I recently came across a romance book that fit one of the challenges I was participating in. I used tto be a big fan of romane but over the years have drifted away. The gist of the story is that our hero, Colin Riordan, comes to Virgin River to recuperate from a terrible helicopter crash that led to his addiction to pain killers and his eventual arrest as he tried to illegally purchase more. He wants to paint wildlife pictures before leaving for Africa. Our heroine, Jillian Matlock, is on a forced leave of absence from a software corporation after being charged with sexual harassment. She has rented an old Victorian house with a promising garden in Virgin River. She's looking forward to cultivating it, based on fruts and vegetables her grandmother used to grow.

Apparently there is an entire series based on characters that live in and around Virgin River. Many of them are former marines and the series seems to continue to add interesting new characters and relevant subplots. I enjoyed the story and some of the subplots and would recommend it to fans of the romance genre.

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This was not my favorite. Maybe because I thought that the romance between the two leads (Jillian Matlock and Colin Riordan) was a foregone conclusion, so reading about how Jillian was being so strong and whatever made me roll my eyes. Or maybe I just read too many of these books back to back and it put me in a mood. Hard to know. I love romance novels. Absolutely adore them. But I think I can pinpoint that right around this book or the next I started to see a slide in the series and I was pretty disappointed with the next couple of ones and then the last book in the series.

There is honestly not much to say here except I thought the whole thing that brings Jillian to Virgin River was dancing towards absurd, and her new chosen profession (decides she will start to do an organic farm) came out of nowhere and did not fit her at all. Jillian is a Vice President for Corporate Communications for a software manufacturer and due to a workplace harassment issue, is cautioned to take some time off while her boss/mentor deals with it. Yeah. Like that would really happen. I bring up Jillian’s job though because I had a hard time reconciling what she does with her later decision to start an organic farm.

I also think that Carr honestly rushed the resolution to Jillian’s backstory and I pretty much rolled my eyes at the guy who shows up (and acts like an ass by the way) since how did he get there, why would he be stupid to do so based on everything that went before, etc. I think it was just a way to have Colin punch the guy or something. I don’t know. It just didn’t work with the story that I think Carr wanted to tell.

Also, I really have a hard time believing that in a matter of weeks that Jillian can just have an organic farm up and running. Apparently Virgin River has magic soil. And I really didn’t get why Jack Sheridan who is renting the house to Jillian is okay with her gardening as much as she is in a house she doesn’t own. Hey I have rented homes before, you can of course ask the homeowner about certain things, but I have never lived in one place that was all yes of course you can grow whatever you want and totally change the grounds.

Colin and his family drove me batty. Maybe because Luke Riordan decides he will be the twin of Jack Sheridan and stick his nose in where it’s not wanted or needed. I was also really tired of the women coming along to have sensible talks with these idiots. It gets old after a while and I know that I was 100 percent sick of it.

Unlike in previous books I don’t think that Carr had much knowledge about painting/gardening. Colin starts painting and apparently is such a great painter/photographer that he can sell his works for thousands of dollars. Jillian is somehow going to turn her farm into a million dollar enterprise though she and only one other person works the grounds? I can’t even recall how many acres Jillian has, but I maybe muttered BS a few times while reading this.

We have a reappearance of Jillian’s sister (who will be in the next book) and of course other characters we have become familiar with. I totally booed the entire story-line with Jack Sheridan and Denny Cutler. It made absolutely no sense, and then towards the end we have Denny throwing out a line about something that made me go wait a minute, what? I think it was an editing error that no one caught, but it bugged me endlessly.

The ending was too much and I really hated the whole woman who is grieving because she told her man to go off and do what he needed to be happy. I was just really over both of them. The romance was so-so and I was happy that the book finally ended. ( )

Jill was forced to take a leave of absence from her PR job, remembers a road trip to Virgin River, so heads there for her forced vacation. Colin Riordan comes to town to be near his brothers and heal from the war and the injuries from his helicopter crash. Seeing the late Hope's Victorian mansion, Jill on a lark talks Jack into renting it to her so she can put in the garden - more like a small farm! It's for sale, and when a buyer comes along, she outbids them, now owning an enormous Victorian, and a small farm, which she needs help with. A young ex-Marine, who believed that Jack was his father comes to town and needs work - so he's hired as Jill's assistant. Jill meets Colin on her property, where he's getting photos of the wildlife so he can paint them. Turns out that his amateur talent is very good & he's able to find a gallery and sell some of his work. Good interweaving on many secondary stories, and setting up the Victorian House as a placeholder for future stories ( )

I recently came across a romance book that fit one of the challenges I was participating in. I used tto be a big fan of romane but over the years have drifted away. The gist of the story is that our hero, Colin Riordan, comes to Virgin River to recuperate from a terrible helicopter crash that led to his addiction to pain killers and his eventual arrest as he tried to illegally purchase more. He wants to paint wildlife pictures before leaving for Africa. Our heroine, Jillian Matlock, is on a forced leave of absence from a software corporation after being charged with sexual harassment. She has rented an old Victorian house with a promising garden in Virgin River. She's looking forward to cultivating it, based on fruts and vegetables her grandmother used to grow.

Apparently there is an entire series based on characters that live in and around Virgin River. Many of them are former marines and the series seems to continue to add interesting new characters and relevant subplots. I enjoyed the story and some of the subplots and would recommend it to fans of the romance genre. ( )

Colin Riordin, recovering from helicopter crash injuries, meets Jillian, dealing with the results of an ill-advised workplace romance, and true love results. ( )