There are authors you return to the way you return to a favorite chair. You know how it feels before you sit down. Nora Roberts has been that chair for me. I’ve been reading her for years. I know what she’s capable of.

Over years of reading her, I built up a kind of faith: that her stories would pull me in, that her characters would feel lived-in and real, that whatever the premise, I’d be able to sink below the surface of my own life and stay there for a few hundred pages. So when I got the invitation to read and review The Final Target ahead of its May 2026 release, I said yes without hesitation. The premise — a debut author stalked by an obsessive fan — felt like a classic Nora Roberts story: secrets, suspense, and a little spice (of course).

I made it about 25% of the way in before I put it down.

I debated about simply letting the publisher know that I didn’t finish and sharing this sort-of-review privately. I decided to share here because my feelings about Nora Roberts’ recent books have been accumulating for a little while now. I don’t think my DNF in this case was simply, hey, this book isn’t for me. It’s more a sharpening sense of a shift in what I once expected from Nora Roberts.

The dialogue is quick and clever. But it doesn’t ring true; it feels unrealistic, like I couldn’t imagine anyone in my life or, to be honest, anyone whose conversation I might overhear, talking like these characters.

The backstory, too, is given enormous weight here. On the one hand, I get it — the premise of a stalker depends on that slow build, the sinister patience of watching and waiting. But the balance tips. Present scenes lose their tension when they keep yielding the floor to what came before. I found myself waiting for the story to arrive, and it kept not quite getting there. The drawn-out descriptions of the day-to-day fill pages without filling the story.

I needed intrigue to carry me through all of that. I didn’t find enough of it at 25%, and with a TBR pile that doesn’t stop growing, I made the choice to stop.

Now, as I always say, not every book is for every reader. And if you’re a reader who revels in the slow, careful unfurling of character and trauma, other early reader responses suggest this one might be for you. There are readers finding genuine emotional resonance here, and I don’t doubt them.

But for me, The Final Target confirmed something I’ve been quietly thinking for a few books now: the chair has changed. It might still be a good chair. It’s just not the one I fell in love with.

A review copy was provided by the publisher. All opinions are my own.