The Witness by Nora RobertsMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Audiobook
Narrated by: Julia Whelan
Nora Roberts is known for her romance novels though a lot of them has an element of a thriller or mystery. The Witness is no different. Elizabeth Fitch is a 16 year old genius with an IQ of over 200 and is about to enter medical school. With all the strict regulation and supervision that she has received from her famous surgeon mother, Elizabeth's whole life has been devoted to following schedules her mother made for her.
Her mother had herself artificially inseminated after choosing the right donor from a list of "worthy" candidates. Elizabeth has a nutritionist to make sure she eats well and almost every single aspect of her life is lived according to her mother's wishes. Her hair, her clothes, what she studies, where she goes; everything must be approved by her mother.
But she is getting tired of it all and just wants to be a normal 16 year old girl. She decides it is time for some rebellion and she enlists the help of Julie (a girl from her high school) to shop for some "normal" clothes. Julie agrees, provided Elizabeth gets both of them a fake ID so they could both go clubbing. Elizabeth makes the fake IDs and they go to the most famous club in town -- Warehouse 12. In the club they meet two Russian men who are part of the family that owns the club.
One of the men, Alex, invites them to his home and they prepare to go but the other man, Ilya, had to stay behind at the club to take care of some business but promised to join them later. At Alex's house something terrible happens and Liz (Elizabeth) saw it all happen.
To save her life, Elizabeth becomes Abigail Lowery and she moves to a small town in the Ozarks to live a quiet life on her own with her dog Burt. However, the town sheriff, Brooks finds her too interesting to ignore and Abigail's life becomes too complicated for her tastes.
The Witness starts out at a good pace and the story is very interesting and exciting. But, the pace slows considerably the moment "Abigail" enters the picture. It is like the book entered some machine that changed it altogether -- from exciting thriller and...presto-change-o...to a slow romance (a really slow).
I would have given the book more stars if only it did not start dragging. It is like the beginning and the end are fast and the middle of the book has been stretched out just to fill a requirement for "number of pages" (no idea if that was the case but it sure appeared that way to me).
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