When she is good, she is brilliant. Black Hills is Nora Roberts at her best. Lil Chance has grown up on her parents' ranch in South Dakota. Cooper Sullivan is the product of a dysfunctional New York family. He is sent to spend the summer with his grandparents while his mother and father try to salvage a bad marriage. Coop finds the home he always wanted and becomes best friends with Lil. He returns to South Dakota every summer and the friendship becomes love. But the two young lovers have different goals. Lil pursues her dream of studying wildlife and opening the Chance Wildlife Refuge. Coop tries to fulfill his father's ambition to add another lawyer to the family but soon abandons that for a different career. He becomes a New York city policeman and then opens a detective agency. His grandfather's health crisis brings him back to South Dakota - ten years after he broke Lil's heart. Coop hopes to reignite the relationship while Lil is determined that no one (especially this man) will hurt her that badly again. However, it soon becomes apparent that Lil and her refuge are being stalked by a fanatic. Danger brings the two back together as they fight to protect all that they love. I only put this book down when I couldn't hold my eyes open any longer. Its a well-researched, exciting story.