The Bracelet by Roberta Gately

This book was sent to me by Romance Junkies for review.

Abby Monroe is in Geneva for orientation after having lost her job as a nurse in Boston, where her position was slashed because of the recession. Her love life had also crashed when Eric, the love of her life, broke up with her by e-mail.


Abby's parents had wanted her to move in with them in Florida, but Abby chose to go work for the U.N. to get away from her heartbreak.

While in Geneva, Abby witnessed a jump or murder from an office complex. The young woman has either jumped, fallen or was pushed out a window from the 4th floor of an office building. Abby hides from the gentleman who comes running out of the building, and gets away. Abby's brain is imprinted with this and especially by the bracelet that adorned this young woman's wrist, diamonds, sapphires & rubies in a sun pattern.

Abby calls the police as soon as she gets back to her hotel, but there is no body found and the authorities seem to want this to go away, and treat her as if she is crazy.

Abby is then placed in a home in Pakistan to assist with vaccinations on women and children at a camp in Pakistan. The house is very quiet with an unfriendly housekeeper, Hana, and a young woman who comes and goes named Najeela, who resembles the woman who Abby saw in Geneva.

Najeela is very friendly, but not very work-oriented. She likes to go shopping and eat at the finest restaurants, which strikes Abby as strange, considering all of the poverty surrounding them, at the house and on the streets and at the camp.

While Abby works at the camp for only two days during the week, she is in the house a lot and is very lonely. Najeela does not live there, she lives with her parents, with her father being considered for presidential status. Najeela's uncle, Imtiaz, also stays there at times, and Najeela is trying to get Abby and Imtiaz together, although Abby is not inclined to want anything to do with the man.

Najeela lets Abby know that she has a secret fiance, one that Najeela's father would never approve of, as he is not of her origin.

Nick Martin, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist has shown up to interview Abby about her work. She is an American nurse working in a very dangerous part of the world. Abby is not comfortable speaking to Nick, who is very street and world-savvy, unlike the very naive and unwordly Abby. Nick wants to see the clinic and camp that Abby works at and gets to know Abby and brings her to lunch at a very American place in the middle of a very busy and poor country.

Abby is still suffering from nightmares about the girl in Geneva. She starts to trust Nick and tells him about the incident. It is then that Nick opens up about his true reasons for being in that part of the world. Human trafficking is his story and he want to bring down the men that are profiting from that business and shed light on it.

Abby then becomes more involved in helping him learn more, although she is very naive and trusts people a little too easily. There could be extreme problems for her and Nick's safety because of that, and Nick is trying to make her understand how deeply this goes.

This novel really sheds light on a major issue that takes place and opens your eyes to the dangers that unfortunate poor people from these countries face in life. Roberta Gately certainly has done her research and this story makes a very readable show of that.

This is well-written and during the story, you are hoping that Abby toughens up and learns that there are people that you just don't know the truth about until the worst happens.

www.robertagately.com