Robyn Carr

I love Robyn Carr’s books. She’s one of my favorite authors, so it was a joy being a part of her new family of characters in THE SUMMER THAT MADE US, even though these women were dealing with some major dysfunction!

The Hempstead sisters (who married two brothers) were once very close, and they spent every summer with their daughters (three each) at the family’s idyllic Minnesota lake house. Then during the summer of 1989, tragedy strikes. As a result, the family is torn apart; lives show more are turned upside down. It’s not until decades later that the women dare venture back to the lake house and attempt to make amends – some more willing than others.

THE SUMMER THAT MADE US is an emotional and complex family drama, with the characters dealing not only with their estrangement from each other, but also with difficult personal issues. The author did a beautiful job constructing this story, especially with so many voices. There were a couple of characters that I wished we’d heard more from, but overall I think the focus stayed where it needed to be. Fantastic summer read!

(Parts of this book I listened to on audio, and as always, Therese Plummer did a fabulous job of bringing Robyn Carr’s characters to life.)

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. show less

This story exemplifies exactly what I love about every Robyn Carr story I've ever read. The setting, the characters, and the small town feel to the story were charming. There is plenty of depth and backstory to all of the characters but the story isn't heavy-handed or stressful. In particular, neither Melinda nor Jack were expecting to fall in love after Mel moves to Virgin River looking for a fresh start, but it happened anyway. The slow build of their relationship felt very real to me, show more particularly with what Mel was dealing with in terms of grief.

What I loved most about this story was that the main character is a nurse midwife. I appreciated the real medical situations depicted in here-they felt very true to the narrative-and I felt like nursing was represented well. When I work outside of my house, I'm a labor and delivery nurse, so having this connection to Melinda meant a lot to me. She has the same passion for women's health and public health that I have, so I loved reading her story.

I initially planned to start the Netflix series based on this book, but I think I'll read another one or two before starting the TV show.

Audiobook Notes: Therese Plummer is a great narrator and read this story well but I'll be honest and say that every time words were mispronounced (Pitocin, for example), it pulled me out of the story. I'll most likely still listen to the series though.

Title: Virgin River by Robyn Carr
Series: Virgin River #1
Narrator: Therese Plummer
Length: 12 hours, 23 minutes, Unabridged
Publisher: Recorded Books show less

Nora Crane's made some bad decisions in life, which lead to her now living in Virgin River, squatting in a tiny abandoned house with two small daughters, while her ex-minor-league ballplayer turned meth-head ex-boyfriend rots in jail. Who would want to take on THAT mess?

Not Tom Cavanaugh, former Marine and current boss of the family apple orchard. He knows what he wants in a woman, and Nora's not it; he doesn't even want to give her a seasonal job picking apples. But his grandmother insists show more and the scrappy single mother makes a go of it, impressing him despite himself.

As the local counselor/pastor helps her to discover, Nora is not entirely alone in the world, after all; her father did not abandon her willingly, but gave up in the face of repeated rebuffs by her mother, and when he seemed to be making life worse for the little girl. My one quibble with this book is when Jed talks about how Nora's mother might have had borderline personality disorder, but how she wasn't REALLY mentally ill.

There's a lot we don't understand about mental illness, and I don't have the credentials to diagnose anyone, let alone a fictional character. But the "personality" disorders - borderline, OCPD, narcissistic personality disorder are as real mental illnesses as anything else in the last two editions of the DSM, and those who have them, as well as those who are involved in family, love, or work relationships with someone so disordered, officially diagnosed or not, are well-advised to get qualified professional help. The damaging impacts can last a lifetime, especially if they are brushed off as not "real mental illness." It's potentially as harmful to grow up in a household with a disordered person as it is to grow up in a household where there is alcohol or drug addiction. [Climbing down off soapbox now.]

These discussions only takes up a little of the book, but having such a mother and an absent father helps us understand why Nora made such bad decisions re: the boyfriend, and admire her all the more for her determination to make something of herself and for her girls.

The heat between Tom - who is trying desperately to become attracted to a lovely woman with less emotional, if not literal, baggage, and Nora is slow to develop. She's attracted to him all the way through, but isn't going to hit on her boss, especially one who's dating another woman. Loved Maxie, the grandmother, the town events as described, and the way other characters make an appearance, here and there, but this book too works as a stand-alone. show less

There’s a pretty long-standing trope in women’s fiction wherein four or five long-time female friends get together at some critical point in the life of one or more of them, and – usually with the help of a great deal of wine – solve each other’s problems so that everyone lives happily ever after.

Carr is undeniably dusting off this reliable formula in “The House on Olive Street”, but she handles the story with such panache that it pops and bubbles and turns left almost every show more time the reader is expecting it to turn right.

Five women, writers all, have had a long-standing friendship that is shaken when one of them dies unexpectedly, charging the eldest member of the group to handle her literary affairs and sort out her personal effects. What starts out as a sad obligation grows into a combination scavenger hunt to reconstruct an unfinished autobiographical novel and a “crazy women’s summer camp” as circumstances push one group member after the next into taking up residence in the house on Olive Street.

Things look like they might get terribly predictable and just a wee bit sappy about three-quarters of the way through the book, but Carr still has a few plot twists up her sleeve and manages to create a satisfying ending without getting mawkish about it. show less