blithe images is an 80s romance novel about a model named hillary and ceo brett. 

hillary is slightly less childish than adelia (from previously released nora roberts novel irish thoroughbred, for anyone who's here completely by chance and not to read the whole roberts catalogue) though nora roberts makes deliberate choices to make hillary seem younger/less experienced compared to brett. also, when hillary realizes she likes brett, she is strangely angry at him more often. adelia did this too, and i have no idea why. there's nothing compelling about a protagonist throwing a weird tantrum imo.. and then every time this happens the love interest (who is literally fucking insane) has to be the stable one and "calm her down." it's so infuriating. why does she even need to be calmed? just be normal, hillary :') 

there's many more 80s cultural details in BI than there was in IT. irish thoroughbred almost seemed to exist in a vacuum? unaffected by the rest of the united states? here, there is an extensive typewriter scene, landline phones, etc. it's magical to me, who has never actually experienced these things in real life.

i do not like brett. for one he just appears fucking everywhere that hillary is somehow, but he's legitimately not stalking her, it's just a coincedence every time. he is overbearing and inconsiderate to the women around him, and also just really predatory (though hillary doesn't seem to care). also he threatens to rape her in chapter 3? just out of nowhere. also spoilers

overall i can definitely see improvement even just between two novels, but the bar is still extremely low for nora here.. :/