Review: A Virgin River’s Christmas by Robyn Carr

Reviewer: Rowena
A Virgin River Christmas by Robyn Carr
Series: Virgin River #4
Also in this series: Virgin River, Whispering Rock, Virgin River, Second Chance Pass, Second Chance Pass, Second Chance Pass, Temptation Ridge, Paradise Valley, Forbidden Falls, Forbidden Falls, Angel's Peak, Forbidden Falls, Promise Canyon, Wild Man Creek, Promise Canyon, Harvest Moon, Bring Me Home for Christmas, Redwood Bend, Sunrise Point, Shelter Mountain, Moonlight Road, Moonlight Road
Publisher: Mira Books
Publication Date: October 21, 2008
Point-of-View: Third Person
Genres: Contemporary Romance
Pages: 285
Add It: Goodreads
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Series Rating:

Last Christmas Marcie Sullivan said a final goodbye to her husband, Bobby. This Christmas she's come to Virgin River to find the man who saved his life and gave her three more years to love him. Fellow marine Ian Buchanan dragged Bobby's shattered body onto a medical transport in Fallujah four years ago, then disappeared as soon as their unit arrived stateside. Since then, Marcie's letters to Ian have gone unanswered.

Marcie tracks Ian to the tiny mountain town of Virgin River and finds a man as wounded emotionally as Bobby was physically. But she is not easily scared off. As Marcie pushes her way into his rugged and reclusive life, she discovers a sweet but damaged soul beneath a rough exterior.

Ian doesn't know what to make of the determined young widow who forces him to look into the painful past and, what's worse, the uncertain future. But it is, after all, a season of miracles and maybe, just maybe, it's time to banish the ghosts and open his heart.

It’s not a big surprise on this blog that I’m a huge Virgin River fan. I’ve thanked Holly and Casee many times over for introducing me to this series and it was really because of this series that I’ve opened up and read more new to me authors. Before reading Virgin River by Robyn Carr, I was still very apprehensive about starting books by authors I’ve never read anything from. It’s one of those reading quirks that was holding me back from enjoying all the books that I have come to love over the course of this year.

There have been some authors that I’ve read and thought, meh, it was okay but most of the new to me authors have certainly wowed me enough that I have become fans of theirs.

Robyn Carr was one of those authors that I have become a definite fan of. Her stories never fail to draw me so deeply into the lives of the characters that I feel as if I’m there while it’s happening and not just hearing about it afterward. She does a fantastic job of putting you at the scene of everything going on and it was no different in this story.

I enjoyed getting to know Marcie and Ian. They were a great addition to the Virgin River series and I enjoyed their story.

Marcie’s husband Bobby served with Ian in the military. Ian and Bobby were really good friends and Bobby really looked up to Ian. While they were serving in the war, Bobby was wounded and Ian carried him to safety. Ian saved Bobby’s life and even though he died shortly after he was back on U.S. soil, Bobby and Marcie was extremely grateful to Ian for all that he did for both Bobby and Marcie. Marcie and Ian had exchanged letters for awhile and then all of a sudden, Ian disappeared and Marcie never heard from him again.

After Bobby died, Marcie felt she owed it to Ian to deliver the things Bobby left for him but to also tell Ian that Bobby had indeed passed away since she couldn’t find him to tell him before the funeral.

After several months of trying to find Ian, her family have urged her to give up the hunt and to come back home but Marcie is bullheaded enough that she needs to find her husband’s best friend and bring him to the world of the living. She needs to make sure that he’s okay and that he’s not laying in some ditch abandoned or whatever.

What she finds is pretty much nothing like what she thought. I mean, the guy that she found actually growled at her like a wild beast. Seriously, who does that? But beneath the extremely gruff man that greets Marcie with as much warmth as a winter’s day in Alaska, Marcie knows that inside there’s a man with a golden heart who needs to heal almost as much as she needs to eat.

Before Ian could kick Marcie off his mountain for good, Marcie almost freezes to death so Ian, being the man that she knew he was, takes her in and tries to nurse her back to health but it takes a little while and while she’s on the mend, a budding relationship is forming between Ian and Marcie and watching them fall in love was really cute.

I enjoyed Marcie’s character, her stubborness isn’t annoying in the least because she was stubborn about the things that matter. She didn’t want to give up on finding Ian because she needed to know for certain that he was okay, she needed to find him and talk to him so that she could move on with her life after Bobby’s death. She needed him just as much as he needed her. He had fallen away from relationships and everyone that he cared about in his previous life, including his father and fiance’ and he needed someone to show him that he was a good man and he deserved all the best in life just as much as anyone else.

I love those kinds of heroes, the tortured heroes who need that one special person to look past the gruff exterior and show them how much good they have in them. To give them hope and a new beginning. Watching Ian come back to the land of the living was a good way to spend a few hours while reading this book.

Robyn Carr writes another good book about life in a small town and she really knows how to entertain readers. I really enjoyed this story and look forward to reading the next installment in this series.

Seriously, bring it on!

Rating: 4.25 out of 5.

Virgin River

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