Twelve-year-old Thea Fox loves June because it means she gets to spend two weeks with her grandmother in the Appalachia region. When her parents drop her and her brother off, she’s ready to help her Grammie milk the goat, bake fresh bread, and make candles and soaps for her Grammie’s business. A nightmare quickly changes everything though. Thea dreamed about her parents being killed only to discover her grandmother dreamt the same thing. Sharing this special gift of vision with her Grammie brings them closer as they deal with the aftermath of the brutal murders.

Thanks to Thea’s vision, her parents’ killer will spend the rest of his life in prison while she and her brother are now staying with their Grammie in Redbud Hollow. As life goes on, Thea grows as does her gift; a gift that keeps her linked to the man who changed her life. His hatred for Thea is making him stronger and keeping him out of her head is getting harder and harder for Thea. When Thea finds love, she knows that to truly be free, she’s going to have to confront the monster in her head, but only one can survive.

You need to have a box of tissues with you when you start reading MIND GAMES. My eyes were like leaky faucets for the first 10 chapters of this book. No one evokes emotions the way Nora Roberts does. Reading her books is like being on an emotional rollercoaster. From the endorphin-filled highs of finding love to the sorrow-filled lows of losing your parents in such a violent way, you’ll experience it all. The romance took a bit of a back seat in this one as the focal point was Thea and her transition from a twelve-year-old orphan to a successful video game designer. The love interest doesn’t even show up until just before the 50% mark of the story.

Roberts typically does a great job of building up secondary characters but because Thea, her gift, and her connection with the man who murdered her parents are focused on so much, I feel like, aside from Grammie, we missed out on the secondary character development we have come to enjoy from her. Thea's best friend didn’t factor into the story much and even her brother, I felt, took more of a backseat than what I’ve come to expect. But this is still a Nora Roberts book and once you dive in, there’s no coming back up until you’re at the end. MIND GAMES takes you on a family’s emotional journey as they overcome the tragedy that shapes their lives and create strong bonds amongst themselves.