read the first Tracers book by Laura Griffin and the mystery was good but the slow burn was way too slow and the sex was only a page and a half, and I just need more payoff than that. Any recommendations would be super appreciated ♡♡