Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥
Here's how it went down - H & h meet under less than auspicious circumstances, then for 20% of the book they don't appear on the same page together. Then they meet again and decide they like each other. Then they meet some more and REALLY like each other. Then there's this whole drama with his ex-wife that goes on until the last 10 pages and then H & h live happily ever after. The end.
He: Aiden is a retired ex-navy doctor who is hanging out in the small town of Virgin River while he tries to figure out what he wants to do next in his life. He's a nice guy who's just happy tooling around in the garden and hanging in the great outdoors.
She: Erin is a somewhat uptight lady who's come to "relax" in the isolated town - her first vacation in 25 years. She's an extremely hardworking lawyer who's been responsible for her younger siblings from a really young age. Now that her brother and sister are out of the house and don't really need her anymore, she's suffering a bit of empty nest syndrome.
Conflict: The romance between the Erin and Aiden is actually fairly uncomplicated but there is this whole other story of Aiden's ex-wife who creates a bunch of drama that interferes with the two of them and lends to some of the tension between Erin and Aiden.
What I liked:
1) Robyn Carr writes really NICE people. Her heroes are decent, upstanding, no-games-playing lads, and her ladies are mature and sensible so you never feel like hitting your head against the wall because of some totally stoopid thing either the H or h does.
What was only "meh":
1) SO slow. So so so slow. I just couldn't keep my mind on the story because it just moved along like molasses in January.
2) Just too much going on at once. This is a weird thing for me to say given my point above about the SLOWNESS with which the story moved.
Because the main romantic story of Aiden and Erin didn't really have any built-in conflict (except for the psycho stalker ex-wife) it seemed like the author sort of just piled in a bunch of side stories and entanglements that made the whole thing seem a bit too busy and scattered.
For example, one character was dealing with the inability to have more children and she and her husband were trying to work through her difficulty fully coping with that stress. Then there was the H's mother who was in a new relationship and was rediscovering herself and her interests. Then there was some story about a man with Down's syndrome and how he forms a special bond with a lady with some other disabilities.
Carr deals with each of these relationships really sympathetically and sweetly, but honestly, I didn't see how any of it contributed to the MAIN story, which is why I was reading the book in the first place. Personal preference, I guess, but it felt like a lot of sound and fury.
Skeptic's last word: It was a sweet story, I guess. Just way too slow and I think I prefer Robyn Carr's other stories.
Skeptic Scale: ♥♥♥
She: Everything goes wrong for the h - she loses her job, she suffers a terrible accident, she's getting harassed by a jerk of an ex-husband - and it has all left her a shrill and crochety cow. She needs to rebuild her life and while she's going through the painful process she meets the H.
He: A kind, patient lawyer who volunteers himself for the role of Knight in Shining Armor. We learn almost nothing about him except he is nice and has a sad back story. A nice, beta man that you wouldn't mind bringing to your Aunt Edna's knitting circle.
Conflict: The story is highly h-focused so the thing that keeps them apart is the h's (very accurate) conviction that she needs to sort out her own life before getting into anything with a dude.
What I liked:
1) The banter was quick and sharp and not forced even if it was a bit on the sitcom-y side.
2) Fast paced and generally funny
3) Had a sort of girl-power theme about it (hot pink cover = Girls Who Kick Ass But Who Still Totally Own Their Girliness) and I liked that we focus on the woman lead through the woman's own eyes, and not through the "Male Gaze"* (high fiving all my second-wave feminist sisters! woo hoo!)
What I mean by this is that we learn about the woman's thoughts and personality, her transition to a more centered human, through her own voice and not from the dude's description of how "her eyes seemed to glow with renewed vigor", or how "her skin, smooth and supple, did nothing to hide the inner strength he knew she possessed." This is a non-trivial point for me, because it almost never happens in romance novels.
What I was only meh about:
1) The hero was really underdeveloped. For example, you find out this tragic thing about his past and that is supposed to stand as proxy for his entire personality. Again, this is one of situations where H falls for h in spite of her craziness and I am left flapping my mouth like a trout hung on a plaque in the basement - WHY DOES HE EVEN LIKE THIS CHICK???? GIMME A REASON!
2) The h is a bitter shrew. I mean, aggressively rude, temperamental and has a history of terrible decision-making. I was almost shocked in the first couple chapters with her portrayal (very impressed, but also a little scared - for instance I wouldn't want to be the chick reaching for the same cab door as her and then getting shoved out of the way into a slimy puddle because she would totally be the crazy cat to do that to someone who got in her way.)
So yeah, hardly an endearing h.
3) ANOTHER crazy-stalker side story. This time it's an ex-husband. It's getting super old. I am not sure WHY the H would want to get involved with such a person?
Romances always explain this point by making the hero out to be someone who wants to "save everyone".
This is dumb and evolutionarily impossible. You only have a biological desire to save things you love/want to have sex with, or share genes with. And babies and puppies - but that's nature's way of making sure genes of the human race and those that we engineered to co-evolve with us are preserved. So gimme another reason he should fall in love with her before wanting to save her.
Side note: For as cavalier as people are about sex in general, there is this amazing tendency in romance novels to show how people fall in love in the seconds after doing the deed (usually the first time with each other and Bam!)... I wonder why? Is that the ultimate romance then? Lots of very modern sexual tension followed by an almost puritanical moment after fluids are exchanged where one or both parties realize this is love for Realz? Not getting it, and certainly not buying it. But I keep reading about it so maybe the joke's on me...
*Just in case anyone wants to know more about the objectification of women in the media and social consciousness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaze#The_.22male_gaze.22_in_feminist_theory
Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥