This book mainly takes place in Big Sur, California. One February afternoon the Sullivan clan has gotten together to remember Liam Sullivan, a movie star who has just passed, His family has mainly followed in his footsteps. His son Hugh's son Aiden's daughter, Cate is out playing with her cousins and the game is hide and seek. She has the perfect spot in a tree when a male caterer comes to her and injects her with a drug to make her go to sleep. He puts her in a cart and gets her in a van and drives off with her to a house nearby where his partner is waiting with masks. They wait until the family has finally noticed that she is gone to call and demand $10 million and that they don't call the cops or they'll hurt her. Her father and grandfather are kinda considering calling the police but her mother becomes hysterical at the thought, so they don't. The mother, Charlotte is accusing the nanny, Nina of being involved, but no one listens to her; Hugh, the grandfather, and Rosemary, the great grandmother are getting the money together;
Meanwhile, Cate has woken up and the two men terrorize her with a gun then they give her dosed soup and milk and tell her to eat it, but she figures out that it's drugged and pours it in the toilet and flushes it away. Them the man behind everything comes into her room to get the dishes, not noticing that she kept the spoon, and he's on the phone with someone back at her house calling them lover and telling them to make sure to continue to use the nanny's phone to implicate her. After he leaves she takes the sheets and towels and ties them together and uses them to climb out the window she has just unlocked with the spoon taking out the nails. She runs and runs until she finds a house with a light on and the door is unlocked so she goes in to try to use the phone to call 911. But Dillion, a young boy around her age has gotten up for a midnight snack and discovers a surprise instead. He gets his mother, Julia, and his Gram up to help with the situation. They call her father and grandfather and the police.
The next morning when she sees her mother it all comes back to her how her mother told her where to hide and to make sure that hide and seek was the last game the kids played, She also told what she heard the captor said and what his ringtone was, Nina recognized the ringtone because Charlotte had been having an affair with her physical trainer Sparks who had that same ringtone. It turns out that Sparks, Charlotte, and Sparks partner Denby all got together to make some money off of kidnapping Cate. The police arrest Charlotte and make a plea deal with her she gets ten years, out in seven for good behavior if she gives them information on the others. Soon the other two are caught and make plea deals too which the Sherrif Red is glad for because he doesn't want to have to put Cate on the stand.
Cate's family whisk her away to Ireland to avoid the publicity and soon seven years have past and her mother is out of prison. Cate is taking parts in movies and her mother shows up at lunch meeting for a part to do the "penitent mother routine whose ungrateful daughter won't take her back". She invites the press there of course. Cate does the movie but drops out of LA and goes to New York City with her grandmother Lily who is acting in Mame for a year. She falls in love with a wonderful chorus guy but you know something will happen because Roberts lets you know that Cate and the boy from the house that saved her, Dillian are meant to be together. Cate does a lot of things like take classes at NYU especially in languages and just avoids the press and the world while she figures out what she wants to do with her life.
This is a fabulous book and I'm not just saying that because Dillian names his two dogs Gambit and Rogue, my favorite Marvel couple, I'm saying it because it has an amazing plot and incredible characters that come alive off the page. Hugh is a real grandfatherly figure and Lily, his wife is filled with humor and Southern charm. Dillian's "girls" his mother and his gram are stellar in that they help run the ranch with Dillian and live life by their own rules. The plot of the book takes off like a rocket and just keeps going after that. Though my one complaint is that like nine years go by without mentioning it from when she's seventeen til when she's twenty-eight. Roberts does handle what happened during those years over a couple of pages when Cate has dinner with Dillion; All the same its sort of irritating to jump like that with no warning or knowledge that you have jumped; Nonetheless, this is hands down one of Roberts best. I truly loved this novel and I give it five out of five stars.
Quotes
Daughters are the thing.-J.M.BarrieA little child love ever’body, friends, and its nature is sweetness—until something happens.-Flannery O’ConnorA life’s marked along the way darlin’, by the deeds we do, for good or ill. Those we leave behind judge those marks and remember-Nora Roberts (Hideaway p 13)
An artist isnt’ an artist without quirks.-Nora Roberts (Hideaway p 245)“Rich doesn’t mean happy,Mom.” “It’s a lot easier to be unhappy sleeping on silk sheets than it is sleeping in a cardboard box—which is what she deserves.”-Nora Roberts (Hideaway p 255)How do you expect to survive the zombie apocalypse if you can’t make your own pizza?-Nora Roberts (Hideaway p 272)What sort of human being came knocking on a womna’s door at eight-thirty in the morning? She pulled her most casual smile as she opend the door. Ans hated him, sincerely hated him in that single moment for looking just amazing.-Nora Roberts (Hideaway p 280)Maybe he’d toss out that marriage thing, all casual, now and then. This way she might not be shocked when he actually asked her. She really needed to marry him. Not only because he was crazy in love with her , but because they ust worked. If she need time to fall for him, well, he had time.-Nora Roberts (Hideaway p 320)I’m not much on hate, It doesn’t get you anywhere, and tenes to eat more at you than the other person anyway. But I carved out an exceptiohn for her a long time ago. I’m fine with that.-Nora Roberts (Hideaway p 336)Maybe I screwed up, maybe she screwed up. Mostly it just didn’t stick, and we parted ways. I never cheated, because that’s weak. If you want somebody else, you say so, you don’t cheat. I’ve never hit a woman, and I hoope to Christ I’ve never mistreated one, because there are other wasy to hurt somebody than with you fist”-Nora Roberts (Hideaway p 341-2)To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.-Samual JohnsonThe voice is a wild thing. It can’t be bred in captivity.-Willa CatherFrom fame to imfamy is a beaten road.=Francis QuarlesAll the world doth practice stage playing.=Montaigne
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