The Washington Post has an update on Boonsboro, Md., aka "Noraville," the town that Nora Roberts and her family have revitalized and made into a tourist attraction--in no small part because of the many fans of Roberts's romance fiction.
The centerpiece of the Roberts family empire is Turn the Page Bookstore, owned by Roberts's husband, Bruce Wilder. Other Roberts family businesses: Inn Boonsboro, a restored B&B that is the setting and star of her Inn Boonsboro trilogy whose first volume is The Next Always; her son's restaurants; and Fit in Boonsboro, a gym she built last year.
"All of our businesses have just kind of happened," Wilder told the paper. "In our position monetarily, you can invest whatever with your financial adviser, and you really never see it. That's all good. But we want to see stuff."
Boonsboro mayor Charles "Skip" Kauffman Jr. expressed deep appreciation, saying, "Without Nora, our town square would be like a blight on our town. With her, it's the focal point. Her interest in our town is immeasurable. She could be doing this anywhere, but she chose Boonsboro."
