Mind Games

Nora Roberts’s novel Mind Games (2024) is a work that combines the romance, thriller, and mystery-fiction genres and contains supernatural elements. Set in a fictional rural community in Kentucky, it follows game designer Thea Fox in the aftermath of her parents’ brutal murders as she struggles with her psychic abilities, which link her not only to her family’s dark matriarchal legacy but also to Ray Riggs, her parents’ killer. As Thea learns to open herself up to love, primarily with musician and single father Ty Brennan, she must learn to control her abilities and confront Riggs, who haunts her dreams.

Roberts has authored more than 225 published novels, including The Mirror (2024), Inheritance (2023), The Awakening (2020), The Obsession (2016), and High Noon (2007). Her novels have been translated into many languages, and she was the first inductee into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. Mind Games draws on Roberts’s experience as a writer in multiple genres (romance, suspense, and paranormal fiction) and explores themes related to family legacies, forgiveness, and healing.

This guide refers to the 2024 St. Martin’s Publishing Group e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of graphic violence, illness, death, child death, mental illness, physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual content, and cursing.

Plot Summary

Twelve-year-old Althea “Thea” Fox and her younger brother, Remington “Rem” Fox, travel to the farm of their maternal grandmother, Lucinda “Lucy” Lannigan, in Redbud Hollow, Kentucky. Thea and Lucy share a psychic gift, passed down the matriarchal line. Thea and Rem’s parents, John and Cora Fox (architects and home designers from Virginia), leave the children with Lucy for two weeks each summer. One night, Thea has a nightmare in which she sees her parents’ murders in horrifying detail, but the novel soon reveals that it wasn’t a nightmare: She was a psychic witness. Lucy confirms the tragedy and comforts the children, and together, Lucy and Thea inform the authorities. The man responsible is Ray Riggs, a drifter and killer who has psychic abilities similar to Thea’s. Thea uses her gift to lead the police to Riggs. They arrest him, but the trauma deeply affects Thea and her family.

Lucy becomes the children’s guardian. She and the children remain in Redbud Hollow, and the community rallies around them. Thea, Rem, and Lucy work through their grief with the support of neighbors and relatives. Riggs, meanwhile, is imprisoned but maintains a psychic link to Thea. As years pass, Thea becomes a gifted artist and coder, channeling her dreams and psychic experiences into a successful fantasy video-game franchise called Endon. Although she finds comfort in creative work and close friendships, her psychic connection to Riggs persists. He becomes increasingly obsessed with Thea, using his ability to watch her through dreams and visions.

Throughout college, Thea avoids romantic attachments, reluctant to let anyone in on her secret since a boyfriend once betrayed her by telling others about her gift. Her best friend, Madrigal “Maddy” McKinnon, and Rem support and protect her fiercely. After graduating from college and securing a contract with a major game-development company, Thea returns home to build a house near Lucy’s. Her life seems stable until Tyler “Ty” Brennan, a former boyband singer and single father, inherits the neighboring cottage from his great-grandmother Leona.

Ty moves to Redbud Hollow with his young son, Braydon, or “Bray,” intending to stay for the summer. He and Thea meet and immediately feel drawn to each other, with Thea recalling her childhood crush on the singer. Bray quickly bonds with Thea and her dog, Bunk. Ty, cautious due to past betrayals and tabloid invasions, resists romantic entanglements. Despite their emotional walls, Thea and Ty begin a tentative relationship filled with shared meals, music, and family time. The warmth of Redbud Hollow and Lucy’s home life helps them begin to open their hearts.

However, the psychic threat intensifies: Riggs attacks Thea more frequently, intruding on her dreams and causing physical symptoms: headaches, nausea, and even injuries. Thea crafts dream worlds to trap Riggs. Although she gains a reprieve by defeating him in these dream battles, the toll on her body and mind grows. Her refusal to tell Ty about her gift leads to a significant conflict: When Thea reveals the location of Bray’s missing toy, Ty assumes that she broke into his house. He throws Thea out, devastated by what he perceives as betrayal.

This rupture has consequences for everyone, particularly Bray. Ty tells Bray his plan to move them back to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but Bray wants to stay in Redbud Hollow. When Bray runs away to Thea’s house in tears, Ty realizes his mistake and attempts to reconcile, though he still demands that Thea delete any photos of Bray and return Leona’s house key. When Thea confesses her psychic ability, Ty is skeptical until she offers undeniable proof (a psychic recounting of details about his past and his scar). She reveals that she witnessed her parents’ murders and has been under psychic assault from Riggs for years. In a climactic scene, Ty chooses to believe Thea, calming her when she experiences a panic attack.

In the days that follow, Ty and Bray court Thea through small gestures (flowers, hand-drawn cards, and homemade crafts), while she begins taking better care of herself. A local crisis involving their neighbor Nadine and her missing daughter, Adelaide, presents Thea with an opportunity to use her gift for good again, marking a turning point in her and Ty’s relationship. After successfully helping find the child, Thea collapses from the psychic strain and Riggs’s interference. Ty confesses his love, and they begin to rebuild their emotional and physical bond.

Despite these moments of healing, Thea knows that Riggs will never stop haunting her unless she takes decisive action. She designs a mental confrontation in the form of a video game, an arena where she can challenge and ultimately trap him.

Thea calls a family meeting and shares her plan to visit Riggs in prison and sever their psychic connection. Although Lucy and Rem object out of concern, Thea insists that this battle isn’t only hers but is also to protect future generations who may inherit the gift. Riggs’s fixation on Thea has left him mentally unwell and socially isolated. After spending many years in solitary confinement, he’s obsessed with Thea and her gift. She prepares to confront him in person, constructing a strategy to trap him within his memories and permanently sever their connection.

Thea secures a visitation with Riggs. She dresses like her mother, invoking Cora’s memory as psychological armor. Ty, now fully supportive, drives her to the prison and waits for her.

With the help of Officers Musk and Howard, who have believed in Thea’s abilities since her childhood, she enters the high-security visitation room. Using their psychic connection, she drags Riggs through memories of his violent childhood and murderous past. Each time he lashes out, she rewrites the memory, wounding or trapping him. Eventually, she mentally imprisons him, symbolically severing their link. His psychic abilities destroyed, Riggs collapses from a stroke.

Thea and Ty fully commit to one another, and he plays her a song he wrote about her. Thea, deeply moved, agrees to let Ty and Bray move into her home. As she imagines a shared life with them (including the possibility of more children), Thea finally feels that she has reclaimed her control over her future.