I thought of my nieces and nephews when they were his age and wondered if they would have been able to stay quiet if they would have known their parents’ first and last names… I’d be lying if I said I got through this book without shedding a few tears. He says “mommy.” Then they ask him what his daddy calls her and he says “honey.” That scene nearly broke me. When he’s brought to a police officer, they ask him his mom’s name. There’s a scene when a little boy is separated from his mother during the shooting. Maybe it’s because each character felt like someone I might have known when I was their age, or maybe it’s just the magic of Roberts’ plot and character development working together, but something about the first part of this book really resonated with me. The dialogue immediately begins the character development, with each personality emerging, just as the shooting begins. When the story begins, we meet a series of young adults: a waiter in a popular chain restaurant, an assistant manager of a video game store, an associate working at a jewelry kiosk, and a group of high school students visiting the movie theater together.

These incidents are such a common occurrence that they don’t seem all that shocking to see on the news anymore, making this story feel both realistic and extremely relevant.

I don’t want to get political and I’m not interested in a debate–this isn’t the venue for that–but I think one of the reasons Shelter in Place made me so emotional at times was the “this could happen anywhere, this could happen to my loved ones” feeling I got in the pit of my stomach while listening to this story. I read an article a few months ago that said there had been 288 schools shootings in the US since 2009–a figure that doesn’t the shootings at concerts, movie theaters, shopping centers. Ward’s Children or Wrath would make you feel things, all of the things? So will Nora Roberts’ Shelter in Place.

Nora roberts shelter in place series