44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An amazing story of love and courage, May 7, 2007
This review is from: Virgin River (Mass Market Paperback)
Mel Monroe came to Virgin River to escape. As a nurse and midwife, Mel has high expectations when she leaves L.A. Arriving on a stormy night, Virgin River is what she least expects. The cabin promised to her, rent free for a year, is a dump. The town doctor whom she was told was in desperate need of help wants nothing to do with her. Determined to leave the following day, Mel feels dejected and is unsure of where to go from there.
Jack Sheridan, owner of the only bar in Virgin River feels an immediate attraction to Mel. Seeing her sad eyes, Jack feels an almost compelling need to take care of her. For Jack, that is something that has never happened to him before. When Mel finds a baby on the doorstep the day she leaves, she knows that she can't leave quite yet. Before long, Jack finds himself falling in love with a woman who is determined to leave.
This is an emotion packed book that will make you laugh and make you cry. Mel's plight comes right off the pages and you can't help but love her. Her confusion over her feelings for Jack tear her (and will tear the reader) in two. Jack and Mel come together, two people who never expected to find what they found. Jack never thought he could feel a permanent attachment to a woman. Mel didn't think that she could ever love again after losing her husband. The secondary characters enrich the story. Virgin River is a town the reader can't help but love and will want to return to again and again.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.- Maria Robinson, July 1, 2008
This review is from: Virgin River (Mass Market Paperback)
Nurse Practitioner and Midwife, Mel Monroe, leaves the fast pace of Los Angeles hospitals and crime behind. Widowed 9 months ago, she can't face the pitying looks of her colleagues anymore and feels she needs a drastic change in order to heal.
Accepting an offer as an assistant to a Doctor in a picturesque little town in the mountains, she sells her house and most of everything in it, packs a few clothing items and heads to Virgin River.
When Mel arrives, she finds that the pictures she was sent are not quite representative of the town or her house as it looks today. Stepping out of her element was difficult for her and to arrive to find her house in such horrible condition only makes Mel realize she has made a huge mistake. She stays the night with the intention of heading out the very next morning. But when she discovers a baby abandoned on a doorstep, she decides to stay a little longer.
When town bar/restaurant owner, Jack, fixes up her place, she decides to stay even longer. Jack becomes her best friend and she starts feeling things for him she never thought she'd feel again.
I dove into this book with gusto after an Amazon friend recommended it so highly. She was right, it is great and I am rushing to finish this review so I can hurry and order book two,
Shelter Mountain (Virgin River Trilogy, Book 2). This would easily have been a 5 star book to me as the characters are colorful and wonderful, the setting unique and beautiful, and the storyline engaging and fun. I would have rated it 5 stars had it not been for some very awkward dialogue and a scene at the end that was way too over the top for me.
The side characters are just as interesting as the main ones and I can't wait to read more about this mountain town. There is so much going on with Mel and we get to watch her resolve her past, live in the present, and make steps towards a promising future. Touching and entertaining. Enjoy.
Cherise Everhard, July 2008
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
FANTASTIC!!!!, May 11, 2007
This review is from: Virgin River (Mass Market Paperback)
I am usually the type of romance reader who likes instant gratification with the stories I choose. If a relationship hasn't started really moving by the 5th chapter I'm done. With this book our couple doesn't really get into anything more than basic friendship with some attraction on both their parts until, like half way thru and I found myself amazed that I wasn't bored with that, let alone that I couldn't put the book down! The characters in this book are so colorful and the healing process that our heroine goes thru following her husbands death isn't so sappy or weepy as to make you want to skip pages. She's so real and 3 dimensional that I feel like I've met her as a real person. That is such an amazing accomplishment for the author b/c I feel that is a really difficult thing to do with characters. Her relationship with the elderly Doc felt so genuine and at the same time, laugh out loud, and so did the development of her relationship with Jack. I can't wait to read the next one and then for the 3rd to be released!
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