Homeport
by Nora Roberts
Berkley Pub Group
July 1, 2008
ISBN-13: 0425221520
Available in: Trade Size (reprint)
The "marvelous" (Rocky Mountain News) novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling authornow in a French flap trade edition.
After an assault at her family home in Maine, Dr. Miranda Jones is determined to put the experience behind her. Distraction comes when she is summoned to Italy to verify the authenticity of a Renaissance bronze of a Medici courtesan known as The Dark Lady. But when the job nearly destroys her reputation, Miranda has no one to turn to except Ryan Boldari, a seductive art thief who offers her both unnerving suspicion and intoxicating passion. And when it becomes clear that the incident in Maine was not a simple mugging, Miranda is forced to rely on herselfand Ryan during a journey home that is filled with deception, treachery, and danger.
Nora Roberts was born in Silver Spring Maryland, the youngest of five children. After a school career that included some time in Catholic school and the disciplines of nuns, she married young and settled in Keedysville, Maryland. She worked briefly as a legal secretary. "I could type fast but couldn't spell, I was the worst legal secretary ever," she says now. After her sons were born she stayed home and tried every craft that came along. A blizzard in February 1979 forced her hand to try another creative outlet. She was snowed in with a three and six year old with no kindergarten respite in sight and a dwindling supply of chocolate. Born into a family of readers, Nora had never known a time that she wasn't reading or making up stories. During the now famous blizzard, she pulled out a pencil and notebook and began to write down one of those stories. It was there that a career was born. Several manuscripts and rejections later, her first book, Irish Thoroughbred, was published by Silhouette in 1981. Nora met her second husband, Bruce Wilder, when she hired him to build bookshelves. They were married in July 1985. Since that time, they've expanded their home, traveled the world and opened a bookstore together. Through the years, Nora has always been surrounded by men. Not only was she the youngest in her family, but she was also the only girl. She has raised two sons. Having spent her life surrounded by men has given Ms. Roberts a fairly good view of the workings of the male mind, which is a constant delight to her readers. It was, she's been quoted as saying, a choice between figuring men out or running away screaming. Nora is a member of several writers groups and has won countless awards from her colleagues and the publishing industry. Recently The New Yorker called her “America’s favorite novelist.”