I had a B-review that was writing itself while I read this book. Then the hero and heroine disappeared, and it went to a C. Then the villains hijacked the book, and it became a D. Sigh.

Clare Kimball is a New York sculptor when, on the heels of successful exhibition, she decides to take some time off to go back to her hometown of Emmitsboro, Maryland. There she discovers that the high school bad boy, Cam Rafferty, has become the sheriff and, just as romance heats up, strange things start to happen. A baby’s grave is excavated. A teenage girl disappears. Cam’s stepfather is beaten to death. And the bodies pile up. What’s going on in Emmitsboro, population 2000 and all-American small town haven? Satanism, of course.

So here’s my first and biggest problem with the book: There’s only so much I can take of the “Ave, Satan!” and the raping and the goat-sacrificing and the blood-spilling. Ad nauseum. (Literally.) My tolerance for literary violence doesn’t extend to horror, but usually my stomach is strong enough for the yuckiest non-horror books. Divine Evil, however, went too far.

Secondly, there are some interesting secondary characters. Super. Makes for a full-bodied, multi-flavored story. But then there are also the secondary secondary characters. So we not only have POVs from Clare and Cam’s Best Friends, we also have Town Whore, Mayor’s Wife, Mother of Strange Teen Next Door, not to mention Strange Teen himself – you get the idea. Most of them come from small town central casting, minus the satanism, and the only really interesting one, Strange Teen Next Door, is just a wee bit too…well, strange.

And lastly, Clare and Cam are nice, interesting people with whom I wanted to spend more time. Clare was forever influenced by her father’s violent death when she was sixteen, and her art is a natural complement to her innate shyness. Cam grew up with an abusive stepfather and an oblivious mother, leaving for the police academy as soon as he could. Both have made professional successes out of tragic pasts, although Clare has a bit farther to go in the personal development department. But they are a nice, solid couple and the book’s best bits feature the two interacting.

Except I wanted more. What with the brain-spilling and twenty gajillion characters, Clare and Cam got way lost. Now I know the spine of the book says Novel, not Romance. But what am I supposed to say? Gosh, what a fascinating direction for Nora Roberts to take, an examination of Masks and Realities in semi-rural America! I hated the Satanic scenes, was irritated with all the other POVs, and really wish Ms. Roberts had written a whole other book for Cam and Clare.

With over a hundred books written by the author, it’s expected that some hit for an individual reader while others miss. But all the rationale in the world can’t alleviate my disappointment with this one.