Obsession is for romantic suspense readers who like a heroine to start from real ignorance: Katharine Lawrence wakes after a shooting to a stranger’s face in the mirror, and the first man she has to decide about is her own doctor. Karen Robards’s novel pairs a conspiracy plot with a love-on-the-run engine, and it should not be confused with other books that share its title.
A job title, a hospital bed and a face she does not know
According to the Penguin Random House listing, Katharine Lawrence is twenty-nine and works as special assistant to the head of the CIA. She survives an attack by masked gunmen and comes to in a hospital, where the face in the mirror is not one she recognizes. She does not know whom to trust, and that includes Dr. Dan Howard, the man at her bedside.
What makes the setup unusual is where the uncertainty sits. The listing says she knows her age and her job, so this is not a story that begins with a blank slate. The trouble is that the face in the mirror is not one she recognizes, and she has to decide how much of her situation she can still lean on. The listing does not say why her appearance is unfamiliar, so that explanation belongs to the book.
Her instincts eventually push her to run. Dan then becomes her protector, and the two are drawn into a conspiracy in which, as the publisher puts it, nothing and no one is quite what it seems. Everything beyond that point is the novel’s to reveal.
You’re on the list. Your free stories are waiting in the Reader Vault. The House Below the Signal
Doctor, stranger, protector
Dan Howard is the other half of the question, and the listing frames him in two steps: first as someone Katharine cannot vouch for, then as the person standing between her and danger. That sequence is the romance’s likely engine. A woman who cannot verify her own face has no way to run the usual checks on a man, so whatever trust develops has to come from what he does under pressure rather than from what he says he is.
The listing gives no more about Dan than his profession and his role, so be wary of any summary that does. It is enough to say that the book has built a reason for these two to be thrown together quickly and a reason for Katharine to hesitate, and that the genre label on the page, romantic suspense, signals that the relationship is meant to matter as much as the plot.
Does the identity puzzle make the attraction believable?
The setup gives attraction a plausible path. Danger compresses time, dependence creates intimacy, and Katharine’s doubts keep her from falling too easily. Whether the feelings feel earned across the whole book, or merely convenient to the plot, is what the novel itself has to prove. The publisher’s page lists the ebook at 400 pages, published in May 2008.
The genre tags on the page and the reaction gathered below point the same way: a book where the suspense is meant to be unsettling and the romance is a core ingredient, not an afterthought.
How the book presents itself
The page does not state a point of view, a timeline structure or a tone beyond what the description and the excerpted praise imply, so those are questions the opening chapters answer. What the description does show is a plot organized around withheld information: a mirror, a job title, a doctor, a flight. If you read suspense for the feeling of being slightly behind the heroine, you will be in the right mood. If you prefer to stay a step ahead of her, the premise is built to deny you that, at least early on.
The author, the edition and where it sits
The same page describes Robards as a bestselling author of more than fifty novels, with appearances on major national bestseller lists. It also notes six Silver Pen Awards and a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award. The page shows no series for Obsession, so nothing in the listing suggests earlier books are needed, although the page does not say outright that it stands alone. Its genre tags are romantic suspense, spy novels and suspense and thriller.
What readers and critics praise
Readers who enjoyed Obsession most often single out the plotting. Several say the twists caught them off guard and that the mystery was hard to put down, and some mention chapter endings that pull you into the next one. Others point to the chemistry between Katharine and her male lead, and a few call the writing easy and conversational. A few say the opening is slow but worth sticking with.
The publisher’s page also carries trade and newspaper praise. One trade review says Robards adds psychological spice to a familiar love-on-the-run plot and calls it a page-turner with appealing characters who fall in love. Another trade review calls it a must-read for fans of Nora Roberts and Linda Howard, and a national newspaper calls it a creepily effective suspense novel. That is selected praise, but it matches what fans of the book describe: unsettling suspense with a romance that matters.
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Content notes
The listing publishes no formal content warnings. Its description does establish an armed attack, a hospital setting and a conspiracy that threatens the heroine, so violence and sustained danger are part of the premise from the first pages. It does not tell you how the book handles medical vulnerability, how explicit the romance becomes, or how its villains are dealt with beyond the publisher’s selected praise. Check the current edition’s content notes before you decide.
Who will enjoy it, and who may want to pass
Readers who like unreliable ground underfoot, and who enjoy watching a smart protagonist act before she can resolve every unknown, are the natural audience. Readers who want the hero to be unambiguously safe from page one, or who dislike plots in which institutions and trusted authorities may be compromised, may find the premise tiring. A trade review’s pointer to Nora Roberts and Linda Howard suggests readers who enjoy that mix of danger and romance will feel at home, while anyone looking for a gentle, low-threat love story would be in the wrong aisle.
In the first chapters, it is worth testing four things:
- Katharine’s voice: whether her competence as a special assistant shows in how she handles being disoriented, or whether she mostly reacts.
- Dan’s behavior: whether his protectiveness reads as respect for her choices or as taking charge of them.
- The mirror: whether the book lets the unfamiliar face matter emotionally, and not only as a plot device.
- Pace of revelation: whether the conspiracy is introduced in pieces you can follow or all at once.
Reading alongside Sandra Brown’s Chill Factor
A useful companion is Sandra Brown’s Chill Factor, whose author page describes Lilly Martin striking a man named Ben Tierney with her car during a snowstorm and having to decide whether he is the feared abductor or the rescuer he claims to be. Both books ask a heroine to rely on a man she cannot verify. They differ in scale: Brown keeps the question inside a storm-bound cabin amid a local string of disappearances, while Robards starts in a hospital and moves toward a wider conspiracy.
From the shelf: a stay she cannot leave, and a free records mystery
Trapped with the Monster by Alisson Bento follows artist Justine, who inherits Blackwood Manor under a fourteen-day stay condition. Financial pressure and security doors make the opportunity hard to judge. Like Katharine, she must act on incomplete information, though her pressure is a restrictive inheritance, not an identity puzzle. Browse the romantic suspense shelf to compare.
The House Below the Signal is a free original adult M/F story about conservator Nora Bell and an electrician investigating records during storm isolation. It precedes the novel The Blizzard Between Us, with consensual kisses and non-graphic intimacy. Its leads are original and have no connection to the cast of Obsession. Read online; email access unlocks later chapters.
Sources checked 20–21 October 2026. Comparisons concern advertised premises and promise no matching heat, consent dynamics or endings.
