Excellent story - a real treat and the typical Nora Roberts novel that I have come to love. If you enjoy race horses, romance, adventure and mystery, True Betrayals is your book. To summarize, 26 year-old Kelsey Byden, recently divorced, and definitely raised with the upper crust, receives a letter from a mother she thought was long dead. Her father, Phillip Byden and Grandmother, Millicent raised her to believe that her mother had died when she was a baby. Her grandmother is a hard-core social climber, expecting no less from her granddaughter. Her dad is an English Professor at Georgetown University, very kind and soft-spoken and very much under the rule of his controlling mother. Kelsey confronts her father as he admits that her mother had asked him to tell their daughter (who was only three years old at the time) she died after she was arrested and sent to prison for killing a man. The story begins to unfold as Kelsey decides to meet her mother, Naomi Chadwick, who owns a thoroughbred horse farm, Three Willows, in Virginia. There, Kelsey connects immediately, heart and soul, creating a new life, one of hard work, long days and many rewards, completely opposite the elite socially correct life her grandmother expects of her. She falls head-over-heels with the horses and begins to understand and become attached to the mother she never even knew existed. Along with this new life comes a new love, rugged Gabe Slater, a man raised on the wrong side of the tracks by a dead-beat father. Gabe is a gambler and has overcome the odds to make something of him and his horse farm, Longshot. The more Kelsey is drawn to the life of a thoroughbred caretaker, the more she is determined to delve into the somewhat vague facts of her mother's trial 23 years ago. Some things come full circle and along with the excitement of the Kentucky Derby and the race at Belmont, all leading to a Triple Crown event for one of Gabe's prize horses, Double or Nothing, comes murder, blackmail and cut throat tactics by men who are willing to do anything to win the golden purse. Connections of murder and greed begin to unravel in both past and present occurrences. True Betrayals is a story that keeps the reader hooked until the very last page. The characters are completely likeable and the storytelling comes with many surprises. It's a book that is hard to put down, leaving the reader sorry to see it come to an end.

Though I enjoyed Nora Roberts' novels, I took a sabbatical from them as too often one novel had too many similarities with the next. Needing escapism reading, I picked up some of her books again. I have found the same issue with some of the trilogies, but True Betrayals stands on its own. Characters are well developed. When trouble occurs in two of the horse farms, the culprit or culprits are not obvious and do not become apparent until revealed later in the book. There is a well developed connection between characters. I think it is one of her better novels and highly recommend it to anyone - especially Roberts fans.

This is one special book! Not only has Ms Roberts written a beautiful romance, but what makes this book outstanding is the portrayal of a mother's love and the sacrifices she makes and has made for her daughter. While many, like myself, would have wanted to see the real villain punished for the many misdeeds at the end, the fact that this does not happen only gives the book more strength. Wonderful, Ms Roberts, and thank you for writing this beautiful book.

Kelsey Byden didn't quite know what she wanted to do with her life, but that was before her mother came back from the dead. Soon Kelsey is voluntarily moved from her high end Georgetown apartment and into the new world of Virigina horse farms and the racing elite to be with the mother she never knew -- a mother who spent ten years in prison for a crime she may or may not have been justified in committing. In Virginia Kelsey meets Gabe, a high rolling horse owner with just enough luck on his side to escape a horrible past. Then there's Kelsey's grandmother, who is not pleased with recent developments....

The story is entertaining, if not exactly logical in terms of the horse racing details. Kelsey certainly finds herself in the horse world, becoming a spokesperson and budding assistant trainer in the course of several short months. In short, it's a guilty pleasure. If the mother-daughter relationship won't hook readers at the beginning, the developing romance will. After all, it's horses and romance. What better combination is there?

Kelsey Byden thought she knew her life, but was devastated when she received a letter from the mother that she thought was dead. Naomi thought it best since she was in jail for murder, but now that she is out and found a life of her own, she wants to see her daughter. When Kelsey visits her mother at her horse farm, her life changes forever. It is there that she has to come to terms with Naomi, and meets her future in Gabe.

This was a well-written book with a lot of information about horses and horse racing. The interaction between Naomi and Kelsey was very intense, but I found the character Gabe lacking.